WORKING LIFE: "Universities have to make themselves attractive to students," Ms Kate Sheahan insists as she sweeps across the 230-acre landscaped university town that has developed on the University of Limerick's Plassey campus. Limerick university's conference and events manager says summer business generates much-needed income for the development of Plassey campus, writes Ella Shanahan
But the conference and events manager of Plassey Campus Centre Ltd explains the summer business of the university - conferences, summer schools, corporate and sporting "bashes", and language courses - has to generate income for further capital development of the university campus for the 10,000 students and 1,300 faculty and staff members.
The company has a turnover of €1.4 million from its summer business, from an almost equal combination of accommodation charges, which are not especially high, and the very impressive range of catering outlets.
"We need to be as good as budget hotels. There are specific markets we are very good for - academics, religious, sports and summer schools, in particular, and the language school business is very big," she explains.
The summer programme she has developed over the past six years is in line with developments in many universities in Britain, as she found at a recent exhibition in London.
Initially, the university was not in a position to take on bank borrowings for the kind of capital investment it wanted to make for student accommodation and facilities, so Plassey Campus Centre Ireland was set up on a self-funding basis as an autonomous company to develop campus residences, catering and retail outlets.
Today, its facilities include 1,450 rooms (450 ensuite) in three distinct and differently designed villages, with a further 1,000 rooms in the planning stage; 14 restaurants and coffee bars that could compete with any you would find in Dublin's Temple Bar; a 1,000 seater theatre; the £20 million (€25.4 million) sports arena, which includes four indoor pitches, a 50-metre Olympic pool, indoor sprint and jogging tracks and a gym; and spread around the campus are banks, grocery and book shops, and even a hair salon.
"The prime business of the university is to support the students," she says, but it is the summer business that allows for the development of the facilities.
"It's our aim to fill all the villages as much as possible - that's where I come in, promoting and telling people about what we have."
As we sweep through the stylish Cafe Aroma with its Eurasian-style food, she explains: "We try to give people in for conferences a flavour of the different restaurants we have on campus. We try to keep all the restaurants open in summer - that is the benefit of the summer conference business. It gives employment, gives a consistency to the food service as well."
The summer conference business runs from June to September, with groups from as small as around 30 up to as many as 1,000, and all the facilities of the Plassey campus are available as required. Local hotels provide alternative types of accommodation.
A small conference, such as the Sisters of Mercy's three-week provincial chapter meeting, would involve about 150 people; larger conferences would be the 800-person UK and Ireland Corporate Games Event, the annual School Boys Soccer training camp with 700 or the international conference on software engineering in 2000 and the Europocat Scientific Conference on Catalysis last year, each of which attracted 900 delegates.
"If there's only 20 people coming, they need the same attention to detail as for 400," she says.
Approaching the arena, she says: "I like sport in general and it's one of the areas we have tried to develop in the summer business. I have been very successful at rugby, in particular. We've had the Wasps, Bath, London Irish and we have quite a successful rugby festival in August with public schools in Britain."
The IRFU under-21 squad has been down, as have League of Ireland squads.
The huge gym overlooking the pool has an elite weights room and a wellness centre is due to open. Sonia O'Sullivan has trained here.
"Anyone from an Olympic athlete to a complete amateur can train side by side; there's an informality attached to it as well. One day here Greg Rosetsky turned to Colin Jackson and said : 'What a place'," she reports with pride.
It costs students and locals around €100 a year to join the sports club, she says as she leads the way into the clubhouse of the University Sports Club that would not shame any modern yacht club with its smart bar and restaurant.
As Ms Sheahan takes you through the busy Stables Bar and restaurant in the Student Centre Courtyard or the Paddock restaurant - they all get a massive facelift at the end of the academic year in preparation for the summer season - and on to Plassey House, a favourite for staff and an elegant venue for receptions and smaller corporate dinners, she makes a point of chatting with the people who run them.
"I would be pushing and pushing them - it's only because I want it right," she explains. "I want to see the food laid out with white cloths on the tables and baskets of flowers, I want the lighting right. I want to deliver at the level I have told people I would deliver.
"Sometimes they think I'm some kind of ogre. But that is the commercial reality. You have to deliver what you have indicated six to 12 months previously to a conference client."
Three different catering companies run the restaurants, with Campbell Catering having the largest number, including the main restaurant that serves around 1,500 meals a day and the cafeteria, which copes with 1,200 each day. "It's not that one part of the year is more important than the other," she comments, adding that students who are offered good food continue to want good food.
Upset by a recent newspaper article that said there wasn't a chip in sight, she pounced to point out a portion of chips on one student's plate. There was only one portion; mainly they had opted for salads, vegetables or chosen from a range of breads with their main course.
The conference business has been built up through repeat business, referrals, direct contacts with businesses, and networking with inward tour operators and other tourism operators in the region. Efforts are being made with local hotels and event management companies to develop a conference bureau in Limerick and she is very aware of the importance of the status of Shannon Airport to everyone involved in the sector in the region.
"The lack of flights into Shannon is a problem," she says.
Given the range of activities Ms Sheahan manages, you might expect that her background was in the hotel business but she first trained as a nurse.
"It was interesting and useful but it certainly wasn't something I was going to stay in for the rest of my life. I think nursing does give you a base for different areas - perhaps within the hospitality and people-centered roles.
"Catering is something I have always been interested in personally. I went to Ballymaloe and for a number of years was involved in catering, in the business aspect, and from that I came here," she says.
The job has changed dramatically since she started and she says a typical working day now starts at 9 a.m. and finishes. . . whenever.
"If you have to be here until seven or eight or nine, it's the commercial aspect of the business we're in. You have to go with the flow," she says, pointing out, as she has done several times, that she does not work alone but as part of the Campus Centre team, which is headed by executive director Ms Linda Stevens.
Having changed careers a few times - "I'm a positive, proactive, no regrets kind of person" - she is thinking longingly of doing a degree in English, politics and history, hardly an easy one with such an all-consuming kind of job. But her feet are firmly on the ground and she believes in a balance between time spent at work and with her daughter, Joanne (17).
"What's it all about," she asks quietly.
In her 40s and born in East Africa, Kate Sheahan was educated at Scoil Carmel in Limerick, but it is to Fenore on the west coast of Clare that she escapes when she has free time.
"When I switch off, I switch off. I like hill-walking and swimming in the sea. I enjoy theatre and film and eating out - I do, research! - and having people over to my own home as well."
