Market Day is Coming – Share in Our Success

For the last few weeks budding entrepreneuring TY students across all seven form classes have been facing a mammoth challenge. It takes vigour, determination and intelligence and the weak will be divided from the strong! No, it's not the Loreto Hunger Games - it's Fingal County Business Enterprise! 

Now that the challenge has been firmly laid down and as deadlines draw delicately closer, we (TY Class of 2018-2019) are building our own business empire one step at a time. Here are three ‘insider trading’ tips on how to build TY business success: 

Recruit by drawing pigs

·       Personalities clash, heads roll, and greed quickly becomes individual. Not everyone can be the big boss so delegating responsibility to a wider team who knows each other’s strengths and weaknesses is vitally important in getting ahead of the competition. Yes, some of us students have team members located in different form classes, but overcoming challenges is what TY 21^stcentury business success is all about! Now anyone for a game of drawing pigs?!

·         Drawing pigs: we know, we know! This sounds weird but it really helps when choosing team members. Try it! First of all get a sheet of paper and just draw a pig. It's that simple. Now follow the guide below to figure out what your swine has to say about you:

If the pig is drawn towards the top of the page, you are optimistic and positive; towards the middle of the page, you are realistic; towards the bottom of the page you might be pessimistic and prone to behaving negatively; 

If your pig is facing left, you are traditional, friendly, good at remembering important dates; if facing right, you are innovative, active, don't have a strong sense of family; if facing the front, you might enjoy arguing with others and creating drama with few details, you are emotional, naïve, a risk taker, look at the larger picture; with plenty of detail, you are cautious, analytical and don't trust others easily;  

If your pig has 4 legs, you are secure and stubborn; with less than 4 legs, you are insecure or going through a major change in life; The bigger the ears on your pig the better listener you are; the longer the tail the more fun you have

*DISCLAIMER* whatever your result is don't take it to heart. This could all be hogswash!

Brainstorming 

·         Four legged piglet or not, without a product or service or concept, you have no business. Timelines, SWOT analysis, opportunity costs: the stress for us TY students is real. Brainstorming is the creative way for us to problem solve and get everyone’s best ideas together. 

Event Manage

·         Businesses be aware – if you build it they will come. This year, the bargain that beats Black Friday takes place on Friday, 14th December in Loreto Balbriggan. ‘Christmas Market Day’ is the shop-till-you-drop opportunity forstudents and staff alike to be treated to bargains from stalls, stalls everywhere. During both lunchtimes budding entreprenurial TY and 2^ndyear Loreto girls will meet and greet you in an atmosphere where Wall Street meets Walmart (that’s Pennys to me or you, hun). Buyers beware, these smiling sales students want your coins so be armed with lots and lots of cash! With plenty of meetings, market research and business classes still ahead, ‘Christmas Market Day’ promises to be a day of success that everyone can share in. 

Fingal County Business Enterprise Awards - here we come!

-Tami Adeleke

Our Visit to the EU Contest for Young Scientists

On Monday, the 17^thof September, a group of very lucky students from 1^stto 4^thyear stood in the school courtyard, shivering with the cold, waiting to go to the EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS). 

Ireland was very lucky this year to host this prestigious competition, and we were excited for it as well, despite the bitter cold as we stood waiting outside. Finally, warm coaches arrived to take us to the RDS, where the exhibition was being held. Our excitement began to build throughout the journey.

The exhibition was better than we had hoped! We met some past – pupils on arrival, such as Diana Bura, Khadija Gull and Renuka Chintapalli. We strolled around the exhibitions all morning, marvelling at each project, and yearning to some day reach this impossibly high standard. We learned how these students were innovating and changing the lives of many. 

Among my countless favourites, a project I particularly liked was carried out by a school in South Korea. These students learned how to diagnose Parkinson’s disease by examining the sound waves of person’s voice. It struck me how students so young could make such a huge difference to the world. We also met last year’s BT Young Scientist overall winner, Simon Meehan, who explained his project to us. Even though it was tough to decode the scary scientific words the contestants used, we had fun anyway. 

We were also very lucky to visit a science talk, which explained and demonstrated the science behind the “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise. This fun, interactive show was enjoyable for everyone. 

It was sad when we had to leave the exhibition, but we all hoped that we wouldn’t be visiting the exhibition next time, we hoped we would be competing in it.

 

- Iman Khan