The Modern Butlers’ Journal, October 2018, Message from the Chairman

Message from the Chairman

by Steven Ferry

September has been a busy month, with all the Institute’s trainers out on assignment in both private estates and resorts around the world. You can read some of the feedback and see photographs of some of the hospitality graduates elsewhere in this newsletter, for a flavor of the fun they, and their students, had.

We have occasionally been asked how we manage to keep the newsletter going each and every month, year after year, without the benefit of a separate editorial staff. The secret sauce for this particular dish is called “combining business with pleasure.”

We find our business to be pleasurable, as this photograph attests—taken today, on the editor’s day off, during which he indulges in various of his passions (writing, swimming, snorkeling, and fine dining). There is so much one can fit in one day, really!

And more than anything else, the Journal keeps comes out because we are rich enough as a profession to have multiple individuals who are happy to share their knowledge for the sake of a better mutual understanding, and to assist with the continuity of the profession at a time when values and traditions, two cornerstones of the profession, are being eroded at a rather rapid pace.

With this in mind, we would like to thank Mr. Kobi Gutman, butler extraordinaire, for his creative contributions to the Journal over the past two years. We wish him continued success in his position as Head Butler at The Fort Harrison Retreat.

And talking of fine dining, feel free to share [link] in the 7-course wine-pairing dinner that the Chairman enjoyed in the world’s largest underwater restaurant: 7 courses, 7 glasses of wine….it all adds up and the meal turned from a gustatory adventure to a rather merry one, too!

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people- skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.