Make Your Mark Blog

A young man from Lowestoft has been chosen for the prime minister’s Global Fellowship - having found success during the Make Your Mark Challenge.

19 year-old Richard Miner from Lowestoft, is one of 100 young people chosen for the prime minister’s Global Fellowship - a programme designed to encourage and nurture oustanding talent and enterprise.

Depsite his obvious hard work and talent, Richard credits his success to the Make Your Mark team and his participation in the Make Your Mark Challenge whilst at school. During the challenge,  Richard and a group of friends established ‘UnHeard Entertainment’, a music management and PR company and as a result of their success, went on to attend the Make Your Mark in Music networking event in london, with Richard also becoming a founding member of YELP (Young Enterprising Lowestoft People) - a local network set up with the help of the local Make Your Mark team.

Richard says:  I believe strongly that getting on this chance of a lifetime, is in part due to the huge amount of support you and the whole Make Your Mark collective  gave myself and ‘UnHeard Entertainment’. It certainly allowed us to all become more knowledgeable about the ways of business and helped greatly in building a self-confidence in ourselves. The experiences that I have had due to ‘Unheard’ were priceless and I personally have a lot to owe you for those and the contacts made from Make Your Mark.”

As part of the fellowship programme, Richard is due to spend six weeks in India including two weeks in a school or college working as a language assistant and two weeks as the guest of a global company to get an understand of international business.

In November, Richard and the other fellowship members, will join the prime minister Gordon Brown to take part in ‘Global Entrepreneurship Week’ as part of the Make Your Mark campaign.

The Eastern Region Make Your Mark Team would like to congratulate Richard on this fantastic achievement and highlight how participating in Enterprise Week can really help young people to make their mark!

A man left 17 camels to his 3 sons. He left half to his eldest son, a third to his middle son, and a ninth to his youngest.

The 3 sons set about dividing up their inheritance but could not negotiate a solution - because 17 cannot be divided by 2 or 3 or 9.

The sons need to consult an enterprising young person to come up with a solution…

Can you come up with the PERFECT solution to keep all 3 sons happy?

Can you solve the riddle with a bit of creative thinking and a little bit of maths?

Please send your solutions to julie@makeyourmark.org.uk

Make Your Mark was in Newcastle last week to talk to students about the importance of networking.

Pure Potential is the only independent organisation that helps tens of thousands of bright students from the state sector with their journey through UCAS forms, university life, student finance and career choices.

There were presentations on how to write personal statements, how to impress at interviews and how to budget.

Make Your Mark made a presentation to the students on the importance of networking. ‘Innocent Smoothies’ was discussed as a case study on the importance of networking. Did you know that the founders of the business decided to give up the traditional route to graduate careers and set up a smoothie making business? They were three young people with no money and therefore getting a new business off the ground looked like a tall order. So…they asked for help. They thought about their personal network, and got in touch with everyone they knew, asking for help with their business idea, and by contacting business contacts, family and friends they eventually met an investor who gave them the essential start-up cash they needed to make their idea happen.

The students at the Pure Potential event were encouraged to think about THEIR network of friends, family, neighbours.. and put a plan in place to start building it.

Three simple ways to make networking work:

Your Profile: Get known and make sure people remember you.

Good will: Create good will and people are more likely to support you.

Keep in touch: Network to build contacts – 80% of opportunities come from people you know!

Are you a student in the North East who wants to make their mark at school or college? Why not set up a Make Your Mark Club?

Contact Julie@makeyourmark.org.uk / 01642 451826 for more information.

Yesterday we hosted an event to unleash ideas for Enterprise Week 2008 at Beamish Hall. The day saw lots of networking amongst teachers, business people and those involved in enterprise delivery.

Pamela Hargreaves, Head of Campaign, welcomed our guests before Chris Spavin gave a presentation on Global Entrepreneurship Week and many of our guests shared ideas they have about how they plan to give Enterprise Week’s events an international flavour. Durham Community Business College are interested in ethical fashion. St Michael’s School in Billingham will be handing over Enterprise Week 2008 to the students who will be arranging events with an ethical twist. Staindrop Business and Enterprise College will be investigating why China’s economy is booming. Students will be looking at products that are made in China and investigating why they are made there. The students plan to visit China and go into a joint venture with a school there.

Tori James gave an inspirational speech. She was the first ever Welsh female to climb Mount Everest and shared the highs and lows of her adventure.

