Shropshire’s young entrepreneurs head for Shrewsbury
Budding entrepreneurs from across Shropshire will put their business skills to the test in Shrewsbury’s Darwin Centre this weekend.
The centre will play host to Shropshire Young Enterprise as up to 15 teams of school students and their embryo businesses set up on the Centre’s Lower Level Blue Carpet area.
The day-long Trade Fair will showcase the range of enterprises set up by pupils from secondary schools across the county and organiser David Barker, Area Manager for
Young Enterprise, said: “The students involved are aged from 15 to 19 and this will be an exciting day for them and a real introduction to the world of work.
“These groups have to set up and run their own companies during a school year and by the end of it we hope to have created a group of young businesspeople.
“On Saturday we will take over the bottom level of the Darwin Centre and the students will arrive with their products, set up their stalls and transform the area into a mini trade fair.
“We will have the Lord Mayor of Shrewsbury there and plenty of media interest and it should be a really good experience for them.
“The Darwin Centre is a good place for them to learn, the footfall is high and it is a good opportunity to sell their wares and advertise their services to the general public.”
Kevin Lockwood, Manager of the Darwin, Pride Hill and Riverside Shopping Centres, said: “We’re delighted to host this event and to have these young school students cut their business teeth here in the Darwin Centre.
“This is a serious business for them and they’re out to make money and that’s the best way to learn lessons which will stand them in good stead whichever walk of life they embark on.
“From our point of view it obviously also adds to the already varied retail mix we have here at the Shrewsbury Shopping Centres and it is highly likely that many of these young people will go on to work in the retail sector.
“Some of them may well work here and I’m sure the experience they have gained will be very valuable to them in their careers.”
Young Enterprise has been in existence since 1963 and annually involves over 5,000 schools in England and Wales while those who have been involved likely to go to better paid and more rewarding jobs and be twice as likely to start their own businesses.
David Barker added: “Most of the businesses tend to be arts and crafts based but while they are often quite simple they can also be very innovative.
“Young people today are very aware of TV programmes like Young Apprentice and Dragons Den and they want their 15 minutes of fame and this provides them with a fantastic experience.
“When they go away to university or apply for jobs they can talk about something they have done which is outside the classroom and so it broadens their range of experience.
“The turnover tends to be in the hundreds rather than the thousands but at the end of the year when we close them down we pass them on to the Prince’s Trust and if they have a viable idea then they can end up as fully-fledged businesses.
“This year we have some recycling businesses, using old clothing to make draft excluders etc, jewellery businesses and a company from the Marches School, Oswestry, which makes Swedish Candles, mini patio heaters made from logs.
“A lot of schools have quite sophisticated design and technology departments and the principle we teach them is that whatever the raw material, if they can add value to it then it will sell.”
