Business - October 1984
DETAILS of the sponsorship of the 13th Annual Management Competition for Schools were announced by Mr John McNally, Area Director, Ulster Bank, at a reception held in Ulster Bank, College Green, Dublin on Tuessday 11th September.
The Management Competition for Schools gives Leaving Certificate stuudents practical experience of business administration, and is widely regarded as a useful management training prooject, combining management discipplines such as business organisation, accountancy and economics.
Each student team participating in the project assumes the role of the management board of a hypothetical manufacturing company, competing for business against a number of similar firms within a computer conntrolled economic model. Using a standard set of financial accounts, each student team undertakes the running of its own company over a number of trading periods. They immplement their own policy decisions in such areas as production and stock levels, pricing and marketing techhniques, cost management projects, and budgetary forecasting.
The students must always take into account their rivals' strategies, as well as the prevailing economic conditions. The policy decisions of competing teams are input to the computer, and evaluated interactively by the econoomic mode. New sets of financial accounts, showing each company's relative trading performance and reevised balance sheet position are prooduced ,' giving the teams the necessary information on which to base their next decisions. After four trading periods, the team in each group having accumulated the greatest profits qualiifies for the next stage of the compeetition.
A similar project for schools in Northern Ireland was launched in Belfast recently. Both competitions will culminate with one day 'live' finals in December, when the winning schools will receive cash prizes and individual trophies.
A brochure giving further informaation on the Management Competition for Schools is available from the project administrators, Jim Crossen and Karl Muller at ICL House, Adelaide Road, Dublin 2. Telephone 01-756761, or alternatively from your local Ulster Bank manager.
The closing date for acceptance of entries is Friday 28th September, and the competition will commence in early October.
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ANTINORI, whose highly successful innovations positioned their wines outside the Italian DOC system, have now been triumphantly vindicated.
After fifteen years of lobbying and discussion, the Italian department of Agriculture has agreed to alter the rules governing the production of Chianti to be more in accordance with the formula Antinori have been using since the introduction of their famous Tignanello wine in 1971. In addition the government has approved the uppgrading of Chianti from DOC to DOCG, the official top quality guaranntee.
Until now Tignanello, well estabblished as one of Italy's most respected and prestigious red wines, and winner of the "Wine of the Year" award by Vinarius, the leading organisation for Italian wine stores some years ago has been classed only as a table wine because it didn't conform to the tradiitional methods of making Chianti wine, as defined a century ago by Barone Bettino Ricasoli. This required a blend of four grapes, two red and two white and a complicated wine making method. Tignanello is made only with red grapes (sangiovese) and small quantities of Cabernet Sauvignon and aged for 18 months in French oak casks.
Antinori is distributed in Ireland by Grants of Ireland (Sales) Ltd.
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NEW WINE BAR AT GREY DOOR, UPPER PEMBROKE STREET
THE atmosphere in Blushers Wine Bar is reminiscent of the friendly little Bistros you get around Chelsea in London. Relaxing and casual you can eat and drink as much or as little as you like! Probably you will take the former option because of the wide choice of appetisers, speciality dishes and tempting puds! There is music in the background, unobtrusive, adding to the informal feeling.
Decor is light and airy, plenty of greenery with a pine bar dispensing all types of wine etc, from a very comprehensive list.
We started with Pate for my commpanion and Bouzy Rouge Mushrooms for me. The pate was declared excelllent, properly served with warm toast, my mushrooms were good, but being a garlic fanatic I would have preferred a little more garlic.
Forsmak (Lamb/Herring mixed) was also on the list of appetisers, this is one of the Grey Door's specialities which I can thoroughly recommend.
Next we both had Planked Steak (anchovy butter). These were attracctively served on a plank cooked exactly the way we had requested, there was salad and vegetables also on the plank ringed around with potaatoes which I think were Duchess. This was quite adequate for me, but perrhaps more potatoes would be required for the average male. Nevertheless the steak was quite delicious. Instead of the obligatory red wine with the meal we had a chilled Niersteiner Spiegelberg with the meal. Being really quite full, yet greedy, we had a blackcurrant mousse and pavlova to follow. The pavlova turned out to be meringue filled with fruit and cream but was eaten all the same, my blackkcurrant mousse was good. We finished with excellent coffee .
A delicious meal in a warm inforrmal atmosphere. Blushers will be a great success, offering the option of just a glass of wine, or as in our case a full meal.
The price for the two of us was £39.76 including the wine, VAT and 10% service charge.