After a successful trade fair at the Mall last week, the students were all in good spirits coming into the meeting yesterday. It was a very good job too, as the meeting started off with a very in-depth brief for the students about the upcoming area heats and all the preparation they would have to do. This preparation ranged from writing and completing a company report for submission on Wednesday 7th March to preparing a Dragons Den style pitch for the judges. It is going to be a very busy week!
Once the brief was over, Billy as meeting chair, divided up the tasks (focusing on the company report) so each director had an element to complete. As so much had to be incorporated into the report, everyone had a lot to do. Tom W and Theo focused on the finances and worked with Billy to ensure that the YE online reports were fully up to date before pulling interim accounts and writing a synopsis. Hannah focused on the company’s mission statement, goals and values, Lily focused on the enterprise, Tom F focused on our digital marketing, Daniel and Joe on the growth of the company and the lessons learnt and finally James on the community impact and future opportunities of the business. With so little time, it was fantastic to see so much effort being put into the report and the quality of writing being so high. All I could hear throughout the entire meeting yesterday was the tip tap of keyboards (which is very rare indeed!) With each section near completion, it is now Billy’s job to compile each section and incorporate it into the pre-developed report template. He has one busy day ahead of him! Now this is all on track, the company have decided to focus on the stand design ahead of the area heats. Following the feedback given to them at the Mall trade fair, the judges said that the stand needed to be more appealing to kids, so this was their challenge! What could they do? Make the stand more vibrant in colour, incorporate toys, noises, sweets, playdough? The possibilities are endless, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with. As a little aside, but I thought it was a very nice piece of news to share, the company received an email from Sophie Fjeld-Wong, aged 5 yesterday. Sophie and her mum Erika, visited the students at their stand at the Mall last weekend and purchased a recipe pack. They shared how much they have enjoyed using the recipes and tasting the delicious results! Alongside this very positive feedback, Sophie noticed the competition which the students incorporated into their Christmas cookbook which was to ‘guess the characters names’ ahead of their new product release (which we now know is the recipe cards). Sophie was very excited about this and came up with names inspired by family, teddies and friends that they as a family know and love. These are shared below:
As Sophie has done such an amazing job, the company are sending her a recipe pack of her choice as a special well done!
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Over the weekend Phonic Farm set up shop for the second time, but rather than being outside in the freezing cold at St Nicks Market they were at the Mall, Cribbs Causeway. It was a very early start once again for the company on Saturday, with a quarter of the team setting up from 8.30am. Why arrive an hour early you might say? This was decided upon to ensure they landed the best sales spot but could also make the stand the best it could be in terms of visual appearance. Once the Mall doors opened, the team were raring to go with vast amounts of enthusiasm to make their first sale. The morning didn’t go as well as the company hoped, with limited sales being made. With this said however once 11am hit, the crowds started to pile in and the sales started to fly! The lunchtime shift, which Billy, Hannah and Tom manned (see photo) proved a massive success. Luckily this was also the time the judges used as their prime visiting opportunity! The judging was made up of 4 categories; product quality, customer service, social media appearance and overall stand presentation. With several strong teams in the mix, we knew it was going to be hard to stand out. Unlike the trade fair at St Nicks, we are still awaiting the final scores from the judges – we will keep you posted. Without being bias, the team did extremely well, and I hope they continue to maintain their strong position within the team standings. The praise I have for the company is not solely my own. Throughout the day the students received very positive feedback from customers about the unique qualities of their product, especially the creative stories and QR code extension. They also received feedback on the quality of their website (they are the only team that have created their own standalone website to promote their product!), the ‘learning through phonics’ element as it was so creative and quirky for children as well as their ‘time for tea’ trade stand presentation. They also kept very much on trend with the Unicorn craze as their ‘Unity the Unicorn’ story and matching cookie cutter were the best sellers! At 4pm, after a full day and several shift changes later the company closed shop and tallied up their sales. They successfully sold £70 worth of products which was a fantastic achievement especially as this was the harder of the two trade fairs. Our next company meeting is later this afternoon, so Clare and I will ask the students to reflect on the outcome of the trade fair and decide where to sell the remaining stock. Finalising their business plan ahead of the area final heats on the 15th March is also a top priority! After a short half term break, the students were back in action yesterday preparing for the second trade fair which is taking place at the Mall, Cribbs Causeway this Saturday (24th February).
