Young Enterprise Trade Fair
On Friday 10th of February 26 pupils and 2 staff left Markethill high School to attend the annual Young Enterprise Trade Fair in Rushmere Shopping Centre. This was a great learning opportunity and both companies and the pupils on the quickstart programme had a great day. Take time to read the reports below.
Unity
On Friday 10th February we arrived at Rushmere Shopping Centre, Craigavon, and immediately we set up our stall. Our stall theme mainly consisted of rustic items to accompany our candles and jars. The items included were crates and baskets filled with hay and outlined with fairy lights. Within this then sat our products. Three iPads also sat on our desk, displaying a slideshow which contained images of our work and the creation of our products. A large chalkboard written upon with several different colours of chalk displayed our prices for the products and the types and scents of each. Our company banner was clearly stretched out on the front of our table.
Our group of eight people split up and went on half an hour shifts to manage the stall. Several of our members also walked around with baskets containing our rustic jars to entice people into visiting our stall. Some members also took candle samples to let customers smell them, in the hope that they would want to buy some.
At 2:00PM, four members of our group went to watch the awards ceremony for the Young Enterprise companies whilst our other four members managed the stall and continued to sell. Although no awards were given to our group we were still immensely proud of all the hard work and effort we had put into the day. We made around £100 profit so our work did pay off in some aspects.
Joel Butler (11CW)
Echo
For the trade fair, held on Friday the 12th of February, all nine members of the company attended and took their turn selling our product at the Echo stall. This was done in groups of three so that there would be someone to attend customers and manage the orders and income, whilst also not having the stall overcrowded. We had our hand designed slates at the stall and we also had two members circulating the shopping centre with a small crate filled with a selection of slates. This was a good experience as it provided the opportunity to interact more thoroughly with the potential customers and show them what we had to offer before directing them to our stall further into the centre. A number of sales were also made this way in the case of a customer liking a particular design.
Our stall was decorated with a black table cloth, on top of which we displayed a selection of slates crafted beforehand and frames with our sponsorship and prices inside. Behind the table was a large folding exhibition board. On this we hung a range of our larger slates, pictures of delivered slates, quotes from customers, pictures of the company members and the company information, for example our logo. Along the top of our board we draped fairy lights decoratively. We also displayed on the board our deal for the heart shaped slates which is ‘One for £5 or three for £12’. Each purchased slate was wrapped in bubble wrap and sealed in a brown paper bag. The trade fair was a great experience and we all learnt a lot about working in a group and dealing with the general public.
Amy Kennedy (11CW)
