Anne Bull elected as new LACA chair
The Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA) has announced that Anne Bull has been elected as its chair.
Bull, the former vice-chairman of the organisation, succeeds Lynda Mitchell and will hold the office from 17 September 2012 to September 2013.
A member of LACA since 1995, Bull became the LACA Welsh region chair in 1996, a position that she held until this year. She is a member of the LACA board of directors and was elected LACA national vice-chair following the organisation's 2011 AGM.
Bull is also the head of catering services and school facilities at Rhondda Cynon Taf county borough council, the second-largest authority in Wales, where she is responsible for producing around 21,000 meals a day and an annual turnover of £15m.
Commenting her new appointment, Bull said she was privileged, honoured and committed to ensuring that LACA continued to be the voice of the school food industry.
"LACA members are passionate about the work they do for pupils and students in schools across Britain so one of my principal aims is for LACA to look at ways in which we can support front-line staff, such as through new training and development packages," she added.
"I am also keen that at the same time as raising the school meal industry's profile at the national and political level, we also focus on the grass-roots needs of the LACA regional network which, I believe, is the bedrock of our organisation.
Bull emphasised that she aimed to continue the work, started by Mitchell, to ensure that school food was high on the political agenda.
"With Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, the Leon Restaurant chain co-founders, appointed to conduct another Government inquiry into school food, one of my key roles as national chair will be to ensure that the wealth of knowledge and expertise that is available to them from LACA and its members is embraced and reflected within the action plan they have been tasked to produce during 2013," she said.
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By Janie Manzoori-Stamford
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