Westhaven School

'an outstanding school' (Ofsted)

    'Friday 13th' - Young Enterprise Team Programme

Young Enterprise Team Programme 2006/07

This is the second year we have participated in the Young Enterprise Team Programme.  It proved to be such a great success last year with ‘Bloom ‘n’ Pots’ we were all hoping it would be just as successful again this year, if not more so.

During the first lesson for the new group of year 10’s they met with Tony Smith, our Business Advisor, who showed them a DVD about running a business.  Tony talked to them about how they would have to work as a team to make this a successful company.  They then had to decide on who would take on the roles in their company.  Each of them voted on paper and the results were counted up.  The group had then to decide what their company would be called. There were many suggestions, but it was finally decided that they would call themselves ‘Friday 13^th’ as that was the day and date of their first meeting.

Their next job was to sell shares to family, friends, staff and pupils. They sent letters home and set a closing for buying shares of date of 30^th November. At break times they set up a table to sell their shares, which was very successful.  Shares sold @ 50p  - 1051   =   £525.50

Having their own company top was also discussed, and they decided on a polo T-shirt in purple, but Mrs Bailey only managed terracotta which was suitable and they voted they would pay for these themselves.

‘Friday 13^th’ went on to do a lot of research into superstitions in books and on the internet. They had to consider whether they would follow the superstition idea or not. Charlie drew some super sketches of some superstitions and the group coloured them in, this went on to become their calendar. They went on to work on dates for each page and then finally it came together. Charlie had tried to make the images match the month, so the end product looked really professional.

Another product they decided to put together was a Christmas Hamper pot, the group decided on what they would put in the pot. They had a choice of size of pot, luxury or standard. They then decided to fill all the pots with a cracker joke, a joker card, a Christmas chocolate treat and a small Christmas cracker. But they became luxury by including a soft toy and standard by including a puzzle game or a pack of cards.

Finally they made a selection of Christmas cards.

All these products were taken to the Trade Fair in the Sovereign Centre in Weston-super-Mare in December.  This was on a Sunday, so they all had to use their own time for their company, but there was a really good turn out of company members and they did extremely well selling to the public for the first time.  This was also a competition between other schools and colleges and when the judge from the HSBC Bank came round ‘Friday 13^th’ could tell the judge how they had worked together and how much they had learned about running their company.  Yeehaa!  They had won Best Stand and had a trophy to take back to school. What a fantastic achievement for them as well as selling lots of their products to the public and making lots of money for their shareholders!

This event was so successful that they needed to purchase more pots and make more calendars, which were sold at the Christmas Bazaar.  Both Christmas events was very successful, selling 50 pots and taking orders for 80 calendars, making £103.90 profit at the Trade Fair and £336.54 profit at the Bazaar and on calendar orders.

The New Year was here and they had to think of a new product. But it was discovered that there had been an error in the dates in the calendar. This had to be dealt with professionally, so a letter was sent out to advise everyone of the problem and amended sheets were sent out to paste over the mistake. The lesson learned by all of us from this that was we needed quality control, we needed to check everything that was made or put together.  

Love is in the air and the company decided that they would make Valentines Day cards and sell gifts for ladies, men and girls.  The ladies bag was a toilet bag containing toiletries with a red rose pen and a love lolly.  The men’s gift was a boxed mug with a can of spray and a love lolly in a gift bag.  The girl’s gift contained a pink bag, a jewellery item, a love lolly, an eraser and a note pad.  They were very fortunate to be asked to sell their products from a trade stand at Sanders Garden World.  This was a great experience for all the company members, selling their products to the public.  Wearing their newly purchased T-shirts, they all looked very professional.  The rest of their products were sold successfully at break times, making an overall profit of £79.09 for their Valentines products.

March came and it was Mother’s Day, time to start planning their next product. Again they made cards and sold Mother’s day mugs and teddies.  These were sold at break times and again this had been a successful event, making £74.45 profit.

It was now Easter and chocolate was calling!  The company decided to sell a soft chick toy with a chocolate treat in an Easter gift bag, also a chocolate rabbit in an Easter gift bag along with their hand made Easter cards.  These were sold at break times.  Another good event making £72.66 profit.

In May ‘Friday 13^th’ were invited to Kings Weston House in Bristol to attend a Young Enterprise area competition.  Almost all the company members were able to attend and they all wore their company T-shirts.  Tony Smith had made them all a name badge which they opted for over having their names or company name sown on them as Bloom ‘N’ Pots had wanted. They arrived at the Kings Weston House with their files of evidence from all their past projects, all minutes and agendas from every meeting and samples of everything they had made so far. Between them all they could tell the judges all about their company and as they always have done worked well as a team.  A report also had to be put together by them to include everything there was to know about their business.  They also had to put on a presentation for the judges which went well.  They were all very nervous, but then it was result time.  ‘Friday 13^th’ won Best Stand, Best Report and Best Overall.  Wow -  what an achievement, they had done so well, there was only one award they didn’t win. 

 Summer didn’t really arrive but ‘Friday 13^th’ were ready!  They put together a verity of pots with a selection of plants.  Of course it was Fathers day too and they hand made some cards.  They made two types of card, one for Father’s Day and the other was an open greeting card with old photos of Weston area on them.  This event was all a little manic as they were doing their Work Experience at the same time.   They sold their products first at the Summer Bazaar and then at break times.

Their final profit for the summer was £127.75, another brilliant result.

Almost the last event of the year was another competition at The Lighthouse in Poole, as they had won the area competition at Kings Weston House they would enter the regional South West finals.  Again almost every company member was able to attend and we even managed to arrange for Mrs Slade to attend with Tony and Celia Smith, (who met us there) Mr. Richardson, Mr. Davies, Mrs. Kirk and Mrs Bailey.  There were ten other businesses there in this huge place.  It was very nerve racking for everyone. They arrived again with their company report and all their evidence and again some samples of products. All the company members again could tell the judges everything there was to know about ‘Friday 13^th’ and as the judges left their stand you could see a tear in the judges eye from being so overwhelmed by their team work and enthusiasm.  All the staff knew whatever happened they had tried the best.  After a lovely buffet lunch it was result time.  The first award was for the category of the competition we had entered and they did it again, they won that one too. What a fantastic end to their year in business.

Only one thing left to do was to pay back their shareholders, so the financial director and team got together and calculated takings, expenses and profit. Also having to pay VAT at 17.5% and corporation tax too at 10%, but it’s what happens to a real business.

The final return…

1  share  @   50p    now   £1.06            =     116% profit    

What a fantastic return on your money!

Another amazing year in business for ‘Friday 13^th’, they had a hard act to follow with such an impressive result from last years ‘Bloom ‘N’ Pots’ but they did it again.  But we must say a big thank you to Tony Smith, our business advisor, for all his hard work, we couldn’t do it with out him.  Also another thank you to Mr. Richardson for all his help, support and guidance.