Supporting Young Enterprise Finals 2024
On 25 April, I joined Sue Egan and Richard Convery on the judges’ team. Ian McLellan – Chair of the YE Volunteer Team and Kevin Hardern, the Young Enterprise leads, invited me to this event.
Young Enterprise Volunteers
The Young Enterprise local team includes coordinators, business advisors, judges, and event supporters. These people donate their skills and time voluntarily. The team consists of about 20 people and 1000 hours per year.
My Team
In 2018, I supported the Young Enterprise team from Sir Henry Floyd in Aylesbury as their business advisor. Today, I can’t recall the product this group was selling, but I remember remarkable students leading this team. Observing and occasionally helping them during weekly meetings at school was a fascinating experience. I witnessed the team’s shifting dynamics, emerging leaders and, well, some slackers, too. It was a mixed-gender and mixed-ethnicity group that managed to create an inclusive but no-nonsense or egocentric culture. They didn’t win, but seeing them presenting in front of large audiences full of students from competing schools, parents, business support leaders, and teachers was amazing. I was simply proud of them.
Finals 2024
8 teams of secondary school students formed companies and invested their oven money in shares. They were working together on developing, promoting and selling their products.
Today, we judged the overall performance of all teams. This process included assessing annual reports, interviewing each team, and evaluating presentations.
All those students who didn’t drop out and persevered to the final stage are winners with good reasons to celebrate and feel proud.
Congratulations to all finalists and winning teams in the Young Enterprise UK competition held at The Aylesbury Vale Academy today!
PS
I found it very interesting to see and experience significantly different cultures of each group of students. I think the culture they represented is inherent in their school.
