Creating an enterprising mindset.

Andy Firr, Young Enterprise.

Mark Rea, Green Rock Property Group,  Gill Hunt, Escata.

LJMU celebrated the success of entrepreneurs who had been helped by enterprise programmes.

LJMU is keen to encourage enterprise with a belief that students should finish university complete with a mindset open to enterprise creation and workplace skills.

I was very pleased to be awarded along with Mark Rea from Green Rock Group a Young Enterprise Volunteer award.  The LJMU Young Enterprise Graduate programme brings together students from the business school and other departments to gain firsthand experience of setting up a business. Consultants and people from industry like me are invited to act as a sounding board to provide listening and gentle facilitation.  In a remarkably short time scale the market research is completed, the business model has been tested for validity and profitability and plans are honed for operation before presenting  a ‘dragons den’ style pitch.

The awards were to celebrate the success of people who had participated in the various LJMU enterprise programmes. Sponsors included T J Morris one of the UK's fastest growing discount retailers with a head office in Liverpool.  It was held at the Athenaeum Club in Liverpool on 14^th October 2010.  The venue is an established private members club and library originally established in 1797 as a place for the exchange of ideas and knowledge.  There are plenty of leather chesterfields and it is normally be a place for talk and quiet reflection.  Some of finalists from  the Enterprise Fellowship Programme  and Graduate Enterprise Accelerator programme  included:  Ilsa Parry from Re-Think Things –   producing innovative lighting and other contemporary products with a purpose, www.rethinkthings.com ,   Ben Stead a unique music recording workshop programme for school children and young people www.benjamininstead.com  and  Kelly Gill of Coal Mine Productions, a comedy production company.  www.thecanarycage.co.uk .

In my own business Escata, I also offer a facilitation service for people wishing to set up their own business or those who wish to revise their business strategy, for example due to a wish to explore alternative revenue streams due to changing market conditions. 

Gill Hunt

www.escata.co.uk