I would like to say a very big hello to all those budding businesses out there. It promises to be a very exciting time over the next few months, it's almost a shame Christmas is getting in the way of making loads of money!!!

Every business needs to maximize its marketing and a great way of doing this is to harness the power of film. So get out your cameras and start promoting your business with a 30 second video advert. Plan your idea before filming and get it right. To upload to the site go to the help section for instructions.

If you would like us to visit you and your business to help get some good filmed content then give me a call on 07990 578684 or email me at info@proconsultancy.org.uk

Paul

Watch the video for top advice from Firth Park Community Arts College

PART 1 - WHAT MAKES A GOOD BUSINESS

Part 2 - DAVID GREY MANAGING DIRECTOR OF OSL TALKS ABOUT WHAT YOU WILL GET FROM PARTICIPATING IN THIS PROJECT

PART 3 - DAVID GREY ASKS WHY BOTHER GETTING INVOLVED IN THE BIG CHALLENGE

PART 4 - DAVID GREY EXPLAINS A BIT ABOUT THE AMAZING BIG CHALLENGE

THE OFFICIAL BIG CHALLENGE LAUNCH TOOK PLACE A FIRTH PARK COMMUNITY ARTS COLLEGE, HERE ARE SOME BEFORE AND AFTER COMMENTS FROM A STUDENT

PETER WOOD IS THE MANAGING DIRECTOR OF THE SHEFFIELD TECHNOLOGY PARK, HERE HE IS PRESENTING LAUREN FROM LIVE TECH A CHEQUE FOR £25 TO KICK START HER COMPUTER RECYCLING BUSINESS

On Friday 14th December the Big Challenge film team started the film training at Myers Grove City Learning Centre.

Eight students from Myers Grove and Wisewood school attended, starting their journey into the creative world of film making. They will be supporting all the Big Challenge businesses from their school - ensuring they have a stong visual presence and hopefully bringing them closer to those big prizes.

If your school needs some support or training call Paul on 01246 853040 to arrange. Clips of the strange things they got up to will be shared although it might be hard to explain.

 Remember the video you upload onto your Big Challenge mini-site will be judged as part of the overall marketing of the business so get those handycams out - for more details on how to upload your clips email Paul at info@proconsultancy.org.uk  

HERE ARE 10 RULES WHEN FILMING YOUR BIG CHALLENGE VIDEOS - IF YOU REQUIRE THESE IN POWERPOINT FORMAT SEND AN EMAIL WITH THE FOLLOWING IN THE SUBJECT TITLE "REQUEST 10 RULES OF FILMING" TO info@proconsultancy.org.uk

I've just been checking out the Firth Park Top Tips video - it's brilliant - you can see it in the 7th November posting in this blog.

I reckon we should get it on the home page of the BiG Challenge site. It sets a serious standard for all the up and coming BiG Challenge video makers to beat.

Congratulations to Fashion Friends from Myers Grove Key Stage 3 - the first school team to set up their logo on the website. The next thing is to get a photo and a description of your business up there and you'll be looking very good.

are team members are 

jessica helliwell(me);

tammy smith;

lily Smeeton;

briony lister and

shannon stockley

this is our team we are soon going to be hosting a fashion show at myers grove school main hall               

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, that means if you do a 30 second promotional video clip that is 750 pictures - that's the equivalent of 750,000 words!!!! there is no excuse - video is the medium to use when marketing your business. You only need a handycam and tripod and off you go.... 

Here are 10 ideas to make your business stand out and to bring the customer closer to understand who you are, what you are doing and how to save them money by supplying their demand

Keep your video clips short (30 seconds max) :-

First day back from Christmas, and were already back working hard. The first job of the year is underway, clearing out RedTape's redundant IT equipment and trust us theres ALOT!

We have our first team meeting of the year on Monday and we'll start planning the year ahead (and booking holiday time for Boston lol)

Hope everyone had a Good Christmas and New Year

Happy New Year from all of us at Livetech

Hello!

For those who don't know us, we are Meals on Foot. Meals on Foot is a scheme which plan to bring healthy meals to the staff at Westfield Sports College. We plan to have an ordering service up and running by the end of this week, and if all goes to plan we should be making meals very soon!

Because the staff at Westfield don't usually eat at the school canteen (which is understandable because sometimes it is bedlam), they either bring food from home or go out of school to buy food. There are two problems with these solutions. The first is the food bought from shops may not be healthy, they are usually highly overpriced. If the staff bring food from home and don't have access to a fridge the food may become unsavoury, especially in the summer months! They may also not have enough time to prepare their lunch, as mornings can be pretty hectic.

