August 2008 E-bulletin

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Big - Make It Your Business e.newsletter. The BiG team are now fully established and the BiG programme has been full steam ahead, increasing business start up rates and boosting economic growth across Sheffield.

 

Over the last 6 months, we have put in place the final pieces of the BiG jigsaw and during that time, the core elements of our programme have been incredibly successful.  The Neighbourhood Enterprise Champions have over 800 clients and SENTA have now supported over 100 start up businesses.  In the schools, we have had over 300 pupils engaged in our enterprise challenge, more of which below.

 

In May we had a fantastic awards evening for the winners of the Schools BiG Challenge event in Sheffield’s City Hall Ballroom. The occasion was a great success with the representatives from Sheffield schools thoroughly enjoying themselves and getting to meet Levi Roots of Dragon’s Den fame.

 

The BiG Challenge saw 180 teams take part with an investment of £25 per team. With business concepts from sign making to animal care, the overall winners,  a jewellery company  called Bitz and Boblets from Myers Grove school walked away with a 5 star fact finding trip to Harvard Business School, Boston, USA and great admiration from their fellow participants. 

 

This competition proved both the value of BiG investment in the schools and also that there is plenty of entrepreneurial talent amongst Sheffield’s young people.  BiG Challenge 2 will be launched in September.

 

In June, the NECs organised a showcase event for BiG clients in The Winter Gardens and Tudor Square.  This was a great success, providing trading experience for a number of businesses, increasing footfall through the Square and generally, in terms of celebrating some of the programme’s early success.

 

On Saturday 5^th July we launched the BiG Zone at Castle Market in Sheffield. This is another new project for the programme and we are really excited about the opportunities that this will create.

 

The BiG Zone will be a test trading facility providing cost effective stalls and constant back-up from specialist BiG advisors. Castle Markets already have a thoroughfare of over 80,000 people a week which is such a great opportunity for young businesses to market test their products and gain valuable business experience with limited risk. This area is also hoped to have a positive impact on the existing market environment and it is worth noting that following the launch of the BiG Zone footfall to the markets has increased. 

 

All of the above goes to show that despite the increasingly gloomy economic climate, Sheffield is alive with business ambition right now. By delivering business support activities across the city to Sheffield’s least economically developed communities BiG – Make it Your Business really can make a difference to ambitions on a personal, professional and city wide level.