Enterprise UK Blog

Charley Mellowship is one of our most enthusiastic supporters of all things Make Your Mark. She’s written an article for the SSAT magazine which has kindly shared with us first…

This year at Heath Park Business and Enterprise College over 500 students are taking part in Make Your Mark with a Tenner, a national competition which challenges young people to be creative with a ten pound note.  Students are encouraged to not only make a profit from their ten pound, but to also help out their local community.  This year the entire Key Stage 3 cohort and all year 9 Business students are taking part.

We’ve all heard plenty of gloom and doom stories about the recession but here at Enterprise UK, it won’t surprise you that we’re quite upbeat about it all. It’s not just because we’re all ridiculously happy here at Enterprise UK Towers – it’s because we truly believe that the recession can be a time of potential.

One example, is for those who have found themselves redundant like 30 year old Matthew Crawford from Kent.

Nominations for the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion 2010 have now opened.  Lord Mandelson suggests that ‘recipients of The Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion (QAEP) are outstanding individuals who are inspiring tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and giving them the skills and attitudes they need to succeed’ and that ‘they hold the key to unlocking Britain’s entrepreneurial talents and they deserve all the praise and thanks we can give them.’

Last year’s winners of the Award included Make Your Mark Ambassador Jamie Murray-Wells and longstanding MYM friend Charles Cracknell, as well as others including lecturers, teachers and practitioners. If you feel that someone deserves recognition for their role in promoting enterprising skills and attitudes then nominate them now!

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

Ambassadors Kiss Me Cupcakes at the Met Academy Launch at Aston Villa FC

Last night saw the launch event of the eagerly anticipated MET Academy at Aston Villa Football Club – entitled Creating Young Stars.

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.

Social Enterprise West Midlands is running a trade fair for those looking to start or collaborate on social enterprise.

The social enterprise revolution starts on Tues 10th Feb at Centenary Square, Birmingham from 11:00 and what’s more is that it’s FREE: http://sewm.eventbrite.com

SEWM website: http://www.socialenterprisewm.org.uk

My last day of Enterprise Week (booo) was spent at Wolverhampon Molineux Stadium where I facilitated a group of students for the Wolverhampton EBP Business Challenge. The aim was to come up with a business idea that could potentially be franchised in the future. Out of the 9 schools that attended the group that won was, of course… the one facilitated by a Make Your Marker!

Last Thursday saw the Make Your Mark “roving” laptop enter Bescot Stadium in Walsall… Myself and Cheryl (and our trolley) took up our place at the Business Start Up and Growth Show where we attempted to get visitors to log onto our Unleashing Ideas website and post their business problems.

Many contacts were made throughout the day and we managed to get a few photos with one of our West Mids ambassadors Jo Cameron (some of you might recognise her from Series 1 of The Apprentice!).

Laura and I were press ganged into acting as judges for a special fashion challenge this week by Progressive Educational Tools (PET) and we had a great time – as did the participants.  Now you may think that Coventry isn’t a particuarly fashion forward place – eg Bex and her I love Coventry t-shirts, thanks Bex.  But you’d be wrong.

The two teams had mixed pupils from Sherbourne Fields and Blue Coats schools to take part in the challenge to produce and original fashion brand, including designs, logo and radio ad.

The car was at the school as part of a launch by Jaguar, along with the North Warwickshire Education Business Partnership and representatives from eight schools. 

Year 7’s at Ash Green School in Coventry got the chance to put their enterprise skills into practice when they were visited by a team from Warwickshire Education Business Partnership and members of the local business community.  

Over 200 students at Hereward College in Coventry got their teeth into bananas – and this year’s Make Your Mark Challenge. The students all attend the college which takes in 16-19 year olds from both the surrounding city area and countrywide.  All Hereward students have some kind of physical disability, so to have the paralympic values as part of the challenge was particularly relevant and poignant.