The TY Christmas Trade Fair took place on Wednesday 6th December and was a huge success. There was a lovely festive atmosphere in the Colin room and the young entrepreneurs sold their products in record time!
A big thank you to Mr Greene, Ms Byrne, Mr McGonigle and Mr Forkan who worked so hard for months behind the scenes to help & support our students in this fantastic NFTE initiative.
Here two of our TY students, Shaun Waller and Ben Lambert, explain a little bit more about the whole initiative.
What is NFTE?
4th year students in Chanel College create a mini-company for NFTE in which we make products out of different materials to make a profit and a part of our profit (%) will go to a charity of our businesses' choice. NFTE stands for Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, a program which was created in 1987 in New York and was funded by Steve Mariotti.
Preparation
At the start of the school year, 4th years were split into two groups, Arts and Crafts or Woodwork. This determined what type of product we made for the NFTE Fair at Christmas. As a year group we began to plan and gather materials for our products.
What products were people making?
Examples of some of the wonderful ideas students came up with were coasters with designs engraved into them, decorations for Christmas trees, paintings, desk tidies, chopping boards etc.
Organisation of the Trade Fair
Students designed posters for their mini-company and decorated the Colin room with lots of Christmas decorations. A popcorn machine was made for our shop. We all designed our stalls and decorated them with lights, tablecloths and festive decorations. We also organised a raffle with Christmas hampers to raise money for our TY group to go ice-skating. On the morning of the fair, students from our school really got into the Christmas spirit and came along to visit our fair. They purchased some of our products, which really supported us.
The Night of the Fair
The Fair began at 6pm with crowds of parents and teachers filling our fair venue. We had a very festive room filled with music, lights, the smell of Christmas candles, hot chocolate and freshly made popcorn. It was a roaring success with lots of businesses selling out before the end of the evening.
The whole initiative "gave us a real insight into putting our business knowledge into action by setting up our own business and really understanding the benefits and challenges that are involved in operating your own business”
By Shaun Waller & Ben Lambert
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