Rochy students serve up Red Hatters in style

By Emily Donohoe

Aug 7, 2024

Rochester Secondary College hosted a high tea for the Echuca and Kyabram Red Hatters groups on Thursday, August 1.

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Students studying VCE VET Hospitality prepared the food, coffees, cups of tea and set up the space for the group.

The group included ladies from the Kyabram and Echuca Red Hatters. Photo by Emily Donohoe

VET Hospitality trainer Craig Danswan said when Rochester Secondary College introduced the subject this year, there was a choice of which hospitality direction to follow.

“We had the choice of doing kitchen operations or doing more front-of-house,” he said.

“We decided to do more front-of-house stuff because these guys are probably more than likely to go to uni at some point and it would really be good to have this set of skills.

“We have a whole lot of things we need to tick them off on, like observations.”

Rochester Secondary College’s VET Hospitality students and trainer Craig Danswan (fifth from right). Photo by Emily Donohoe

The creative way students are having their observations recorded is through the running of their own cafe on campus.

“Every Thursday recess we open it up for the teachers,” Mr Danswan said.

“I don’t even have to do anything now, they just run it themselves.

“We’ve got a register, so we print out dockets. They make all of the food.”

The inspiration for the morning tea came from Echuca Red Hatters queen Jan Childs. She heard about the hospitality program through the monthly Rochester Rotary community chat and breakfast in May, where principal Matt Koutroubas was guest speaker.

The Kyabram Red Hatters group enjoyed the occasion. Photo by Emily Donohoe

Mrs Childs reached out to the school and organised for the Echuca and Kyabram Red Hatters to have a ‘hattering’ at the pop-up cafe.

Mr Danswan was happy to get on board and give the students more practical experience.

“They contacted me, and we made it happen,” he said.

“The experience the students get is dealing with people in the community, running a function — there’s a lot more to running a function than it looks like — money handling, communication, organisation, time skills.

“We want to make something like this an annual thing. We’d like to do one or two a year.”