Tori also talked about Make Your Mark Clubs for schools and colleges. The Make Your Mark Club is for young enterprising people who want to make ideas happen while they’re at school or at college. It’s easy to run your own Make Your Mark Club and you can use this site to swap ideas or share information about your club. Want more information? Contact Julie@makeyourmark.org.uk / 01642 451826

Guests were then treated to 2 workshops……

One was delivered by Emma Farrell. This was all about Web Magic! She showed us how to utilise wikis, blogs, virals and other digital marketing techniques. Would you like to take a look at our twitter feed?

http://twitter.com/makeyourmark

One was delivered by Phil Tulba. He showed us the exciting world of social enterprise. He explained what a social enterprise is and gave examples. We watched the ‘Trailblazers’ DVD. Copies of the Trailblazer’s magazine can be downloaded at:

http://www.makeyourmark.org.uk/get_involved/mym_change_lives

Phil informed our guests about the One Water Challenge. This year, One Water and Make Your Mark have teamed up to launch the One Water Challenge for schools in the UK. Teams of schoolchildren (aged 14-19) will be given bottles of One Water and just one month in which to sell as many bottles as possible, in as innovative a way as possible. They could get them signed by a celebrity, or turn the bottle label into a piece of artwork, or sell them at school or at their parent’s workplace. The idea is to use all of their creativity and enterprise skills to sell One Water. After repaying the original cost of the water, what they do with the profit is up to them. They can keep it, invest it in more water, or even pursue another idea. Schools will be encouraged to sign up in September and bottles of water will be delivered to students for Social Enterprise Day (Thursday November 20, 2008) during Enterprise Week and Global Enterpreneurship Week. More information available at: http://www.enterpriseweek.org.uk/getinvolved/onewater

Guests could also take part in ‘Talkaoke’ – known as the ‘doughnut’ of chat, is a mobile chat show which invites participants to sit down and air their views around the Talkaoke table, as well as North East Bond’s Launch Pad which isdesigned to encourage all kinds of people to set up in business or to create a social enterprise.

Enterprise Week 2008 is fast approaching and our new site went live this week. Find out more at http://www.enterpriseweek.org.uk/

Download resources and presentations:

Social Media Presentation

Global Entrepreneurship Week Presentation

Enterprise Week 2008 overview - North East

Many thanks to One NorthEast, our speakers and our guests would made yesterday’s meet up a great success!

There is still time to register to join us at a special North East event, exclusively for Enterprise Week event organisers , delivery partners and supporters of the campaign.

Date: Tuesday 1st July

Time: 12 noon - 3pm

Location: Beamish Hall Hotel, DH9 0YB

For more information, contact the Make Your Mark Team on 01642 451826

We have a summer time referral scheme, where teachers can win a prize!

To welcome our new Clubs and as a thank you to our existing Clubs, we are launching a competition exclusively for North East Make Your Mark Clubs!

Simply answer the following challenge:

What is YOUR school or college going to do to put it on the map during Enterprise Week 2008 and why should we launch Enterprise Week 2008 there?

Tips and tricks:

Ø Although the students in the Make Your Mark Club will be responsible for pulling all ideas together, why not get the whole school to contribute with suggestions?

Ø Get as many students involved as possible in your Enterprise Week event.

Ø Could you make use of any links you have with local businesses/ social enterprises/ community groups/ other schools?

Ø Show us which enterprise skills you could demonstrate/ develop during Enterprise Week.

Ø As a team, can you make use of your strengths and interests, and work them into your event?

Criteria for Entry:

Ø Your submission should be no more than 2 pages of A4 and can include photos, drawings and other additional materials to support your ideas.

Ø Your school or college must have registered for a Make Your Mark Club by the closing date.

Ø Please include details of where your event will take place, how many people will be in attendance and a contact name at your school or college.

Ø Highlight how your ideas support the message of Enterprise Week and which skills young people will learn during the activity.

Ø Your school must be taking part in the Make Your Mark Challenge on Monday 17^th November as this will be the feature of the launch of Enterprise Week.

Ø All students must have the relevant permission slips for photography/ PR.

Please submit your enterprising ideas to: julie@makeyourmark.org.uk

Deadline for submission: September 19th 2008

Prize:

Ø Enterprise Week 2008 for your sub region will be LAUNCHED at your school / college!

Ø £50 will be awarded to the winning Clubs to help bring their ideas to life during Enterprise Week.

Ø We will run special features on our website and in our communications on your plans for Enterprise Week and follow your Club as it turns ideas into reality.

We will have a winner from each of the four sub regions – Tees Valley, Durham, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland. Winners will be announced September 29th 2008.

Good luck!! Let’s make this year’s Enterprise Week the biggest and best yet!

