College hosts successful school business contest
YOUNG entrepreneurs were given the opportunity to showcase their “business minds” recently as they attempted to create winning pitches for a new health drink; this task being presented at a special business competition for local schools held at St Vincent College in Gosport.
More than ninety students from Cams Hill, Fareham Academy and Henry Cort School were divided into teams before being given a brief to create a business pitch. It focused upon the creation of a new healthy drink aimed at the target audience of “young people”; based upon their age groups of Year 9 and 10.
Students were asked to research existing products and then pick a name for their new drink; before creating marketing slogans and an advertising campaign. They had a limited amount of time to complete this range of tasks before having to pitch them to a panel of judges.
The teams were supported by Amy Holden, Charlie-Rose Sawyer and Jake Rolfe for the competitions; all three being current students at St Vincent College studying Business, IT and E-Sports. This helped the groups with research critical thinking and developments throughout this competition.
Overall it was a highly successful event with all teams receiving plaudits for their effort, passion and creative ideas throughout the day. And following conversations between judges it was decided that students from Fareham Academy were indeed the winners for their “Zest” drink.
They took away a selection of Amazon vouchers and gaming packs provided by the event sponsors; which were Churchers Solicitors, Menzies LLP and Dell. They were said to have “fully met the brief” given and the team “presented their pitches with huge passion / knowledge”.
One of the judges, St Vincent Vice Principal Alison Kent, said: “It was a really good day and all of the pupils seemed to enjoy it. The pitches were fast paced and very well presented to my fellow judges, Beverley Gent from Churchers Solicitors and Damian Berg, who is a placement student with Churchers.”
She added: “We were so impressed with the quality of research and standard of the pitches for the competition and know that we selected three worthy winning groups. We really enjoyed the day, which was well organised by Iain Sutherland and the business team and we look forward to hosting the event again next year as we loved meeting so many sharp business minds of the future.”
For more information on St Vincent and the range of courses being offered, readers can explore www.stvincent.ac.uk.
PICTURED BY ST VINCENT COLLEGE: Teams listen to speech before starting on their business competition brief.