As there were many elements to finalise, Billy kicked off the meeting with a round table discussion to find out where each manager had got to with their respective tasks. Tom, the IT manager, was up first and provided a full website and social media update. After several months of building work, the website officially went live last week (https://phonicfarm.weebly.com/) and has plenty of features to shout about including a blog section and links to the extended versions of the children’s stories. Following Tom’s update, Theo and Tom from Finance stepped up to give the team a full overview. At present, the company have broken even, so they need a strong cash injection to get them into profit. This isn’t the outcome the company were hoping for, but it has given them the motivation to sell hard this weekend! Joe and James, the two Operations Directors, were up next updating everyone on the whereabouts of the stock. The printing and laminating of the recipe cards have all been organised, the utensils all ordered but it is the cookie cutters have been proving a little mischievous. One set is with us, one set is still on route from China, one set is on order ready for collection and the final set is available in parts from various stores across the region. It will be such a relief once Saturday comes, but it’s going to be a bit of a logistical headache to get everything beforehand. The bags, following some confusion hadn’t been ordered, so once this had come to light James and Joe used the remainder of the meeting to rectify this situation. The bags are now on order and will be with the company by Wednesday. After this eventful update, it was the turn of Hannah, the Marketing Director to give a visual presentation of her stand layout ahead of the fair. She came with some fantastic ideas from ‘setting the table for tea’ using teapots, cake stands, mixing bowls and colourful table cloths and runners to producing ‘stage signs’ to visually represent the ‘pick-n-mix’ concept to customers. She also had the brilliant idea to use the remaining Christmas cookbook stock as a ‘free gift’ to each customer who purchases a recipe card pack. Lily then updated everyone on the plans for the trade fair by reviewing the rota and finalising the dress code. Enis then provided an update on the sales pitch which he had written. He ran through this to ensure fully understood it and highlighted the key sales points. It was great to see the company’s organisation and enthusiasm for the product they’ve produced. Finally, it was the turn of CSR Directors Nick and Dan. As they had previously implemented their CSR plans for sustainable printing, they used the half terms break to focus on the business plan. They ran over what they had produced and everyone added comment to what else they could include. Max, the Company Secretary, who has been working tirelessly on putting the business plan together then pitched in updating everyone on the sections that have been completed and the sections that were still missing. It was good to see the business plan coming along, and that Max had taken the proactive approach to distribute the remaining tasks. With the full company update complete, each Director was aware of where their responsibilities lie and what needed to be done before the weekend. As their Business Advisor, I am looking forward to seeing the finished product come together and be shown to the public. They deserve a successful event after all the time and effort they have put in. Don’t forget to visit Phonic Farm from 9am on Saturday at the Mall Cribbs Causeway. Their stand will be located near the Prosecco bar on the first floor. The company and I look forward to seeing you there! This week’s company meeting was slightly different. We had the Area Manager for Young Enterprise, Gillian Hayward, join the students for an informative presentation on everything to do with the upcoming trade fair and the company’s business plan.
