Make Your Mark Blog

The four finalists in the live cook off were Summer Earnshaw from Ossett High School, Tori Jeffery and Nicole Stewart-Rushworth from Outwood Grange High School and Josh Angell from St Wilfrid’s R.C High School.

Keeping their cool in the final held at Gaskells Restaurant in Wakefield College the four finalists had an hour to create their own unique Michelin Star fine dining dishes using fresh, seasonal, whole food produce. Cheered on by family and friends they then presented their mouth-watering delights to the awaiting judges, including Michelin Star Chef Frances Atkins from the Yorke Arms, Pateley Bridge and Wakefield’s Mayor, Councillor Jacqui Williams and Wakefield College’s Head of Hospitality, Catering, Travel and Tourism.

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!

With all the negative press around the current financial climate it was refreshing to receive an invite to ‘Reject the Recession’, an event co-ordinated by Leeds based Lee and Priestley.

The Make Your Mark Yorkshire team were amongst around 30 delegates on the evening of the 8th January. Aimed at encouraging people to share anecdotes of how they were combating the current financial climate Lee and Priestley ensured a positive mood and an opportunity to network. Attendees shared tales of both personal and professional efforts to remain cheerful whilst looking at enterprising ways to reuse, recycle and renew.

With the help of two businesses in the region, it cost less than £320 to help 18-year old Dean Jeffries turn his life around from not having a great deal of burning career ambition to actually setting up his own social enterprise and wanting to take it forward as a real career opportunity when he leaves school.

Dean who is from Catcote School in Hartlepool has blossomed academically since undergoing the YENE Team Programme, which is an educational enterprise programme for people aged 15- 19 with learning difficulties.

The following is taken directly from the Global Fellowship website and gives and overview of the project:

2008 marked the launch of the Prime Minister’s Global Fellowship, a pilot programme for 100 young people from England, designed to take them through a series of new inter-cultural experiences that will highlight issues of language, culture, economic growth and development in one of the three of the world’s fastest and most important emerging economies. All Fellows are 18 or 19 years old and finishing full-time education or apprenticeships, are drawn from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds and represent a truly multi-cultural and multi-ethnic England. This opportunity marks a conscious step in developing the skills and confidence to turn the challenges of living in an interdependent world into opportunities and the ability to make the most of them. No matter where or how they live, it matters that today’s generation of young people grow up understanding first-hand what globalization means for all people.

During Enterprise Week 3 local colleges who helped re-launch the Federation of Small Businesses’ Keep Trade Local campaign.

The winning photographs have been revealed! Here are the 6 winning shots (in no particular order!), they really capture the spirit of the campaign and will be featured on the Federation of Small Businesses’ 2009 calendar.

Well done to the students of Hartlepool Sixth Form, Prior Pursglove and The English Martyrs Sixth Form!

Mikey Naylor, from Selby High School, had a great time this week when he and nine of his mates went to visit Xing, a smoothie company in Hull.

Having launched a competition to ask students to come up with a great name for a brand new smoothie, Mikey put forward the winning idea - ‘Yum yum, healthy tum’ giving him and his friends the chance to spend a day with the smoothie entrepreneurs.

Not only were the team able to ask questions about the company and how it all started they also got the chance to whiz up their very own tasty treats – our tummies are rumbling at the thought!

Well, what a month and more importantly what a CHALLENGE - our biggest and best ever!

Special congratulations have to go to Crawshaw School in Leeds and Holy Trinity Senior School in Halifax for their fantastic efforts in reaching the Make Your Mark Challenge national finals.

The competition was fierce and although the schools didn’t take the title of national Make Your Mark Challenge winner they certainly proved that enterprise is alive and kicking in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

In 2009 WinWeb will celebrate it’s 15th anniversary by hosting a Business’09 Competition to win £10,000 or an equivalent currency value for small business owners or budding start up business entrepreneurs.

Make Your Mark are supporting this excellent initiative and recommend that you take a look at the details below.

All that is required is that you let WinWeb know what you would do with the money for your business. Would you start your dream business? Start a business from home? Invest it in your current business and finish a long planned project?

Danielle Dunn worked with students from Bedlington Enterprise Group on a the ‘Here and There’ photography project. The students went into Newcastle and took photos for the river, landmarks and all things that represented ‘Our Newcastle’.

For Enterprise week they decided to frame the pictures and sell them at market. Not even the students imagined the photos would look so good and prove so popular! The students took £1000 in orders in 24 hours! The began selling on Thursday at lunchtime, on the awards evening in school and then at the market in school and in Bedlington on Friday of Enterprise Week.

Year 8 and 9 students from Bedlingtonshire Community High School paired up with local entrepreneur Danielle Dunn over Enterprise Week. The students had great fun making soaps and selling them at the international market in Northumberland. They raised a staggering £550 over just 2 days! Their designs were stunning, I’m sure you’ll agree.

They not only used their creative skills to design and make the soaps, but also displayed selling skills and initiative when they persuaded the customers to buy their wares.

Well done to all the students involved!

Students from Hartlepool Sixth Form College, Prior Pursglove and The English Martyrs joined forces with the FSB to re-launch the Keep Trade Local campaign. The students were coached by Make Your Mark Ambassador and professional photographer, Michael Kelly and he accompanied them into town where they took photos of the high street. The students produced some high quality, well thought out photographs which made up a portfolio which was displayed in Darlington market. The students not only had the chance to display their photos on the market stall, but also chatted to local people and enlisted signatures for the Keep Trade Local campaign.

Congratulations to our North East Make Your Mark Challenge Regional Winner! The competition was fierce, the entries of such a high standard that our judges had the toughest time! The ideas were amazing and the styles of presenting were fabulous. I won’t give too much away just yet however as the competition doesn’t come to a climax until December 9^th!

Congratulations to our morning winner, Spennymoore School in Durham and our afternoon winner, Nunthorpe School.

And our overall winner? Nunthorpe School in Middlesbrough. Well done for being chosen to represent the North East in the National Final.