Make Your Mark Blog

I have had a fab week and that’s because I got to meet some of the enterprise groups which are part of the Make Your Mark Club!

On Friday 10 July, the Make Your Mark Club team were at The Studio, in Birmingham hosting a Club Meet-up for some of our budding entrepreneurial students. Enterprise groups from around the Midlands came together to shout about the enterprise work they have been doing this year and wow, they’ve been busy! Students involved have been making and selling crafts, raising over £3,000 for Comic Relief, planning trips to New York, putting on themed days at schools and running activity days.

If you are we want your feedback.

Make Your Mark is currently in the process of developing a student alumni scheme for young people who have taken part in the fabulous MYM activities such as Make Your Mark Challenge, Make your Mark Club and Make Your mark with a Tenner.

This is going to be the chance to support young people to make their ideas happen. If you are a teacher or a student take a few minutes to fill in the relevant questionnaire

Questionnaire for tutors

Questionnaire for students

The HSBC’s Future of Business report has identified four new types of future entrepreneurs.

1) The Referral Economists: commercially-minded folk who have emerged from the social networking boom. 2) The Slash Slash Careerist: the product of the MySpace School of business who see themselves as brands and their customers as fans. 3) The Collaborateer: walks the fine line between information and piracy where everything is negotiable.

And 4) The Transpreneur: an elite new breed of super-global entrepreneur with connections and workspaces all over the world, are set to dominate the British business environment.

The summer term is well underway and here in the Education corner at Make Your Mark HQ we are very excited about all the great things we have on offer for our Make Your Mark clubs this term.

Firstly, we are holding our annual meet ups which are a great day out for our clubs, they are a chance to network with other enterprising clubs, meet our Ambassadors, take part in fun enterprise challenges and generally enjoy being around other creative and entrepreneurial students.

The details are

Friday 10th July - The Studio, Birmingham 11.00-3.00pm (tbc)

The winners of the 2009 Make Your Mark Enterprising Young Brits Awards were announced today (Tuesday 24 March 2009) at a very swanky ceremony at the Institute of Directors (IoD), London.

They were each presented with a trophy and £1,000 prize money by Chancellor Alistair Darling, who made time to chat to finalists and hear their positive stories.

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)

It is a sad state of affairs when i am a day behind in blogging only 3 days into Enterprise Week but there has been so much going on in the North West this week that is exactly what has happened.

For the past 2 days i ahve had the lovely Daniel from Policy accompany me around some of the amazing events in the North West including an event which i can safely say is the best Enterprise Week i have attended in the 3 that i have seen first hand.

This morning I attended the launch of a new women’s support network.

The morning was very well attended by business women and public sector people who can provide invaluable advice and help. I was given a very warm welcome by Phil Cowper and his team from the Tameside Business Family www.tamesidebusinessfamily.com .

I arrived just in time to hear an inspiring talk by Helen Thomas MD of Meredith Thomas PR Ltd www.meridiththomas.com on what makes an entrepreneur. She surprised us all at the end of her presentation by saying that she was going to be 60 next birthday and had no intention of stepping down from managing her successful business. Helen has agreed to be an ambassador for us and spread the word that it’s never to late to give it a go!

Last night I attended a fab Fab Over 50s event in Preston. Obviously I was only allowed in under my roving reporter remit! The event was light hearted and entertaining aimed at confidence building and presentation skills.

Organised by Spark ambassador, Janet Harrison www.creative-academy.co.uk in partnership with image consultant Cliff Bashforth www.simplyimage.co.uk . Cliff gave image hints and tips to an audience of 70 or more of us hanging on his every word. I found that I’m similar to Kylie (unfortunately not because of my bum) and due to a senior moment (must have been the company) I’m not quite sure why.

As the sun rose on the first day of Global Entrepreneurship Week yesterday - eagle-eyed pedestrians might well have noticed the strange symbols which had mysteriously appeared on the streets of London, Liverpool and Manchester overnight.

Have you seen this symbol on your travels?

Yes you claim?

Then we want you to prove it!

Simply send a pic of yourself with the Global Entrepreneurship Week symbol to [email protected] The best picture to be sent in by the end of the week (Sunday 23 November 2008) gets a special enterprising prize!

Today I have been at Brew Tea Bar were teams of students from 5 schools across Merseyside have been taking part in the Brew Tea Challenge.

Make Your Mark Ambassador - Phil Kirby set Year 12 students from All Saints High School, Bebbington Sports College, Broadgreen International High School, Carmel College and Pensby High for Girls the challenge of creating a new tea blend and designing a poster campaign for the new tea.

Phil opened his Brew Tea Bar in August this year and it is going from strength to strength and when I spoke to him about Enterprise Week and he mentioned this challenge we were delighted to invite schools along to take part.

Year 10 students at Pensby High for girls were treated to a visit from Wirral MP Steven Hesford and Make Your Mark Ambassadors Clare Molyneux and Tim Coleman.

Steven, Clare and Tim were on hand throughout the morning to talk to the girls about enterprise, the Make Your Mark Challenge and how they can develop and build their own enterprise skills and potential.

Mr Hesford said: “Enterprise week provides a great focus on how we can create business opportunities, particularly for our up and coming entrepreneurs of the future.

‘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 North West Women in Business Awards 2009 have been launched!

If you are a woman entrepreneur Making Your Mark in the North West you can enter by downloading an application form from www.nwda.co.uk/women.

The awards are an opportunity to celebrate, recognise and reward the entrepreneurial talent of women in the North West and to inspire others and promote enterprise as an option to other women in the region.