Luckily the lessons fell so that the students were able to stay for 2 hours. The first part of the meeting was with Gillian, were lots of inquisitive looks were seen around the room. As this was the first time that most of the team had met Gillian, they were trying to get as much information from her about the competition and what the judges are looking for to be successful moving forward. After Gillian had left, the team had a lot of things to get on with. The first thing the team did was sit down to deliberate the pricing of their product. The Finance team, Tom and Theo, led this discussion by firstly asking which way the product should be sold to re-confirm their pricing structure. The options were, individually priced items, a ‘pick n mix’ style product as initially discussed or a pre-packed set. The team decided to continue with their original plan of a ‘pick n mix’ style product so the Finance department spent the rest of the meeting working out final costings for this. By the end of the day, they concluded each ‘pick n mix’ product will be sold for £4.50. As soon as the consensus for which way the product should be sold was decided, the rest of the team got back to their individual tasks. Lily and Hannah sat down to finalise their stories and work on the design of the product, Joe made the final purchases on the utensils, cookie cutters and bags, Tom worked hard to get the website ready to launch by adding a new element for the extended stories and blog, Dan and Nick started to construct their part of the business plan and Billy, Max and James starting to put all of the content required for the business plan together into one document. As part of this business plan, Max as Company Secretary and Enis as Sales, took the initiative to take photos of each member to identify who is who. The team loved this idea and had a full-blown photoshoot! Enis even managed to get himself into each photo as Sales Director shaking hands over the ‘signed business contract’. The team dynamic was stronger than ever, and their productivity reflected this. It was fantastic to see especially with the trade fair and business plan deadlines creeping closer each week. With the success of this week, each student’s tasks are fully on track. To continue this momentum, Lily has been asked to finalise the trade fair rota ensuring everyone is aware of the slot they are doing and Enis has been asked to confirm and advertise the next cake sale. The last cake sale they did went down very well as they raised £60. This was just the cash injection they needed so with any luck the next sale will be as successful. Following on from the success of our last few meetings, the students have been busy preparing for the upcoming trade fair at the Mall on Saturday 24th February.
The group have finalised their ‘pick n mix’ packs in which customers will get to choose 2 recipe cards, 1 utensil and 1 cookie cutter. 4 recipes have been developed by the students, 2 savouries and 2 sweet to enable customers a choice. The idea being that parents can cook 2 delicious meals with their children, a main course which aligns with healthy eating and a sweet course to give them that little sugar burst. To add a little extra to the recipe cards, the students have designed stories to sit alongside based on the characters introduced previously. The characters chosen for the finalised products are ‘Albert the Alligator’, ‘Eli the Elephant’, ‘Flora the Flamingo’ and ‘Unity the Unicorn’. Based on the recipe chosen, the story aligns with its specific character going on an adventure to find or give the food to their friends. The stories range from the character flying over the city to a character trying to escape and see the zoo’s science fair. All the stories have been written by the students and are a fantastic example of the creative minds they have! This isn’t all, the students have developed this concept further, and with each recipe card purchased, there is an extension of the story which customers must unlock using a ‘code’. So clever! Whilst the story development has been going on, the operations department have been busy sourcing the utensils, cookie cutters and bags; the finance department have been finalising net cost and working out profit margins and the IT manager has been finalising the website and our ‘storefront’ on YE Marketplace. The MD and Secretary have also started to develop the company’s business plan ready for the judges ahead of the upcoming trade fair and area heats. It has been a busy few weeks, but the team are doing extremely well and are fully on track. They have even had time to organise 2 cake sales to inject an additional bit of cash into the business. On Monday 8th January 2018, the Phonic Farm team had their first board meeting of the New Year.