So this gave us the inspiration to create some sort of meals service for the staff at Westfield who would like freshly to eat freshly prepared, tasty meals at a low price. We have already handed out surveys to every member of staff at school, and are going to post the results soon. In the meantime, we are working through what requirements the staff have and are deciding weather to have a set menu which will be rotated each day, or to have an ordering service where the staff can pretty much have what they want.

So now you know a bit about us, we will be posting more blogs soon!

X

at the end of this week we have done a lot of work we cleared our room of some files ( 30 boxes of paper at around 20kg each carried half a mile down the road nearly killed us).we have got a custom quote from a council department to buy build and maintain their new it equipment, this is going to be a big profit no numbers for you yet but we will post to scare when we do get the numbers worked out with the customer.
we have got 13 macs free and they have all sold out within 2 days for £50 each.

we are the best team and will make loads of money and spend it all on healthy food and cancer research

 Good Luck Team!

Hello Everyone,

This is Lily here from Fashion Friends and im here to tell you about our business and when we get infomation we will tell you how much we are making and how much we have sold...

 Our business is in our group name Fashion Friends. We are doing a fashion show for Cancer reserch and guide dogs for blind people charities. The group members are;

Lily Smeeton. Age 11. class for infomation 7HF

Tammy Smith. Age 11. class for infomation 7HF

Jessica Helliwell. Age 11. class for infomation 7AA

Shannon Stockley. Age 12. class for infomation 7HF

Bryony Lister. age 11. class for infomation 7LC

TEACHER HELPER

miss James

see you later everybody

Lily xxx

Hi to everybody from DREAM TEAM.

We have been very busy organising a christmas and eid fayre which was on Tuesday the 18th December. We sold handmade truffles, christmas cards, christmas decorations and we also had a tuck shop where we sold drinks, chocolates and sweets. We also had a nail and henna art stall. To advertise our fayre we bought little business cards which had the date and time and venue on it.

It was great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND we made a large profit!!!!!!!!!!!!  which was £358

we  are unique from other event organizers because when we organise an event we launch a new product each time.So for the christmas and eid fayre our new product were the handmade chocolate truffles. 

We spended our £25 pound on the cards to make our christmas and eid cards, on our business cards, posters and refreshemnts for our tuck shop. To get the rest of the money for decoration and prizes we invested our own money into it. To make our truffles we needed to buy boxes, chocolate and filling for the truffle which costed us £248. Howver we managed to negotiate with our suppliers and told them that  we will pay them once we had made a profit. Also a business had donated us a stereo player to put on raffle. Which was very generous of them.

Valentine Evening

 we are now orgainising a valentine evening where we will prepare a meal for the guests. The tickets cost £15. The product that we are going to launch for this event will be heart shaped ginger biscuits covered in half chocolate.

Thursday 24th january paul will be coming to our school to film our advertisement for the valentine evening.

 If you would like any more information on this event or if you would like to book your tickets e-mail leila on leila_hussain@hotmail.co.uk

Team Meeting

we have had a team meeting to discuss our progress and to plan our holiday to Boston (lol)

This weeks been one hell of a packed week. Weve kicked it off with our amazing £10 PC sale. Were selling full computers for just £10 pound to make room for new stock.

We also had a few team meetings to sort out stuff like stock and marketing, and also the Oxo man (Paul) come in to record some more footage, so look out for more promo vids soon!

On the talk of promotion theyre promoting me to manager.........yeh okay i wish, anyways yeh promotion. Were thinking of collaberating and gettin our own site (www.live-tech.co.uk) even more jazzed up and enlisting professional assistance.

I'm off now gotta train to catch

chow

Gaz 

This week has been a great week for us at Livetech we have sold all of our iMac's for £50 pound each (kerching)

Also our january everything must go sale is a propa buzz almost everythin is gone so we are racking in the money :).

At the minute now as i write this blog our order form is filling up so more money is coming in so lets just say we are around well their is a lot to work out so...........

Yet other blog by the LiveTech team.

Alots been going on this past week and we have lots of plans for the business. Today we have been busy with customers and jobs to do, the livetech team have been off there feet all day! (Don't be surpised we do actually do work!...Sometimes).

Over the last few days we have sold 5 pc's! And alot of components.We are getting more and more customers everyday as word of mouth is getting around about us.KERCHING!

We have plans to refurnish and decorate company, we have new equiment (example: Desks,chairs etc) on order and we are going to give this place a lick of paint sometime soon, making lifetech all new and sparkily.

