EBG 2012 - Slovakia

So we're safely back from Slovakia after a fantastic European Business Game centred in Čadca; enjoying the hospitality of the local school, its staff and students.

Out Team:  Gabby, Freya, Gemma, Kari and Elise at the Final...

This year's EBG featured teams from Italy, Czech Republic, Croatia, Faroe Islands, France, England, Slovakia and, of course, Scotland.  The Overall winner was the Faroese Team " Grasstastic" but the Fortrose company "ScanIn Life" was a  very worthy runner-up.
 
A programme of visits and activities included a tour of the amazing KIA Slovakia site (for a taste of what we saw follow this link) and places of cultural significance including Strečno Castle (below)

The Team at The Castle

The completely incorruptible judges..

Thanks to our hosts for making this event so memorable...

For more information about EBG in Scotland, contact Kenny MacInnes, our National Project Coordinator.

Possible Sutherland Youth Summit

From the Sutherland Partnership:

"In 2011 a study commissioned by CVS North into the creation of a youth exchange programme highlighted the lack of opportunities available to young people in the area. It emerged from the consultation exercise that a desire existed amongst the young people to play a lead role in the creation of opportunities and activities for themselves.

As such the Sutherland Partnership in collaboration with CVS North and VGES is proposing a Sutherland wide Youth Summit to give young people the change to discuss what opportunities they would like to develop in Sutherland.

We are in the process of consulting with young people and have presented our ideas to the Sutherland Youth Forum. The Highland Youth Voice Rep’s suggested we develop a questionnaire in order to gather opinions and they have offered to help disseminate it. This and future consultation with young people will inform and shape the Sutherland Youth Summit."

For more information and the questionnaire, visit the Sutherland Partnership website: Link

Farr High School at the Young Enterprise Final

Farr Safer, with John Thurso MP, at the YE UK Final in the Savoy Hotel London

Well, unfortunately, we won't be troubling the trophy cabinet at Farr High School this year (they're going to have to build another one soon anyway) but the three-day Young Enterprise UK Final was a spectacular success in many other ways.  Our team, "Farr Safer" (see earlier articles) acquitted themselves remarkably well,  made many friends from the other teams and gained several business contracts for their ongoing entrepreneurial activities.  

The team travelled down to the rather nice Savoy Hotel in the school minibus (about 1400miles return) driven by Geordie and Kirsty -  and the other heroes must be Linda Thomas (Highland & Moray Chair) and David Charnley (the very proud Link Teacher) who helped make everything happen,  along with Ali Murray from Atlantic Marketing who coached the team in presentation skills.

However, most of the praise goes to Josh, Andrew, Hayley, Sam, Lucinda & Ritchie for being such fantastic amabassadors; not only for our area but for all of Scotland.  I've never seen students work so hard at a presentation; using virtually every opportunity to practice delivering their message and vision to an always-interested audience of business people.

It wasn't all work though, the long days included a visit to HSBC's HQ in Docklands (42 Floors above the city), a meal at Jamie's Italian in Covent Garden (thanks to Highland Opportunity) and some "culture" in the form of "Mamma Mia" Some of the team took the opportunity to tour the Houses of Parliament courtesy of John Thurso MP.





The eventual winners were Summit Enterprises from London and we wish them every success at the European Final in Norway.  We also pass on our thanks to the organising team at Young Enterprise UK; in particular the very hands-on Chief Executive, John May, for being such a brilliant Master of Ceremonies.

EBG Slidehow

And here are some pictures of the EBG Final.

Back from Italy...

The Ullapool High School Team (and Support Crew)

While I'm putting a Photo gallery together, here's a slideshow of the European Business Game Final held in Piacenza on the 28th June.  

 

The overall winning team came from France, Ullapool High School won the Social Responsibility Award and a great time was had by all.

STEP Awards

I spent a long, but enjoyable, day on Wednesday helping to judge the Classic STEP Awards for students placed within businesses across the Highlands & Islands.

In total, 34 students had been working within businesses, carrying out vital projects for their hosts and making a real and considerable difference to their employers in addition to developing their own professional and personal skills,

Ranging from cutting edge sustainable energy projects through to lifeline social enterprises,  it was a real struggle to come up with a winner from such diverse and high-quality submissions, but here are the results:

Winner: Kirsty Gordon, ABSL Power Solutions, Thurso, Product development project

2nd place John Watt, Inspiralba, Campbeltown, Social enterprise consultancy and support project

Runners-up  were:

Rachel Thomas, Cocoa Mountain, Durness, Social networking marketing project
Ewan Murray,Ice Factor, Kinlochleven, Sustainable energy research project
Yva Yorston, HISEZ, Inverness , Online sales feasibility study
Andrea Howard,  Rag, Tag n Textiles, Balmacara, Textile design and product development project

Congratulations to Ruth Sime (Highlands & Islands Enterprise) and Karen Darke (Inspire & Impact) for bringing the whole programme together.

For more details about STEP follow this link or contact Karen Darke at Inspire & Impact

EBG Part Deux

Well, the connectivity wasn't all it was cracked up to be so I'm now back in the office with the EBG update.

What a week of activity. Our French hosts looked after us well with some amazing entertainment coupled with business visits, networking events and, of course the Final which took place at the Regional Government Headquarters followed by the Award Ceremont and Farewell Dinner at the Limousin Visitor Centre. Here are a few pics of the Fortrose Team and some of the events.

The Overall Winners were the Danish team but Fortrose walked off with the Team (& Teacher) prize.
The whole event was the being filmed and the Final was featured live on French TV

Our heartfelt thanks go to Francis Obry, Nadine Rossignol and their team for being wonderful hosts for this year's event.

As a judge, it was the most difficult year yet as every competing country really put a real effort into the business ideas, reports and presentations. (One evening, the judges' meeting went on until midnight in 35degrees of heat until we came to a consensus - sometimes this job can be a real struggle).

European Business Game

On Sunday, Kenny MacInnes, EBG National Co-ordinator, and me are off to the European Business Game Final in Limoges (EBG) to join my fellow judges, teachers, co-ordinators and, of course, 60 students in five days of enterprise, youthful exuberance, civic and industrial visits with, believe it or not, some hard work and desperately partisan decision-making.

This long-running project now includes not only the competition but an evolving framework for European schools enterprise projects and co-operation. The network of EBG countries has generated spin-off projects and partnerships, and we are now at the stage where at least one former competing student is returning to EBG as an enterprise teacher.

Fortrose Academy (see earlier post) are representing Scotland and are competing against fierce competition from ten other European countries but I'm sure teacher Jacquie Ross has been preparing them well for the week ahead.

We start off in Brive and migrate to Limoges mid-week where we can all prepare for the Grand Final to be held at the Council of Limousin. The teams (well, most of them) have already submitted their reports but will be making formal presentations to the judges, an invited audience and a film crew.

In good old Eurovision style, I can't vote for our own team but I'm sure we all wish our students Sally, Keri, Joanna, Roxanne and Anya the very best of luck in this prestigious competition.

Pics from last year's competition in Copenhagen: