Rainbow room international celebrate with annual congress 2011
Published
09th Feb 2011
by rachael
Scotland's largest salon group Rainbow Room International celebrated their 23rd Annual Congress with a day of creative seminars and a night of awards and fun. Over 250 team members from the group's 12 hair and beauty salons descended on the luxurious Airth Castle Hotel and Spa in Stirlingshire, ready to be inspired.
The day started with a team building exercise with a difference: gospel singing. Lead by the Truth Gospel Choir, the team were separated in to groups and taught to perform Lean on Me. Groups learned the art of communication and the importance of working together in harmony before coming together for a lively Glee-style sing off.
A hair show and catwalk presentation followed, with salon owner Riccardo Corvi (Ayr branch), International Creative Director Suzie McGill and the RRI Artistic Team demonstrating trend predictions and techniques for Spring/Summer 2011. Women's looks were inspired by 70s fashion house Biba with a pop art colour palette providing a modern twist, while gents' trends included rockabilly and military styles.
A champagne reception kicked off the evening's celebrations, where team members and industry experts including Phillip Bell of award-winning Aberdeen salon Ishoka and Schwarzkopf Professional Managing Director Colin Sillery mingled and admired the photographic entries for the creative awards.
Before individual awards were handed out, company directors Alan and Linda Stewart presented graduation certificates and bonuses, with over £20,000 in prizes given out in recognition of hard work and success. The Caring Award was also presented to the Buchanan Street team to celebrate the tens of thousand of pounds they raised in 2010 in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital charity HAIRaising.
Finally individual talent was recognised with a series of awards recognising both business and creative skills, culminating with the presentation of Salon of the Year. For the second year running, the award went to the Uddingston salon, run by sisters Suzie McGill and Sam MacFarlane.
Suzie and Sam were joined onstage by their entire salon team to collect the award and said: "To win Salon of the Year for the second time is an incredible achievement. Every member of the team works hard to give our clients the ultimate hairdressing experience and we are absolutely delighted to receive this accolade."
With the awards over, it was time for the party to begin. A delighted Alan and Linda Stewart said; "Each year the standard gets higher and our judges find it more and more difficult to call. It's a wonderful event and really builds team spirit and gets everyone motivated for the year ahead. We recognise not only winners but those who are continuously improving as we believe each individual member of our team is special and deserves their own particular recognition of success."
And the winners were:
Salon Team of the Year: Uddingston
Assistant of the Year: Emma Goggins, Stirling
Reception Team of the Year: Crow Road
Trainer of the Year: Helen - Stacey Johnson, Buchanan Street
Creative Image Award: Diana Carson, Uddingston
Creative Collection Individual Award: Caroline Lamp, Great Western Road
Creative Collection Team Award: Uddingston
Fantastic Hairdresser: Leo McCallum, Buchanan Street
Caring Award (in recognition of charity work): Buchanan Street
Total Excellence: Douglas Fortune, Stirling and Pamela Wallace, Buchanan Street (Joint winners)