The aim of this meeting was to review the positives and negatives from the first business quarter and develop learnings to move forward with. After a rather lengthy discussion, the team reviewed their progress to date and started to truly realise how well they are doing. This was helped further by the finance manager counting their profits in front of them all, as you can see from the picture! Following on from the reflection, the team got their thinking caps on to decide on a finalised product. As each student was asked to come back with 2 ideas following the Christmas break, the ideas were flowing. We had ideas ranging from mini stories relating to each of our characters, A-Z tea towels, table mats with stories on and recipe cards which could be sold with cooking utensils. As all the ideas were good, the team struggled to decide however eventually concluded that the recipe cards were the way to go. Ideas then kept flowing on how the product could be sold. As the team had had so much success with the Christmas cookery book and cookie cutter packs the team thought they needed to continue with the cookery utensil USP. With this said, the team started to discuss what should be included ranging from cookie cutters to rolling pins, wooden spoons and spatulas. As this could have gone on forever, operations have been tasked to find out the cost price for each of these items and the expected delivery dates to enable a cost analysis to be worked out. Whilst this discussion was undergoing, packaging was brought up. The team started by discussing a similar strategy as before which was pre-wrapped packs. This went down well but with larger items now being incorporated into the packaging, it could be difficult to produce and transport. With this, the team then had another idea which was for customers to ‘build their own packs’. This was it! The team loved it and are now in the process of discussing, based on cost price for each item, how much we can sell the items and build the packs for. This idea also allows for customers to purchase more than 1 of each item allowing for a more ‘personalised’ product. Phonic Farm have started the year with a very productive meeting – I hope this continues! I can’t wait to see what the team have researched and the plan they have come up with. Over the weekend Phonic Farm set up shop for the first time at the Christmas Fair in St Nicholas Market.
It was a very cold start for the team on Saturday, with half of them setting up at 8am. The market didn’t start until 9am however with over 13 Young Enterprise teams attending the fair, it was essential the team got there early to make the stand the best it could be. Once 9am hit, the team were raring to go with vast amounts of enthusiasm to make the first sale. Unfortunately for the team, everyone preferred their beds to the crisp morning air. With this said however, they did manage to make a few sales and gain some insightful research from passers-by. 12pm hit and the crowds started to descend on the market. The team were delighted, with half of them manning the stand and the other half walking around with the cookbook, the sales started to fly! The afternoon proved a massive success and a fantastic market research opportunity. After a full day’s work, the team successfully sold 34 cookbooks and raised roughly £115. This was a fantastic achievement! To top it all off, throughout the day, the team were being judged on their product quality, customer service skills and overall stand presentation. There were several strong teams within the mix of student businesses, so it was hard to stand out. This however didn’t stop Phonic Farm! Yesterday, the results of the mystery shopper and judges scores were revealed, and Phonic Farm came 3rd out of 13 teams. With feedback including ‘a great cookbook that was well presented and clearly explained’, ‘wonderfully polite and informative team’, ‘confident and helpful’ and ‘lovely product idea that has been well thought through. Lovely design’ how could they not do well! Clare and I, as their Centre Lead and Business Adviser, kept their success a secret until the meeting yesterday afternoon. As the meeting reflected on the outcome of the trade fair, it was fantastic to be able to tell them the result. Once we did, spirits were instantly lifted, and it gave the team the boost they needed to sell the remaining stock. At present they need to make a few more sales to break even so planning how they would do this was high on the agenda. With plans to sell at the upcoming Christmas craft fairs, Junior School's nativities and the School's Live Lounge performances I have all faith in the team being able to sell their product and make a substantial profit. I wish them all the best of luck and look forward to hearing all their sales stories in the New Year. Yesterday, Phonic Farm met for the last time before the Christmas Fair at St Nicholas Market on Saturday.
