A strange day today - with the good news including that Jamie Murray-Wells has been awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise and at 26 is the youngest ever recipient. Jamie is a great example of someone who saw a gap in the market and made his idea happen, entering an established high street market with big players who weren’t too pleased with his business model which took business away from them!
This week I popped along to see Make Your Mark in the Mall finalist Benjamin Allen. Benjamin, who, along with his dad, run Raphael. With two shops already established and running in Norwich and Lowestoft, Benjamin saw the Make Your Mark in the Mall competition as a way of testing the water for some new products.
Raphael currently source their products, which include jewellery and sculptures from Indonesia - visiting the country two or three times a year and sourcing producs from over 70 familes. Benjamin pointed out that by doing this, these families were given guaranteed regular work and paid for their work fairly.
My final stop last week on the Tenner Tour was at Orton Longueville School in Peterborough. Enterprise veterans they may well be, but could they rise to the tenner challenge?
Yes! I hear them all cry! Despite having only started the challenge last week due to a whole week of school closures because of the snow, plus half term break the following week the business ideas and creative juices were flowing with participants keen to start ventures that could get off the ground immediately and get them on their way to make their first profits.
The first stop on the ‘Tenner Tour’ was at Sandringham School in St Albans and boy did they set the standard!
The participants, who were in years 7 - 12 began by pitching their business to me in 60 seconds.. outlining what their business did, who their audience was, how they had used their £10 and what they were doing with profits they had made.
Afterwards, they had to come up with the 3 unique selling points of their venture and then use them to write a press release or advert publicising their ventures.
The Eastern Region office has had their director’s hat on these past few weeks and we can now unveil our Enterprise Week 2008 in the Eastern Region DVD!
The dvd will hopefully be on the website by the end of next week so watch this space!
Things have been pretty exciting at Make Your Mark Challenge Head Quarters this week, not only have we had some chocolate digestives to sustain us through the week (pretty exciting in itself if you ask me!) but I have been gathering news from around the country about what our national finalists from the Challenge 2008 have been up to and it’s AMAZING!!
So make yourself a cuppa, grab a choccie biccie and prepared to be amazed by what our teams have achieved so far….
My friend Spiderman* who works at Heart FM (maybe if I give them a plug they’ll mention us on air) said to me today when I told him about Make Your Mark with a Tenner “Anyway, how easy is it to make a social impact with only a tenner?! That sounds really hard!”
Clearly Spiderman knows nothing about the young people of Britain otherwise he would know that they will come up with incredible ideas all through the month of February which will not only raise loads of money but could quite possibly change the world (or at least their local community)
‘Be Seen’ and win £100
All businesses, small and large, are interested in generating local media coverage to promote their products, services and activities.
So we have launched a competition for all our Make Your Mark clubs to show us how they get their club noticed.
Clubs have until 28 November to put there plans into action and to show us how their club activity has been seen by a wider audience, either at their school or college, in their local community or even internationally.
The Banana road show has hit Norwich city BIG Time and ambushed The Castle Mall on Friday 24th and The Forum, yesterday. Bananas (real, fake edible, and foam) were being given to anyone with an enterprising idea, and the Make Your Mark Enterprise Week Motor put in a special appearance and drew in the crowds.
Hoards of enterprising people were queing up to enter our competition ‘How to Make Big Bucks with a Banana’ to be in with the chance of winning a digital camera.
Over the past few weeks, the Make Your Mark regional hubs have been spreading Global Enterprise Week fever throughout the UK, as part of a series of banana themed roadshows to build excitement in the lead up to the week
This year the teams have literally gone banana’s – giving out blow up banana’s, banana costumes, squeezy banana toys and driving specially branded cars to spread the enterprise message across the land, while having a lot of fun on their travels.
Saskia and Beccie (and Hazel and the rest of the team at Enterprise Lowestoft) organized a fantastic MYM Meet-up yesterday. It took place on Ipswich Town Football Grounds and was very well attended.
Highlights for us included:
Great venue. View of the lush green pitch from our conference room.
Just a reminder that Make Your Mark in the Eastern Region, in conjunction with the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), is holding an event to unleash Enterprise Week 2008!
If you have held an event or activity during Enterprise Week in the past, then this event will give you exciting fresh ideas and tips. If you haven’t participated so far, then it will give you the chance to see what Enterprise Week is all about.
Whether you are from a school, college, or social group, this free event will give you the tools and contacts to ensure you can be part of the biggest Enterprise Week yet as we go global with over 70 other countries taking part.
Any enterprising person should put this in their diary!
The Eastern Region Enterprise Week Meet Up is going to be held on the 17th September 2008!
Where: Ipswich Town Football Club
Time: 10am-2pm (lunch included)
Join us to get fresh ideas and tips on how to participate and get the chance to see what Enterprise Week is all about and how beneficial an enterprise culture can be!
The event is also a great place to network with local companies as well as Make Your Mark ambassadors and champions.
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