Guidelines for 2024 Award - The 2025 Award should follow a similar pattern:

The completed Application Form, the short piece on how the award money of £4,000 would be spent, and the reasons of the employer or tutor for putting forward the applicant, must be received by the Trust by Friday 1 March 2024. In completing and freely returning the Application Form you accept that the Trustee Directors require the information that you have provided so that they may select the most appropriate applicants to interview. When your employer or tutor countersigns your form, he or she is consenting to the information that they provide being processed and stored by the Trustee Directors, and being retained until you are no longer eligible for the Award. Should that consent be withdrawn at any time before you have contracted to be an Award Winner then you may cease to be eligible for the Award.

The Trustee Directors will invite short-listed candidates for interview in London on Tuesday 23 April 2024. The selected interviewees will be invited before the end of March 2024.

At the interview candidates should be prepared to expand verbally on their career to date, their aspirations and proposed travel plans and explain how they would spend the award money in order to widen their culinary and vinous skills. An appreciation of the importance of seasonal ingredients in the development of a menu is important, as well as a very basic understanding of the marriage of wine with food. Candidates should also describe how they intend to record or document this experience both for their own benefit and that of the Trust.

Those candidates who already intend to develop their careers through international travel, irrespective of winning this Award, and have given some thought to their travel plans are more likely to be successful.  A review of recent winners' reports on the Previous Winners page is likely to be very helpful when considering the format of two or three stages and in illustrating ways of getting the most out of the Award.

Reasonable travelling expenses for attending the interview will be paid at the discretion of the Trustee Directors, provided candidates submit original tickets, receipts or other documents to support their claim. In claiming the reimbursement of any expenses, candidates accept that the Trustee requires to process and store their name and the amounts reimbursed within its accounting system for at least six years in order to maintain professional standards of governance.

The selection and announcement of an Award Winner will be made at, or shortly after, the conclusion of the interviews. The grant of the Award will be confirmed once the selected winner has signed and returned the Award Winner's agreement that will be sent after the announcement has been made. The decisions of the Trustee Directors are final and no correspondence will be entered into. 

Payment of the Award

By Monday 30 September 2024 the winner will need to agree with the Trustee an outline travel plan and itinerary, including the names of the establishments where he or she proposes to work and study. Details of the proposed programme of wine education, such as a WSET Level 2 course, should be included. The Trustee Directors would be happy to advise about the suitability of alternate wine courses if this would be helpful.

The trip is expected to commence within two years of the decision of the Trustee Directors, unless otherwise agreed. Subject to 30 days' notice, up to £3,500 of the award money will be released in advance when it is needed for the stage(s). Should a winner agree with the Trustee Directors that he or she is unable to undertake, or does not undertake, a stage or course to improve their vinous knowledge then the value of the Award and, if applicable the advance, will be reduced by £500. The wine education may be concluded within six months after return to the UK, but £500 of the Award balance would be withheld until evidence of completion is provided. 

Within 90 days of returning from the trip the winner will be expected to submit a report in the format agreed, recording and summarising the experiences gained. The report should comprise a digital summary written in Word (or other compatible format) between 3 and 6 A4 pages in length which, including images, is not significantly greater than 3Mb in size.  In addition at least six higher quality photographs of about 1.5 - 3.0Mb each should also be submitted.  Please see examples of such summaries on the Previous Winners page.  

The balance of the award money will be released when the report is received from the winner in the agreed format, together with evidence of completion of the wine course, at which time an Award Certificate will also be issued. 

The Trustee Directors may edit the reports and publish in any medium (including this website, Facebook and Twitter) without further payment to the winner and may store and publically display the reports and images for so long as they deem appropriate. 

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