A lot has happened over the last 2 weeks. Since the eureka moment, the team have worked tirelessly to each come up with a recipe suitable for the themed cookbook. With all 10 recipes ready, Hannah had the difficult task of putting them all together to create one coherent and well-designed cookbook. With a little help from me, as their Business Adviser, and a quick tutorial of InDesign, Hannah managed to produce a cookbook which the team were delighted with. When the cookbook was presented to the team, they did some market research within the school to test front cover options, one which Hannah designed and one which Thomas, the Digital Director designed. Both were received well however the front cover Hannah designed came out on top. It was described as ‘professional’ and ‘well designed’ which gave a big boost to the team’s spirits! Whilst all of this was going on, James and Joe as Operations were researching and contracting printers to see who could produce the cookbook in our limited timescale. After several phone calls, queries and knockbacks they found Clifton Print Services who provided a very competitive quote and could turn all the books around in the week. At the same time, Thomas the team’s Digital Director, was tasked with designing a website and starting up their social media. He has done a fantastic job, so I would highly recommend for those interesting in finding out more about the team and the products they are producing to visit their website https://phonicfarm.weebly.com/ or follow them on Twitter using the handle @PhonicFarm. Now that all the different parts of the puzzle are in place, it is down to the team to package the books and cookie cutters together to create a bundle ready for the weekend. It will be a final push to the finish line, but I know they will make it and all their hard work will pay off! If you are in town over the weekend, make sure to visit Phonic Farm’s stand and purchase your very own Christmas Cookbook for the fabulous price of £3.50 including 2 festive cookie cutters. It is the perfect stocking filler for children of all ages. We wish them all the best of luck and look forward to hearing all about it on Monday. Phonic Farm were back in action yesterday discussing how they will go about finalising their book in time for the Christmas Fair at St Nicholas Market on the 2nd December.
The team were concerned that there wasn’t enough time to get the story produced, artwork designed, and the finalised book printed and delivered. They began questioning themselves, however this questioning did turn into something very positive. A new direction! Tom, one of the Finance Directors mentioned a cookbook – the whole room lit up! This was it – the eureka moment finally happened. With this new direction and all the enthusiasm, ideas for a Christmas themed cookbook in time for the fair were flying. The recipes ranged from Christmas cake to Christmas Pudding, Yule Log and Fudge. The team have now each taken a ‘sweet’ and are going away to find a unique recipe for it as well as some royalty free images to help decorate the cookbook. On Wednesday, the team plan to start constructing the book so they have limited time to get the recipes right! They have even started to ask parents, teachers and grandparents for recipes, so it is set to be a cracking cookbook with some very tried and tested ‘sweets’ inside. With the cookbook confirmed, the team are still keen to make it stand out. All the recipes are therefore going to be linked to the animal characters they have created such as Allie the Alligator and Max the Mouse but also have a phonic connection. The idea that will be developed further and sold from January 2018 will include a recipe per character to cover all the phonics as well as tie to healthy eating. Alongside the cookbook, the team are keen to keep the biscuits. They have had several quotes from suppliers and realised that to produce the quality and quantity of biscuits they will need is too much. The decision therefore was made to eliminate biscuits from the equation. With this said, now the team have a cookbook they are considering the option of purchasing animal shaped cookie cutters which they can package alongside the book… So much has happened in such a short space of time, I look forward to seeing what Wednesday will bring! Phonic Farm met yesterday to confirm their product ideas and discuss the research they were asked to conduct.
The decision was made that they would progress with both animal biscuits and a children’s book which focuses on animals and phonics. Names of suppliers, costs of producing biscuits and books as well as sales margins were flying around the room. The progress since last week was astounding – they’ve really got on a roll! Lily, the HR manager, even came up with a concept for the book – Allie the Alligator has a cold ‘Aaah! Aaah! Choo!’and is going on a journey to discover the cure by meeting various animals along the way. Hopefully one of them will be able to help cure her cold! With this book concept, the ideas for which cure each animal could have came very easily. Each member of the team were given two animals to develop a cure for and link into the story. We had everything from Billy the Bee curing the cold with Honey to Max the Mouse curing the cold with Cheese…who knows what will come for all the rest of them next week. As the story has started to develop, Hannah and Lily have been given the task to combine these ideas into a finalised story. As they haven’t got long before the first trade fair in December, it will be quite a challenge, but the girls seem up for it and are very keen to get a product ready to sell. Hannah has also been working hard on developing a logo for Phonic Farm – the logo below is what she has designed and alongside this, she has even come up with a strapline for the product ‘Learning through fun with Phonics’. It is so great to see the progress the team have made, and I cannot wait to see what next week will bring. We may have a fully developed story which is ready to illustrate - who knows! |
AuthorNicole Crompton, Marketing Manager at Dunkley's Chartered Accountants |