13 October 2004

Media Release: Westlake Girls College Wins Best Company

A business that has been run as an extra-curricular project by a team of eight year 12 and 13 school students at Westlake Girls College has won this year’s North Shore Regional Award for Young Enterprise Scheme.

Unction has been competing among 34 school teams from six colleges in the North Shore programme. The eight-member team sourced and developed its own range of natural lip balms that it marketed at North Shore markets and among their fellow students since June. Unction was awarded the North Shore’s Best School Company at a function for the three North Shore finalists. Each team presented their business’ annual report. Two teams from Glenfield High School, Badge-It and Stiletto, were runners-up.

Unction started its lip balm business with capital of just $545 that the team raised from each of the eight student directors, plus 40 other shareholders. Earlier in the year, Unction won the North Shore’s Best Oral Presentation of the Year when the team presented its Business Plan. It then won a Best Signage Award at the Young Enterprise Scheme Trade Fair held in July at North Harbour Stadium. Promotion of its lip balms were helped by winning an advertising competition that provided Unction with $5,000 free radio advertising with Auckland’s More FM.

Enterprise North Shore trustee, Ian Watson, the recently retired principal of Massey University’s Albany campus, praised the ability of all three teams as he announced the finalists and the winner of the North Shore Regional Awards. “If this is their ability at this early stage in their respective business careers, we should all expect great things for North Shore from each team member in the not too distant future,” said Ian Watson.

Managing director of Orcon Internet, Seeby Woodhouse, a former student at Glenfield College and former member of the school’s Young Enterprise Scheme, praised the entrepreneurial spirit of the teams involved in the Scheme.

“A good business person is someone who has a balanced range of skills, rather than being completely focused in only one area,” explained Seeby Woodhouse in a short address to the finalists.

“Business people can’t afford to have a lack of knowledge in a key area of business such as marketing, finance, or legal - and that’s the lesson that each of the Young Enterprise teams will have learned from their experience this year. The Young Enterprise Scheme gives our future business people a great foundation in the fundamentals.”

Orcon Internet was established by Seeby Woodhouse in 1995 and is now New Zealand’s fourth largest internet service provider. The business won this year’s Westpac Enterprise North Shore Business Excellence Awards 2004.

Background:

A) Young Enterprise Scheme

The eight-month long Young Enterprise Scheme business programme was designed by Enterprise New Zealand Trust in Wellington and co-ordinated in North Shore by Enterprise North Shore, the city’s economic development agency. Most of the schools participating in the Scheme managed the NCEA-approved Young Enterprise Scheme as a part of their school’s economic and accounting curriculum. Marks were awarded to each team throughout the year, with 30 marks attributed to an Oral Presentation of each team’s business, 30 allocated by Enterprise North Shore on the basis of communication with the regional co-ordinator and attendance at a Trade Fair in July, and 40 points was awarded by Enterprise New Zealand for the quality of each team’s annual report.

B) Enterprise North Shore Trust

Enterprise North Shore was established in 1993 by North Shore City Council, as North Shore City’s advocate for economic development. Enterprise North Shore’s vision is for the development of a sustainable thriving and buoyant business community for North Shore City that increases the standard of living and quality of life of its citizens. This role extends to integrating the concept of enterprise culture into school-age education as a means of preparing young North Shore students to actively contribute to the North Shore economy in years to come.

Enterprise North Shore is a strong advocate of the work of Enterprise New Zealand Trust as it seeks to integrate enterprise culture learning into school curriculums. In 2004, Enterprise North Shore gladly accepted the role as North Shore co-ordinator of Enterprise New Zealand’s Young Enterprise Scheme.

Such has been the enthusiasm of each Young Enterprise Scheme team during 2004, Enterprise North Shore hopes to increase the number of North Shore school teams competing in the Young Enterprise Scheme to 60 teams for 2005.

ENDS

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