Youth Entrepreneur Project (Youth Achievement Award)

The idea of this project is to build a team of young people who are interested in creating a fully functioning and operational business model.

• 13-16 year olds
• Tuesdays 9.30 - 12.00 
• £10 per week (£150 for the season)
• All profits made will be shared equally amongst the team.
• Space for up to 8 Entrepreneurs.
• This project is designed for young people to attend independently (although parents are welcome to attend the introductory sessions)

This project launched over the summer with 4 young people aged 14 -16. The team ran a bespoke afternoon tea service, turning the large yurt at The Patch into a welcoming café experience; they designed a menu with home-made cakes, fruit skewers and lemonade, designed and created their logo, uniform and branding, and chose sustainable tableware.  From completing their food and hygiene certificates, and perfecting their recipes, to meeting and greeting customers, dealing with spilt drinks and dropped cakes, and cleaning up and resetting the café – the team did an amazing job to wonderfully encouraging feedback.

We are now looking to invite up to 4 other young people to join the team as they embark on the next stage of the project, and are delighted to have been selected to partner with UK Youth to offer this in conjunction with the Youth Achievement Award.

This project is designed for young people to attend independently.

The next stage of the project is to contribute to seasonal events that will be taking place at The Patch. The dates of the next stage of this project are:

• Tues 14th & 21st Sept (Opportunities to come and meet the team)
• Tues 28th Sept
• Tues 5th, 12th & 19th Oct
• Sat 23rd / Sun 24th Oct (Seasonal Event: Apple Day)
• Tues 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd & 30th Nov
• Tues 7th, 14th & 21st Dec
• Wed 22nd / Thurs 23rd / Fri 24th Dec (Seasonal Event: Winter Festival)

If you would like to get involved in this project, you are welcome to come along and meet Liz and the Youth Entrepreneur Team – on one of the ‘come and meet the team’ sessions on Tues 14th and/or Tues 21st Sept.

A message from Liz regarding the project:

Through my years of experience as a facilitator, working to empower young people in a collaborative and vibrant environment, the model that we will be developing is one based on role modelling, hands on skill sharing, experiential development and real-life scenarios.

Through the planning and preparation stage the team will be introduced to a series of components, which when pulled together will culminate in a fully functioning business model. This framework will be a robust structure which can then be applied to any industry / business model.

The key components will include (but not restricted to):

• Design and branding: logos, website, literature, print, uniform etc.
• Marketing and publicity: website content, booking systems, social media, local advertising, radio interviews etc.
• Funding: income, outgoings, balance sheets, overheads, materials, loans, banking etc.
• Business requirements: Insurance, industry standard qualifications (food prep, health and hygiene), trading names, company registration, employment contracts etc.
• Business content: mission statements, USP (unique selling point)
• Customer service: communicating with the public, dealing with problems and complaints, presentation etc.
• Environment: site set up, cleanliness, health and hygiene, first aid
• Sales: pricing, refund policy, research into other organisations

These components will be compiled in a business portfolio, which each team member will create. This will act not only as a way of recording this experience, but also enable them to refer to this for future projects.