On the 25th of March 2010 the five members of Team Rise attended the end of year presentation of all the Young Enterprise businesses in the Lothians.

We were all pretty nervous of the unexpected during the journey and even more so as we pulled up to the Stuart’s Melville College Performing Arts Centre in Edinburgh.  There were 23 other businesses there from around Edinburgh and the Lothians.  We would not only be performing our presentation on the stage surrounded by all of them, but also the judges and many other adults involved.

As the evening went on however, we gained some confidence as we first won a silver plate for the ‘Best Human Resources Director', followed by third place for ‘Best Marketing Director’, a second place for ‘Best Production assisted by the Managing Director’ and a second place for ‘Best Sales Director’.

We were the 15th presentation and as we saw more teams it seemed all the more daunting to have to do it ourselves, however there was then a break to present more awards and to our absolute shock we were awarded a further two awards: a cup for ‘Best IT Director' and a trophy for ‘Best Business Idea’!  The company awarded the 'Best Company Award' would go onto the British final.  Here we managed to receive a third overall, which we were all very pleased with after our previous awards.

Altogether, the night was a huge shock in terms of our success for us all, and we therefore had a much better evening than any of us had imagined.  The Young Enterprise experience is something we have all benefited hugely from and we would recommend it to all S5 pupils next year looking for a definite challenge, and even to earn some extra cash!

Emma Lynas

Link Teacher: Colin Dempster
Business Advisor: Finlay Marshall