Monday 21 October 2013

The Wedding of the Week

The final evening saw us truly celebrate in style!!!

We had Nicola Chegwidden an NFYFC member taking on the role of Wedding Planner come and lead the final evening. She introduced the activity for the evening. A Wedding!!!! The participants then had to pick a role from the cards in her hands. Each participant was given a role ...... I was Chief Bridesmaid. We had to host a hen do before the wedding, then hold the wedding ceremony, and finally had the reception where the kitchen served roast beef!!!

The reception then continued long into the night!!!

It was such a great idea as it enabled dressing up, fun and giggles to be prevalent!!!

It was pretty much an all nighter for most (apart from the prep team) as the first of our participants had to leave the venue at 3.30am to go to the airport to catch their flight home :(


Day 7 - The Final Day

I cannot believe this came around so soon!!

The final day saw the participants have to pull on all their learnings from the week. They had to prepare and present a business plan for a business they know about, or one they would like to start. They could work by themselves or in groups of max 3 people.

They had the whole morning to prepare for their presentations. The groups were fantastic with some great ideas. The business ideas were so wide and varied. Ella even presented on her own clothing business that she is in the process of starting up.

The presentations that were presented to the group were of a really high standard. They had taken on board the learnings from the whole week and had become business minded individuals. The terminology used showed a good understanding.

The afternoon session saw the evaluation by the whole group. I was blown away by how much everyone had felt that they got out of the week. The majority said that it had exceeded their expectations and that they had all learnt what they had expected to learn and more.

There were times during the week when it felt that maybe we had packed too much into the seminar but it was all in their to provide them with as much knowledge and experience as possible.




Malvern Fashion Show

In the evening we had Worcestershire Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs members come and run an evening of entertainment for the participants. Local members from a few different clubs turned up at the venue equipt with many different activities to entertain the masses.

One of the funniest had to be the main group activity where the group had bin bags and had to make a costume for a member of their group. The dressed up member then had to parade the outfit down the catwalk with another member explaining the idea behind the outfit. This was very amusing and caused much laughter!!

Later on in the eve they continued to play some common games that they would normally play on a night out! It was fair to say the following the day the participants were still talking about the eve and laughing when looking back on the pics!!


Day 6 - Escaping the Venue

Today we got to escape the venue properly without any "work" to be done!! We walked down to the train station at Malvern Link first thing in the morning and caught the train to Worcester. The weather had yet again held for us and the morning sun was stunning. As we walked down the hill we could see for miles.

We arrived in Worcester and none of us being local it was a mini adventure for everyone!! Including the prep team!! Our first and only activity in Worcester was a tour of the Cathedral. The Cathedral was really interesting and our tour guide was good fun too! We were shown all different areas of the Cathedral and were able to ask all the questions we wanted to.

After the Cathedral tour we had free time in Worcester to have a good look around the city before needing to meet back at the train station.

Once back to Malvern Link, some participants caught the minibus back to the venue and others chose to walk back up. It was really nice to get some fresh air and exercise!!

Once back at the venue late afternoon we welcomed two more entrepreneurs to the venue to speak to the participants. Again no need for the participants to take any notes...... but the two entrepreneurs were going to speak on their experiences as they were from very different business's than the previous three we had seen.

The 2 speakers were Nick Hands from Malvern Outdoor elements (the venue) and John Hardman who has multiple businesses in different sectors. Aswell as being an Executive Director for Hops Labour Solutions (a business owned by NFYFC) and he is NFYFC Treasurer.

The two speakers were like chalk and cheese which really gave the participants something to think about, and they were coming up with some brilliant questions!!! One question even silenced John for a couple of seconds!!

All in all the participants got alot from both speakers and were impressed by both for very different reasons. They were still comparing them the following morning during the next workshop!

Friday 18 October 2013

Day 5 - The Dragons Den

The day i have most been looking forward too!! The business owners from yesterday visit the seminar venue today and get to act out a Dragons Den style panel for the participants.

The participants are being grouped together and given a real problem to solve from one of the business. They will have most of the day to work on solutions to the problems and then will get 10 minutes to present their findings to the business's (Panel).

The participants were feeling nervous as they were working with real problems and real life situations for these businesses. I wanted to make the scenario as real as possible as it gives value to the time spent on the project as it could potentially be used in the future.

The businesses were quite nervous too as to what the participants might suggest or present about their business.

The presentations were incredibly well thought out and the business owners seemed suitably impressed by the hard work, thought and effort that they had put in. all solutions presented had been well considered and the participants had drawn on their learnings from earlier in the week.

All in all a successful day.

Wednesday 16 October 2013

Day 4 - Out on the road

Today saw us actually leave the venue for the first time since the participants arrived. Myself Gareth and Julia (a guest visitor for the day) went and collected 3 mini buses in the morning to allow us to transport everyone around for the day.

Once all in the mini buses we went on a day trip around Herefordshire taking in the stunning rural scenery (when they weren't asleep!!) and visiting in particular 3 business's.

The three business's we visited were - Hopes of Longtown, White Haywood Restaurant and Wiggly Wigglers. The aim of the visits were for the participants to learn more about each individual business as they would be working on some problems for them the following day.

The day was incredibly interesting with each business being very different and having very different problems for the next day to solve.

Lunchtime was at White Haywood restaurant where we were served delicious produce that had been produced on the farm.

I again have pictures to upload of our visit which i hope to do very soon

Traditional Folk Dancing with Morris Men

The evening of Day 3 saw us be entertained by the local Morris Men!! They wore their traditional dress and performed for all of us a few dances. They even brought their own live band to entertain us with live music :)

They then taught us all some basic moves and we put them together to form a dance. The atmosphere they created with their live music was immense and the main leader of the group was so enthusiastic and entertaining that he got a lot from everyone who participated.

It very quickly became apparent who was coordinated and had timings within different groups and who was lacking these skills!!! Joe from Ireland was just one participant that i can name who had a few directional problems with one of the moves...... but he certainly made up for it in enthusiasm! Karl from England was certainly enjoying it and getting into the full swing of it all. (Video to follow)

The Morris Men then stayed and socialised which allowed the participants to ask them lots of questions and to learn the history behind their group.

I look forward to posting the videos soon :)