by Meghan Cumming (Year 10)

Arriving at the Metro Centre on Sunday morning, our aim was to sell sell sell! Being part of ‘Young Enterprise’ at Woodham Academy we set up a group of Year 10 students to look at our interpretation of what is involved in setting up and running a functional company.
Various ideas of what we could sell were discussed and eventually we agreed on selling a range of tote bags with a variety of original art on the cover.  Acquiring the skills of a graphic designer, we were also able to give our company both a name and an original logo ‘Mad Baggers.’
Our goal was to delegate duties and responsibilities in a way that the management of the company was fairly distributed. Unfortunately, as with many businesses, we had teething problems and had to change the role of project manager a couple of times.  This was a positive as we were able to adapt to the changes around the business in preparation for our big day at the Metro Centre. The bags were made, the concept was becoming a reality and we all felt good about ‘Mad Baggers.’
Arriving in the Metro Centre, we were full of optimism and hope for what the day would bring. Setting up the stall opposite Primark, we were in a prime location to sell our bags but our initial selling strategies did not bring customers in our direction.
Our Project Manager took the lead and stood at the front encouraging customers to come over and look at our array of bags that were on offer for sale. We will never forget our first sale of the day with ‘high fives’ going round the stall and beaming smiles all round.  But it was a serious day of trying to sell our product.
We structured the group into two teams to allow continued enthusiasm and motivation to sell throughout the day. This appeared to work well for the group and our sales slowly mounted up.  We were selling our bags! Mad Baggers was a functioning company in the Metro Centre.  We felt proud to be representing Woodham Academy in this way.
Although we did not win awards on the day, we were all winners in our group.  We took a concept/idea and turned it into a company called ‘Mad Baggers’. We all took away a sense of accomplishment for what we had achieved. We worked hard and the reward was the fact that our bags are being used by individuals all over the north east of England now by people that came and bought from our stall. How amazing is that?

Young Enterprise