Berwick students rise to challenge with ideas
Teams of entrepreneurial students have impressed the experts with their ideas and enthusiasm in the first round of an enterprise challenge scheme in north Northumberland.
From left: Rachel Bullen, Matthew Lloyd, Abbie Cockburn, Nathan Thompson and Megan Currah
Year 13 pupils from Berwick High School are taking part in the joint initiative with the town's WorkSpace business centre, where the six teams met the panel of mentors which will be following their progress for the first time.
The teams behind student enterprises Glistening Gowns and Blazing Blazers, an online auction house to sell unwanted prom clothing and school uniforms, bulb and seedling venture Budding Ideas, smoothie makers Get Smoothied, events organiser Venue Events Management, jewellery-makers Candy Rocks and online homework group Student Lair, initially met a business adviser to help pull their ideas together.
WorkSpace manager Andrew Martin, one of the mentors on the panel, said: "We were very, very impressed by the enthusiasm and inventiveness and entrepreneurship shown.
"They'd very much taken on the advice they had been given at the be Your Own Boss workshop and had down their market research. We were quite surprised; we were expecting to offer more help and advice to them. We were more than surprised by how they had taken the concept and started to run with it."
Panel member Barbara Huddart, from Glendale PR and Marketing, said: "I know they'd had a session with a business adviser but at their age to come up with a SWAT analysis and have a financial plan in place was very impressive.
"Whatever they take away from it, they will now know the basics of starting their own business. It's a life skill."
Mr Martin doesn't expect to find his next crop of WorkSpace tenants from the competition; he reckons many of those taking part will go on to university or to a business school.
But he added: "There is a perception that if you don't go to university, you'll be stuck in a low-paid job.
"But there are actually opportunities out there for people with imagination and drive."
The teams will be closely monitored by the panel, which also include The Journal's head of business Andrew Hebden, business adviser David Ireland and WorkSpace licencees Jane Warcup of Bright Quarter and Nick Renton of Servitir.
The final phase takes place in March next year, when the teams will make their final presentation to the panel on how their enterprise has performed. The winner will receive WorkSpace Challenge Award for Enterprise.
Pictured: Robyn Mowbray and Heather Souter started a jewellery company called Candy Rocks
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