Paul Hurren was Chair of ACE from July 2015 to July 2017 when Gaye Bullard took over.
In January, Paul was awarded Fellowship of the Association of Catering Excellence and joins a select group including previous Chairs, Peter Green, Kevin Colclough-Noble and Norman Deas.
During his time as Chair, he championed the younger generation and introduced several new initiatives to encourage people under the age of 35 to get involved in ACE.
This included the introduction of the ACE Robyns Award, in memory of CH&Co's founder Robyn Jones OBE who died in September 2015.
He also introduced the idea of the Next Generation, with a round table discussion with up and coming youngsters in conjunction with The Caterer.
The ACE Ready Steady Cook competition now includes the rule that one of the chef teams needs to be under the age of 25. There is a Next Generation group headed up by Paul, consisting of those young people that will create additional events aimed at their age group with a view to them becoming the ACE Council Members of the future.
His fellow council members commented:
"That's absolutely brilliant. Well done to an amazing guy!"
"You had a brilliant term Paul, and I know you'll continue to be a great committee member"
"Great chairman and hard act to follow"
"Very well deserved Paul, you brought ACE some great initiatives"
Paul responded:
"Thank you all, very surprised and honoured to get the ACE Fellowship! It has to be said I had a fantastic deputy in Ms Bullard and a brilliantly supportive Council."