Also the livetech team are due to get uniforms! Pink and Black (The guys will get a chance to get to know their feminine side lol)

The team are busy non-stop trying to ready Computers to meet the demand of customers. Every computer which comes in to us have to have a 7 pass wipe (format) of the hardrive and have to have ubuntu and of course making sure it all works. The 7 pass wipes takes half a day to do! As soon as a computer is placed on the shelf its gone again!

There are also talks of getting some huge recycling business with some of the companys around sheffield (cant mention any names just yet) This could be huge for livetech bringing possibly hundreds of pc's in for us to refurbish!

Well the livetech team must be off!

Will give you all an update if anything new arises! Also if your having login problems with the Big Challenge website please email us on

livetech.sheffield@gmail.com

Over and out

LiveTech

Hey!

This is Team Rodgers blog...

School - Myers Grove School...

Where - Stannington...

Support Teacher - Mr Rodgers...

Made by - stall at school's Christmas Fayre (shaky start due to our support teacher)...

             - selling Candy Canes at break and lunch times to students...

Future Plans - None of your business just yet!

Team Rodgers.x

Hello everyone!

Our business is based on performing different plays, our aim is to make money from these performances.

So far we are rehersing our play cinderella which Hannah Eaton (one of our team members) has written.
Our rehearsals are going better than expected however we do need alot more rehearsals.

We plan to spend our £25 on refresments and adevertising/programmes and our profit shall hopfully come from selling tickets and refresments.


Lucy x

We're ISP! That stands for Intelligent Service Providers, by the way :) Corny? Yes! But you'll remember it...

we are FINALLY up and running, after some slight technical hiccups (we forgot the password... but shh) and after about 5 meetings have decided on our business plan. Our various failed ideas have included:

• Cat teasers (don't ask.. no, seriously - don't)
• Flatpack furniture assembly - Come on, it gets boring after the first table leg
• And more random things that are liable to waste all our money

Well our grand plan is to provide website design and hosting services for local groups and businesses. However, in the mean time we're organising a cultural event in Fir Vale's new business centre 'cos we're multicultral and proud!

Oh, my names Llewelyn (or NWNN? to some) by the way, and I'm the team IT Manager/Geek... Title mean anything? Not really.. but I want something written on the plaquard on my desk =]

So, hope to see you soon, but I've gotta go pick what clothes I'm taking to Boston...

if you want to reach us for some strange reason, do so at: isp.firvale@yahoo.co.uk 

HIYAA,

FOR THOSE WHOU DONT KNOW UR TEAM MEMBERS ARE,,

AMY WILSON;

SHANNAN ANDERSON;

KIRSTEN LAWRENCE;

KATIE MARSHALL;

ATLANTA MIDGLEY;

THANKS,

AMY

X

  Introduction

Our business is called dream team. We are event organisers. Our USP (unique selling point) is that when we organise an event we also launch a product especialy for the event which we will sell before the event and after. Before we started our business we did some market research. We did this by giving out questionnaires for staff and students in the school and around the community to fill in. The questionnaire asked the customers. if they want us students to start a bussiness that sells chocolates, a business that provides school equipment or a business that organises an event. out of 200, 119 people said they wanted us to start a business that orgainises events as it was something diffreant.

Team Members

NAME: Leila Hussain 

AGE: 16

SCHOOL: Sixth form (1st year)- Studying BTEC National Diploma Business and A level English Literature.

POSITION: Finance Manger/project manager

NAME: Gloria Luboya

AGE: 17

SCHOOL: Sixth form (1st year)- studying BTEC National Diploma Business

POSITION: Marketing and advertising Manager

NAME: Tahira Tufail

AGE: 17

SCHOOL: SIXTH FORM (1ST Year)- studying Health and social care

POSITION: Market research

NAME: Lubna Hussain

AGE: 13

SCHOOL: Key stage 3 SATS

POSITION: IT Manager

TEACHER: Miss Peate

The first City school non uniform day in 4 years was organised by us... on the 20th of december 2007. We used our £25 to publish letters and produce posters . . . but overall we managed to raise a total of £1000. We now plan to run a couple more events before the 1st of february report deadline

                 Thanks for reading... Team NONAME!

Hey Hey Hey! Hows You Then?

Anyways this is starting to sound like a MSN convo so i'll stop now. :)

So we're the SmallGiants, see what we did there, its an oxymoron for all those who didn't know ;]

Sorry about the late blog though, we had a few tech. problems but tis fine, it's all fixed and we are GOOD TO GO, so be warned because yanno we're winning that trip to Boston don't ya!

