Getting a glimpse of future entrepreneurs is a show stopping moment – so you can imagine our delight when we were treated to a wide range of entrepreneurial ideas and skills from over seventy students who visited our stand at this year’s Student Enterprise Show and participated in our very own ‘Ideas MashUp!’.
At the weekend I was asked to participate at The Enterprise Show, Leeds, which was an event hosted by Business Link as a ‘one stop shop’ for people with a business idea, to attend and get all the information they need to get their business off the ground.
As a Make Your Mark Ambassador, I’m often asked to do things like this. This is me at the start of the day:
Video 1 at the shows
During the course of the day I was so busy speaking to the people who stopped by my stand, that I completely forgot to do any video blogging, so this is me ’rounding up’ at the end!
Well, as for all the negative press and comments about recessions and credit crunches, at the Women in Business event attended by fourteen entrepreneurs and MP, Yvette Cooper in Castleford today there wasn’t a single moan or groan in sight, just positive comments and the most tremendous inspirational stories.
Each person around the table had a different tale to tell and what made it more interesting was that they were so varied and in some cases sparked off a round of giggles – from recession busting ‘oldies’ to decisions between marrying a rich man or getting a job – the job won!
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.
With the Make Your Mark in the Markets competition nearing its deadline I braved the cold (and believe me it was cold!) to talk to shoppers in Halifax about their local market. I also had budding entrepreneurs on my shopping list alongside bagging a few bargains.
I admit I didn’t quite know what to expect – but I have to say it was a great experience for all the senses. Halifax’s Borough Market was bustling, great smells and the general hum of chatter with bursts of market speech – good old booming voices from traders, a characteristic we have all come to know and love about markets.
I am a Make Your Mark Ambassador and I was invited to speak to the fashion students yesterday at the Leeds College of Art!
Being a women in business, I am often called upon to deliver talks to schools when they have an Enterprise programme or to take part in a Business Studies class. The fashion students wanted to hear about my career path from when I was at fashion college (I went to the London College of Fashion) through my PR career and ending up running my own business. They are doing a Case Study on my business to see how my creative background has influenced my current role and how creativity plays a part in commercial business.
Bradford Kickstart have teamed up with Khalid Sharif, the creator of the UK’s first premium quality Halal chocolate, to deliver a unique business master class event that aims to identify and inspire Entrepreneurial Development in the district. The event will provide young people a chance to further develop an existing product and a real life working business model in the form of Ummah Chocolate.
The organisers and stakeholders hope to develop key skills in these young entrepreneurs, by giving them the opportunity to see their ideas come to life.
Today I read an article that advised me that I should regularly monitor my competition to see what they are up to, to work out their sales strategy and showing me a few ‘back door’ ways to keep tabs on what my competitors are doing online.
Trust.
A word with only 5 letters and yet it is such a BIG word.
We are all living in a time where trust is one of the most important elements of human interaction. Let’s face it - do you trust the banks any more, or big corporations? I remember growing up in an era where my parent’s generation did not think to question their doctors, or other people in authority as the trust was automatic; whereas nowadays we are all having to become mini-experts in the things that affect our lives as we don’t have as much unquestioning trust in what we are told. Trust in 2009 has to be earned.
Hey - it’s snowing and let’s face it, it doesn’t happen often to this scale in the UK (well, not since I was a kid in the late 70’s and 80’s!) So as my children are home with me today with school being closed, we had to do a mercy dash to the shops and buy Jet some cat litter. She is so posh she won’t pee outside when it’s snowing like this! So, on the way, we took the chance to have a snowball fight! I think it’s the first time in my 6 year olds’ life that the snow has been ‘plenty’ enough to actually do it properly!
Oh how proud I am! I feel enterprise skills are so important to progressing in today’s commercial world. People need to know how to identify a need or spot an opportunity, find a way to do it, tell others about it and be able to turn it into a commercial reality. Our economy needs continual innovation - not just in these ‘gloomy’ times, but all the time.
Today whilst collecting my 6 year old daughter from school, I thought about this question and whether the most enterprising ideas come from a ‘Eureka’ moment or gritted teeth?
To fill you in, I’m up in beautiful Yorkshire - well it usually is beautiful but today it’s raining and snowing! This was the reason for my gritted teeth but it did give me an enterprising idea…
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.
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.
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