Miss England Training @ the Vincent Hotel, Southport|by Kerry Capoverde

Kerry Capoverde writes;

I’ve just arrived home from a fantastic couple of days away with my sisters in Team North (Miss England Representatives from the North-West) on a Miss England training course.

It really has been a brilliant experience!! For a start we were very lucky to be in the presence of the inspirational Kat Hodge, aka the reigning Miss England as well as several other industry professionals, with a wealth of pageant experience!

I arrived at the beautiful Vincent Hotel in Southport and was immediately treated like a princess! The concierge were truly lovely, assuring everything was perfect in our luxury rooms. I was especially excited about the Japanese bath!

After a relaxing nights rest we were on with the hard work, hard but still really good fun. Our training day started with an introduction from Kat outlining her experiences of being Miss England. I was thrilled to be able to hear Kat’s thoughts and reflections- how many people can say that they have had this opportunity?!

One of the most exciting aspects of the day was to hear more about ModelZed from the wonderful Kate Solomans. I was really encouraged that the agency did more than just hire out models for fashion castings…the fact that Kate also scouts girls for promotional work, presenting and events is fab! I am really hoping and looking forward to working with Kate on exciting projects soon, maybe even wearing a giant Bee costume!

We were also lucky enough to have Lisa Powell, the official Miss England choreographer on hand to put us through our paces on the catwalk. I found this very beneficial as she gave really simple and effective tips for perfecting our struts! I now know that I need to walk around at home with a book on my head to perfect my posture and imagine an invisible thread running through my body to keep in line. I loved the catwalk training, probably because it kind of involves a stage and a spotlight…

After a delicious subway lunch break, the lovely ladies from Paver Smith came into to give us some top PR and media tips. Laura Woods has interviewed me in the past and is such a lovely lady! It was great to get some industry perspective on interviews in the media and Megan aka Miss Wigan was fantastic in a mock interview we observed, looking at positive and negative ways to answer questions.

I also took part in a photography masterclass with Miss England official photographer Paul Fisher and Kat as my mentors. This was the most important part of the day for me, as I am not as confident with striking a pose as I probably should be! However I am really grateful for the support and advice Kat and Paul gave me… tip of the day; do not stick hips out to the side in a patterned maxi dress! I am now more excited to spend the day developing my portfolio with Paul very soon!

I have had a fab time on the Miss England training camp and really developed my confidence further. I would like to say thanks to all the fantastic industry professionals that attended the day, but especially to Mark Jones for being the best regional organiser we could ask for! I am really looking forward to working on more events on the Fylde, starting at the Pleasure Beach in a couple of weeks!