Anyhoo, back to business and our group like our team name has decided to start of with a small idea and from there after the money starts rolling in we'll be developing into giant ideas. Following me so far?                                                                

Our initial idea is personalised badges for people of all ages, basically because trends like these are always appearing, [remember scoobies!] so we thought why not create one ourselves! How clever are we?! AND our next idea without going into too much detail, its based around Valentines Day [Oooo!]

Oh yeah let me introduce you to our team, because I'm nice like that :)

Thqdeer- MD [that means she's in charge!]                                                  

Maaria [that's me]-Head of Marketing                                                           

Silas- Head of Finance                                                                                 

Rehana- Art&Design Technician                                                                       

Sahir- Secretery& Co-Art&Design Technician

Now you know who we are all, and what our base ideas are, I think that'll do for now :)

Byeee x :)

Hi

i have been very busy organising our valentine evening.

On Thursday paul (the camera man) came and filmed our advertisemnet. IT WAS FANTASTIC AND ALL OUR TEAM MEMBERS ENJOYED IT.

Thank you Paul

As you might have noticed that 3 of our team members are in sixth form and 1 is in year 9. The reason for this is that we decided that as we are the mature students our ideas are differant to the younger ones. So by having a younger team member we can find out what the younger ones want. This has also increased our customers as now we are marketing our events to older people and younger ones. which means more MONEY!!!

See you later i have to go got too much work to do.

xxleilaxxx

a. Provide quality solutions to problems encountered by animal owners.

b. Improve the quality of life of animals by providing educational programmes that can be studied at home by owners.

c. Provide children stories for the very young that will encourage animal welfare in the young.

d. Contribute to the economy of Sheffield by training our staff and supporting local animal charities.

e. To provide access to information which the public may find
helpful by a wide range of means including a website and
leaflets.

f. To provide an email address which responds within 3
working days and a helpline number to answer queries

We buy our supplies from local fruit shops and we sell our delicious smoothies at various different events Just before Christmas we sold our  smoothies at a Christmas fair and it turned out to be a fab day! We are thinking of possibly doing a delivery service so get ordering!!They`re FRUITILICIOUS!

If anyone would like any more info please dont hesitate to email us at jjade58@yahoo.com

 THNX,

The Feelin Fruiti Team!!!

 xxxxx

Name:Jade Jackson

Age:13

Position:Senior partner/Finance manager

Name:Demi Jackson

Age:13

Position:IT manager

Name:Sasha Furniss

Age:14

Position:Marketing manager

 Name:Jenna Hawksworth

Age:13

Position:stock manager

Name:Jade Brown

Age:13

Position:stock manager

Name:Sophie Dasilva

Age:13

Position:Stock manager

Name:Heather Bingham

Age:14

Position:Research manager

Teacher:Miss.Holister

For our business we are running a child care/events business, where we run different events such as bowling, taking young children to play centres, parties etc. We run and host the events, making games for children, competitions etc. Parents can leave children with us or stay and enjoy the fun!

Hi,

Our Valentine Evening is on thursday 7 febuary at 6:30

The reason for why we didn't do it on 14th febuary is that many couples like to go out alone. So by doing it on the 7th more people will come.

If you will like to book your ticket then please email me on leila_hussain@hotmail.co.uk

Hurry, limited places

hey

so our team name is after a alternative rock band called The Ruze and the plan is to organise live music events with The Ruze and other bands to not only rise money for charity but to help young bands around sheffield to get noticed and give them the chance to play more live gigs. So Carnival was our first gig and that went about aswell as we could have hoped and more gigs are on there way keep checking if your interested in coming to see one.

Members

Well first theres me, Ciaran Lockett i help organise the band and move all the equipment round (which by the way is really heavy) and i also deal with the accounts and any refreshment sales made. I am also a link to the charities we are working to help out, these are St. Lukes hospice and Teenage cancer trust by the way.

Secondly but proberly more importantly is Jack Chapman a member of the band the ruze as lead guitar and singer Jack helps out with stuff like organising the other bands and being a contact between us. But with out him Sam Chapman and Aeddan Lockett (The Ruze) there wouldnt be this opertunity we have had.  

hey

so our team name is after a alternative rock band called The Ruze and the plan is to organise live music events with The Ruze and other bands to not only rise money for charity but to help young bands around sheffield to get noticed and give them the chance to play more live gigs. So Carnival was our first gig and that went about aswell as we could have hoped and more gigs are on there way keep checking if your interested in coming to see one.

Members

Well first theres me, Ciaran Lockett i help organise the band and move all the equipment round (which by the way is really heavy) and i also deal with the accounts and any refreshment sales made. I am also a link to the charities we are working to help out, these are St. Lukes hospice and Teenage cancer trust by the way.

