Worcester Cathedral and business talks

Thursday was an early morning as we had to leave the venue at 8am in the morning to walk down to Malvern Link train station.  This woke a lot of people up and replaced the energiser for the day.  We caught the train into Worcester and the participants had an opportunity to experience some city culture.

When we arrived in Worcester we went for a guided tour round Worcester cathedral.  This was very interesting, several of the participants countries didn't have cathedrals so it was a new experience for some.  After the cathedral we had a couple of hours free time before we came back to the venue.  I used this time to go shopping and to have a meal in a restaurant.

After lunch we caught the train back to Malvern Link.  Nick (Outdoor Element venue owner) gave us a presentation about his business, this was very interesting as he had recently taken it over from the local council. We also had a presentation from John Hardman about his various different companies, NFYFC and HOPS.

In the evening we were entertained by Worcestershire YFC members, they played various team building games, including a charades game and a dressing up team building exercise with bin liners.

It's so nice I had to name it twice, It's so nice I had to name it twice.

We started off Wednesday by introducing the participants to dragons den.  This is a an English TV programme for people who have business ideas to present their business to a group of millionaires in hope that they will want to invest in their business.  We watched a presentation from Levi Roots who was presenting his product, Reggae Reggae Sauce.

Shortly after this we let the participants write on a post it note their business ideas for the 3 businesses which they visited the day before.  The participants then split into groups of 6 and each group researched and created a business plan for one of the problems that one of the business had.

During the afternoon the groups presented back their ideas to the business owners and to the rest of the group.  This worked really well as the businesses were very keen to take on board the different ideas and look into them further.

The participants also got the chance to try some of the reggae reggae sauce during dinner time.

The day finished off by the group going for a walk up onto the Malvern Hills, this was a great idea to do in the dark as the views were fantastic.  

There's no business like a rural business

Today was a very important day for me as transport coordinator for the seminar, we hired 3 mini buses.  As I was driving one of the minibuses the lives of 1/3 of the participants were in my hand.

The first business we visited was Hopes of Longtown.  This is quite a large village shop that is run and owned by Christine Hope. The shop sells a selection of local produce as well as various essential items.  It also incorporates a post office which is vital for the local economy.

After visiting Hopes of Longtown we went to White Haywood which is a Farm which encompasses a B & B and restaurant.  This business is run and owned by Phil and Pauline. They mainly run this on their own, as a result they worry what would happen if one of them is ill.  We had lunch at the restaurant, a jacket potato with Mince Beef. It was really good the mince tasted really beefy.

The last business we visited was Wiggly Wigglers, this was another farm that had various different business branches.  These including selling grass seed, worms and meal worms, bird seed the farm itself and two businesses that prepared and distrusted flowers.

We finished the day by being entertained by members of Herefordshire YFC who had prepared various team building games.

Business Planning, Social Media, Morris Men

The day started of this morning by the participants naming famous entrepreneurs, they also named the qualities that they believed an entrepreneur has.  After this they were split into small groups and they researched several famous entrepreneurs.  They fed back their findings to the rest of the group, after a while it soon became apparent that a lot of famous entrepreneurs have had very difficult pasts before they got to where they are today.

After this Chris delivered a workshop on how to create effective business plans, the participants really enjoyed this session.  There was a good balance between presenting and the participants carrying out exercises which only enhanced their learning experience.  Two people from Natwest bank came down and helped Chris to deliver this session.  They were able to give valuable advice about business planning from a different perspective.

In the afternoon session Lynsey Swales from SocialB gave a workshop on how social media can work for your business.  Most of them thought they knew a lot about social media but after a while it soon became apparent that they still had a lot to learn about how to use social media to the best of its ability.

The day was finalised by the participants watching and taking part in Morris Dancing which was led by a local Morris Dancing group.  This was a fantastic way for the participants to see traditional English dancing and it was another great way for us to show off our local culture.

Where are you from? Let's work together.

Today was the first day of the seminar, We started of by having a quick introduction to the site from Nick (venue owner). He went through emergency procedures and standard housekeeping rules.

We then looked into participant fears, hopes and expectation to understand a bit more about what the thought about the week.  This was a really interesting exercise and it will be good to compare against at the end of the week.

After this this the participants from the different countries gave us all a short presentation about their country, where they are from, what it is famous for and they gave us a short story about a local entrepreneur that they know. Half way through this exercise I had to go back to Birmingham Airport to pick up the final participant.

In the after we did various outdoor team building activities, this was not only fun but it also bought the group closer together as we had to work as a team to complete the task.  In the evening we had the international buffet.  This was a very good evening as it was a chance to try various cuisine from all of the different participating countries.

The calm before the storm

The first and second groups of participants have now made it to Malvern.  I am stil here at Birmingham Airport waiting for the 3rd and final group of participants to arrive by plane today.  I have had a subway for lunch (a foot long toasted meatball marinara to be precise. ) I have been checking both Facebook and Twitter and now I thought I best add some more to my blog in this quite period before another 7 participants arrive. I am really starting to get excited now.

Arrival Day

Claire took Russ and I to the airport early this morning.  She departed with the first 3 participants who were from Northern Ireland and Latvia.  Russ and I decided to do a bit of exploring so we went for a ride on the monorail and went for a quick tour of the NEC.  We have now arrived back to the airport and picked up Adrian from Norway.  He was hungry so we took him to weatherspoons, as I write to you now he is currently digging into a Beef steak and Ale pie while we wait for Heather our Little Scottish friend.