Of course ALL schools and colleges are invited to get involved in Enterprise Week 2008 but this particular competition is open only to North East Make Your Mark Clubs!! If you don’t already have a club, it’s not too late to join! To set up a club or for more information, please contact julie@makeyourmark.org.uk / 01642 451826 / 07825 989005

Hi, Shed here… Might I say how gorgeous you look today…

This month, I’ll prove to you that the process for turning your ideas into amazing adventures is wonderfully and devilishly simple. It goes something like this: you have an idea in your head, you take steps to make it happen - then… incredible opportunities arise:

All you have to do is START DOING SOMETHING NEW…

THE WORLD’S NEWEST CELEBRITIES - let’s see what you think…

This is a great example of how an idea can cause an adventure. Three years ago, I created a new range of sweets - and unknown to me, a packet of those sweets got sent to a guy in China called ‘Dominic’. He called me up, we became great friends and three years later - just recently - Dom flew me out to Beijing for a book launch for my new title, IDEAS MAN.

Years before I made contact with Dom, I’d been trying to release a new set of ‘trading cards’ for kids (the full exciting story is chronicled in my book). The range of characters is called ‘HELLEBRITIES‘, and here are a couple:

Even though the HELLEBRITIES trading cards never got the backing for a global launch, whilst I was in China I took the opportunity to see if I could turn some characters into 3D Figurines instead. What’s brilliant about China is that there are loads of talented people over there who can help with your idea (for a much lower price than here), and they’re even reachable through the internet (just Google ‘China Manufacturers’). Here’s what the sculptor produced:

If you’re a manufacturer or a retailer and you’d like to help make the HELLEBRITIES range the huge worldwide success it deserves to be, please get in touch through my personal site.

So that shows you how one idea (my range of sweets) can then create a huge adventure (a trip to Beijing) and also make another idea come to life (the HELLEBRITIES models). Pretty exciting!

And this is proof that…

***WHEN YOU START MAKING A NEW IDEA HAPPEN, YOU NEVER QUITE KNOW WHERE IT MAY TAKE YOU…***

All the best and here’s to your ideas!

Yours,

Shed

———————————————————————————————–

Shed’s bestselling, inspiring and amusing book IDEAS MAN is out now.

See more of his adventures and products on www.IdeasMan.co.uk

Read Shed’s inspiring story.

———————————————————————————————–

Park View is doing some fantastic work around enterprise and is setting a very high standard for local schools.

A Year 10 OCR National class have set up their very own French restaurant ‘Je T’aime’. A fully fledged restaurant set up in school for the general public, staff, students and parents to come and enjoy French cuisine.

Another year 10 group are running a social enterprise business ‘Happy Earth Co’, they produce branded merchandise, for example Tee Shirts, badges, bracelets etc… with slogans such as ‘This Tee Shirt Bought Someone a Goat’. With the profits made animals and resources are sent to developing countries to help them thrive.

Park View has been involved with Make Your Mark for a long time and we look forward to the next installment from the school!

We had our own version of the Apprentice final yesterday when some of our regional teams were in Birmingham for some media training with the COI. Two teams had to come up with some ideas to extend media interest in Enterprise Week, both beforehand and afterwards.

To much giggling Alex Ross (our Alan Sugar) appeared through a cupboard door to the Apprentice theme music except the CD had been paused in the wrong place so that didn’t really go to plan. Sandra from the COI and I were his Nick and Margaret although we managed not to alienate any university towns with our comments.

We picked team two although we have made budget available to make ideas happen from both teams; these include ‘Five Go Live’ where we get five entrepreneurs in each region to do regular blogs, ‘Beacon of enterprise’ which shines a spotlight on enterprising places around the UK and someone dressing up as ‘Billy Business Banana’ who would visit the high streets of towns across the UK to hear your business ideas. Katy was heard to mention she could even bungy as a banana…

Watch this space for further developments. As for the actual Apprentice final my money’s on Claire although I’ll have to watch it on i-player later in the week so don’t tell me what happens!!!

The Make Your Mark Challenge has a new theme for this year and we’d like to give you a sneak preview of what the design is going to look like.

The Make Your Mark Challenge is the largest one day enterprise competition for students at Key Stage 4, sixth form and in FE college. There were 38,000 students taking part last year and this year we want it to be even bigger.

We want to know what you think of our new theme… please email jude@makeyourmark.org.uk with your thoughts.

As we turn the corner of a new era, we need new people to help us continue with our enterprise message - As the new HR manager I am excited to have some great opportunities available to continue the enterprise message through our people. We are looking for people ready for new challenges and passionate about what we do - whether you are a self confessed enterprise junkie or want to embark on an amazing new journey you might just be in with a chance - so who’s in?

Vanessa

Enterprise Junkie - and - Make Your Mark HR Manager