Secondly but proberly more importantly is Jack Chapman a member of the band the ruze as lead guitar and singer Jack helps out with stuff like organising the other bands and being a contact between us. But with out him Sam Chapman and Aeddan Lockett (The Ruze) there wouldnt be this opertunity we have had.  

The members of the team, from the left in the picture:

Hannah (Marketing Manager/Graphic design) -  Hi, I'm Hannah and I'm all arty-farty so I work on graphic design and publicity, basically I sit in the corner and colour things in.

Adam (Sales/PR Manager)- Not much to say, I'm tall dark and handsome [or so he thinks - ed.] I'm the laziest in the group but make up for it with all my creativity! I LOVE MONEY!

Arzzaq (Event Organiser)- Hiii I'm abit mad and hyper - I get on well with pretty much everyone so I look after the 'people' side of the business... Me and Ferial are in charge of putting the cultural event together which is gonna be fuun!

Llewelyn (IT Manager/l33t  h4x0r)- I introduced myself before, my job is to do all the work while my teamates mess about =P I am geeky and eccentric, which comes in handy. I don't see daylight much, hence my charming appearance in the photo....

Rofiya (Managing Director) - I'm the manager, and a very enthusiastic person! I love leading things and bossing people around, and I laugh at everything even if its not funny! [unless its our latest profit report...]

Ferial (Event Organiser) - Hello! I believe in 'peace and harmony', and love our multicultral group! I think life is great and have a passion for success!

Hi guys,

just an update on our business we're doing really well at the moment. Today some of us went to hillsborough leisure centre to sell our jewellery. And we've still go lots more venues to sell at . So we'll speak to you soon for another update and where we will be selling soon bye :)

Holly bitz n boblets gal xxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=675127331672701513 

A very enjoyable afternoon was spent at Sheffield Park Academy with the Dream Team business. They are a seriously focussed business venture with big plans so watch out. The video clip was a short advert produced by them to promote their Valentine Meal event coming up on the 7th Feb.

For more information about making a video email Paul at info@proconsultancy.org.uk  

HIJACK WARNING

Some of you may have noticed the above video clip appearing on your website - don't worry - it is our way of saying hello and we are here to help you. If you need any support contact us as soon as possible - Paul

You've been hijacked - xxxx

Hi ya - keep up the good work - Paul

You've been hijacked

You've been hijacked

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Meals on Foot have now officially LAUNCHED the business, with orders flying through.

Staff are now eating healthily around school, which promotes a really good example for the students at the colllege and we hope this will spread out into the community.

We are determined to get staff hooked on this healthy option.

Next week we are having a big publicity push, using;

• Email,
• Special weekly offers,
• Promoting the business in staff briefing in an attempt to bring big business for meals on foot

So far we have used some of our allotted allowance (approximatly £20) in order to buy our first weeks supply of sandwhich fillings/bread etc. With the profits we will make this week, some of the money will again go towards purchasing more fillings etc for the next week. By doing things this way we will be able to provide a constant healthy option for staff and the community here at westfield sports college.

Below is the link for our advertisement.

check it out and tell us what you think and leave a comment

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2382473339661504707

 You've been hijacked x

You've been hijacked x

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Current mood: >:(

Hiijacked?! HIJACKED?!

We take our privacy and lovely homepage very seriously, and imagine our HORROR and DISGUST on finding out we've been hijacked!! We take this matter with the upmost gravity and shall shortly be filing a lawsuit against the perpetrators of this vicious attack! Please take note of the following from the Computer Misuse Act 1990:

3 Unauthorised modification of computer material

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if—

(a) he does any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the contents of any computer

OH WOE all that ranting has made me quite flustered =[ We would just like the hijackers to know that if ISP so wished (which we don't) we could h4x0r you back into the 1980's -_-

But to be fair the video's quite pretty so we'll leave it...

Our first project was taking pictures of students and transforming them into cards, we then sold to students to give to parent/family, for Christmas. This was very succesfull, as we made £25.40. We plan to do this again, but for Mother's day and with the student holding a sign saying ' Happy Mother's Day! '

We have been working together to create Valentines Day cards. We went round school and some people in our group brought objects in all based around the theme of Love. We then took photographs of these objects and made them into cards.

Other people in our team created posters to put up around school to advertise the valentines cards and come and have a look at them to buy them, other members of the team planed to go into school assemblies and into form rooms to sell the cards. 

 XxX

our team has six people in it

these six people are ....

Jack Mcardle

Eboney O'Brien

Steffan Shaw

Shannon Littlewood

Thea Galcher

James Howden

  And you canot forget or superviser .....

mrs Carly Walsh !!!

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