Make Your Mark with a Tenner 2009: the Highlights!

Just some of the highlights from around the UK during Make Your Mark with a Tenner 2009...

Oxford

The Barn Youth Project in Blackbird Lees, Oxford were paid a visit by the Tenner Guru Oli Barrett. Club members had to be dragged away from their table football, papier mache and Wii Bowling for a crash course in idea generation.

The young people, aged 8-13 were in disbelief that someone would want to give them money, but they soon started coming up with ideas. It was great to see such a vibrant youth center with such passionate staff and kids who love attending.

Basingstoke

Further south, Sherfield School were also visited by the Tenner Guru. Forty students from the age of six upwards sat attentively as Oli gave them the inside info on being an entrepreneur. Oli was subjected to a rigorous grilling from the keen youngsters:

Q: Do you know anyone famous?

A: Well Peter Jones from Dragons Den has provided half of the money you are using!

Q: Do I have to think of a new idea?

A: It’s very hard to think of a new idea, try thinking about something someone already does that you could do better, or cheaper.

Q: How do I know how much of something to make?

A: Why not start small, test your product, then think big!

The Sherfield Students has discovered they were good at sales, painting, making cards and being cerative. They had also realised what they were not so good at: Cracking eggs and controlling dogs!

Harrogate

The Tenner team, armed with a briefcase full of cash, joined 500 students from Rossett School who each received a £10 loan and the challenge to make as much profit and social impact as they could throughout February.

Eddie Lyell, Rossett School’s Enterprise Coordinator, said: “This type of activity encourages our students to turn their hidden entrepreneurial depths into reality. We have involved so many students as we believe the ability to take measured risks is an important part of a child becoming an adult. At Rossett School we know that our students leave with fantastic academic results but we also want them to leave with real business skills so that they can thrive in an ever changing and often challenging world.”
Diane Beckett, Regional Campaigner, said: “We had a great event at Rossett School. We survived the snow to be greeted by a room full of excited students – all intrigued by the initiative. When they caught sight of the briefcase full of cash the cheer was deafening. We’re certainly looking forward to seeing their ideas and hearing about all the profit that they make.”

After the launch a small team of students visited their local radio station Stray FM, where they were interviewed about their enterprising plans.

Sheffield

A group of students from Birkdale School in Sheffield have co-ordinated a wide range of enterprising activities – from selling hampers, making home made greetings cards to ping pong rental.

Kathy McKay, from Birkdale School said: “We originally started the competition with just one year seven group, but the enthusiasm and business ideas from all of our students has developed Make Your Mark with a Tenner into a much bigger initiative.

“We now have a Make Your Mark with a Tenner enterprise that involves many businesses. Although we would like to do really well in the competition our students hope their businesses will continue to run and make a profit long after the initiative is over.”

Sutton Coldfield

Students at Sutton Coldfield College have been canny with their cash and have called in Birmingham based Make Your Mark Ambassador Lee Blake to help boost their funds. Lee who is the Managing Director of 50fifty Clothing http://www.50fiftyclothing.com/ is producing custom made t-shirts incorporating the student’s own designs, which the students will then sell on to friends, family and other students. Lee has a background in youth work and has set up a sister company to 50fifty which enables young people’s groups to make money legally, so if you work with young people and fancy setting up a future franchise to boost your funds go to http://www.madebyyoungpeople.co.uk/ to find out more.

London

Acland Burleigh school in North London had a business studies class taking part in Tenner. On the day before they were dished out their cash they were visited by MYM and entrepreneur Dan McGuire of Broadbean.com fame. When he started out, Dan was running a dot com company with no clients, no money and … no website. Selling an internet product to IT companies immediately after the dot com crash was not easy, but with his enthusiasm and belief he succeeded.

After a story like that the students had plenty of questions. Most of all they wanted to know (as all good students of business do) what advice Dan had on dealing with the economic downturn. Dan echoed Lord Mandleson who said “we must come out of the downturn prepared the upturn”. His advice was to see the credit crunch as an opportunity for profit, all markets had their ups and downs, and in 18 months we’ll be seeing start-up businesses everywhere as the economy starts to recover.

One particular student had no qualms in taking Dan’s advice that “if you want something you should go for it” and asked him for an internship! Shockingly Dan agreed to think about it and the young chancer will soon be sending off his CV!

Peterborough

Students from St Botolphs Primary School have brought a business idea to life (quite literally) with their ‘Chicken Enterprise’ and support from Orton Longueville School. Carefully preparing a business plan and cash flow forecasts, they have been able to carefully budget and plan for the care of chickens, recouping their initial investments and sourcing ongoing funding for their project through the sale of their chickens’ eggs. Orton Longueville School have part funded this initiative and they’re using the loaned tenners from Make Your Mark to come up with entrepreneurial ideas within their class groups to raise the money for the rest of their ‘Chicken Enterprise’.

Manchester

Make Your Mark with a Tenner was launched this week in the North West with a visit to one of the regions most enterprising schools by a secret millionaire! Stretford High School have involved the whole of Year 10 in the campaign and on Thursday, local businessman Gavin Wheeldon offered invaluable advise to the budding entrepreneurs.

Gavin, who owns a string of successful businesses and was seen helping out the people of Rhyl last year on Secret Millionaire, spent the afternoon with a group of students. An inspirational speaker, Gavin really got the students excited about enterprise with one commenting “he was really normal just like us. If Gavin can do it why cant I?”

Read Gavin’s inspiring story.

You can keep up to date with the goings-on in the North West in our North West team’s blog.