Welcome to the online induction pages for all staff.

There are seven parts to this section.

Knowing how the organisation fits together will enable you to:

	know where to get support and help if you need it
	know where to take problems and other issues
	help you to help the students find advice and support

Elac is not a huge organisation but it's big enough to provide the infrastructure and support mechanisms you need.

A little history

Elac began life as “Eastbourne Language and Activity Centre” in 1991.  2011 was our 20^th anniversary.  It was set up by John and Sarah Dunster.  Eastbourne Language and Activity Centre was initially a family stay course based at Park College in Eastbourne.  Andrew McPhee joined in 2000 when Elac began to branch out into residential centres.  In 2005, the administration of the summer centres was moved to a new office in Bath.  This office now handles the organisation for all the courses.

Elac is no longer a small business – we welcome over 2,500 students each summer – however, we still retain the values and ethos that characterised Elac from the beginning and which made it attractive to our staff, students and partners: an organisation that is friendly, personal, loyal, professional and caring.  We believe strongly in building relationships and being good partners.

The people

Elac has two principals – John Dunster and Andrew McPhee, a Director of Operations, Tim Cooke, and an Operations Manager, Neil Barnes.  In our Bath office there is the Office Manager, Elaine Wickens, and the Office Administrator, Nicky Matthews.  Dave Russell is Elac's consultant academic director.

The Staff Team in Our Centres

Individual centres vary in their staffing from year to year but the diagram on the left shows the usual staffing structure.  We present it this way for two reasons

the organisation is more like a web or cloud than any other kind of structure.  Major communication routes are shown – the thicker the line the more frequent the communication.  The outer circle is more concerned with planning, the inner with implementation of plans.  You also need to imagine lines of communication running from every point to every other point in the web.  Communication in all directions is vital to the success of the course.

this diagram puts the students at the centre of the organisation, rather than at the bottom of a top-down structure.  It is a reminder of our need to be student-centred.

Job descriptions for all the roles you see here are on this site.  Click here to go to the Job Descriptions page.