... the most exciting initiative in Enterprise Eduction we have seen for some time and I would recommend it to any school that wants to provide young people with real life business skills.

Those of you who have been following this story will know that uBiz Enterprise Education has been sponsoring a business competition between 10 groups of students from local Secondary Schools which has been running for the last 10 weeks. The competition culminated in a glittering event held at Stockport County Football Club.

During the evening which was attended by parents, teachers and members of the local business community and local authority each company was asked to present a stall within the Market Place and give a 3 minute presentation explaining the successes of their business.

Mark Davis General Manager of Sigma SDI, the providers of uBizEE Enterprise Education, worked directly with the students involved in the competition, helping each group through feasibility studies of their original business ideas and the production of a final business plan.

"There were some truly fantastic ideas that came out of the original session at the Study Centre, it is just a shame that time and budget restraints meant that students were unable to embark on the production of the "Magic Coffee Cup" or the "Self Washing Shower Cap". Each group was able to settle upon a strong business idea however, and I was extremely impressed with the quality and content of many of the business plans that were produced ."

Alan Resnick of uBiz Enterprise Education Announces the results

Alan Resnick Director of Sigma SDI and Chair of the judging panel said "We were very pleased to be asked to support the competition and were really impressed by the commitment and hard work put in by all those involved. This competition has given local students a chance to see for themselves what it is like to run their own business and provided them with invaluable experience - The future of local business would appear to be in safe hands!”

He went on to say, “… this has been a thoroughly enjoyable evening and the quality of the competition has been outstanding ".

The Judging Panel, left to right, Alan Resnick of uBizEE, sarah Gower Jones of Extended Schools, Simon King the Stockport FC commercial manager, and Mark Davis of uBizEE

Out of 200 marks that were on offer from the judging panel the two best teams were separated by just 2 points, with the "Sticko" team from Offerton High School edging it over “Froco”, a team from Stockport Academy, to become winners of the uBizEE Trophy. "...it was down to the quality of the final presentation on the evening, with the "Sticko" team being awarded 45 out of 50 for a humorous and confident presentation ". Alan Resnick explained.

Each member of the Sticko team was also awarded an I-pod, with further I-pods being won for individual excellence and outstanding effort by:

• Helen and James Butterfield from Kingsway School
• Derong Zhu & Jamie Moores from Stockport Academy
• Francesca Jewsbury from Reddish Vale Technology College
• Emma Dann and James Ryley from Priestnall School

Sarah Gower Jones from Stockport Extended Schools who sat as a judge said " the judging panel were extremely impressed with the "Sticko" teams logo and their performance on the stand during the market hall section of the evening. We were also impressed by the excellent strap-line produced by the Froco team. ".

When asked about the quality of the marketing of the students businesses Mark Davis said "Some of the students use of multi-media techniques, the production of professional advertisements for their products and the point of sale poster displays would rival any professional business. The students have shown a great deal of commitment and hard work in this area supported by Gary Richards and his team at the Study Centre"

Sticko. The winners of the Stockport Young Entrepreneurs of the Year 2009. Left to right: Michael Gough, mathew Bindley, Millie Wilson, Connor Young and Siobhan McGouan

It is hoped next year, that with further funding from the local authority and extended schools that the competition can be extended to include every secondary school in the area and the uBizEE team is very much looking forward to supporting the new set of budding entrepreneurs.

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