Enterprise UK Blog

Over 30 delegates attend the Yorkshire and Humber launch of the Enterprising Britain 2010 competition held at the World Trade Centre in Hull. Delegates represented regional and local organisations, businesses and education establishments. Jane Walton Head of Enterprise UK in the region welcomed delegates and provided delegates with wishes of support from the regional minister and Linda McEvan MEP.

Laurie Jarmaine of Enterprise UK introduced the criteria for this years’ competition and answered questions from the floor regarding the different categories and the link to the European competition.

Nick Taylor provided a judge’s perspective referring to Scarborough’s experience and reflecting on the story that was told to win the regional, national and European competition and how the story has unfolded. He emphasised the need for applicants to provide the evidence of the progress that a place has made in terms of the contribution enterprise has made and the need to identify achievements that can then be supported with case studies and statistics.

Phil Hall who led the Hull entry in 2009 described Hull’s enterprise journey and highlighted the learning that partners had undergone during the process. Phil acknowledged the excellent work of Hull Youth Enterprise Partnership which enabled Hull to provide case studies in the form of young people who as a result of their exposure to enterprise were now running their own businesses in Hull. Amanda Hartley who runs her own florists provided her own take on the journey and told of how it had helped to boost her confidence and to raise the profile of her business. Helen Davies spoke about her role in telling Hull’s story through the printed leaflet and presentation and how a combination of story-telling and key statistics had created a winning entry.

Delegates congratulated Hull on being a finalist in the forthcoming European awards.

The event ended with networking and discussion around the new criteria. Delegates representing places which had previously entered the competition were able to share their experiences and representatives from organisations such as Yorkshire Forward and SEYH were able to suggest how they could support the drive to encourage places and organisations to come forward and enter the competition.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Enterprising Britain, Yorkshire and the Humber. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.