Students from Charleville and Mallow scoop top prizes at North Cork Schools Enterprise Competition in Fermoy

Students from CBS and St. Mary’s Secondary Schools in Charleville and St. Mary’s Secondary School in Mallow walked away with the top prizes at the Regional Final of the North Cork Schools Enterprise Programme, which took at the Cork Marts in Fermoy last Thursday 12th March.  

The competition is part of the National Student Enterprise Awards, in which over 17,000 students from all over Ireland take part each year. The winning students will now proudly go on to represent North Cork at the National Final of the Student Enterprise Awards which take place in Croke Park on 22nd April 2015.

In the Senior Category, the boys from CBS Charleville wowed the judges with their product ‘Hydrocycling’ – a rain harvesting and storage device made from recyclable materials.

The boys have worked very hard on their business over the past 6 months, taking their product right from idea stage through to production, sales and marketing as part of running their student enterprise over the academic year.

In the Intermediate Category, the girls from 2nd year at St. Mary’s Secondary School in Mallow impressed with their sweet and jelly business ‘Candy Crew’.

And a touch of magic was added to the event by a group of very impressive first year students from St. Mary’s Secondary School in Charleville who designed and manufactured fairy homes for children called Bring a Fairy Home.

Other prizes awarded on the day in the Senior category included:

• Best Display Stands: Cupla Ulla, Nagle Rice Secondary School, Doneraile        (Home-made apple juice)
• Scrunch It Up, Loreto School Fermoy                                                                   (Manufacture of hair scrunchies)
• Best Business Reports:  Cupla Ulla, Nagle Rice Secondary School, Doneraile   (Home-made apple juice)
•  Wood 2 Wonder, CBS Mitchelstown                                                                    (Manufacturing ornamental pieces from wood)
• Best Innovation: Scrabble Family Tree, Colaiste Treasa, Kanturk                        (Household decorative frames using scrabble letters)
• Q & L Agri Products, CBS, Charleville                                                                   (Detachable equipment for quad bikes)
• Best Marketing: Hydrocycling. CBS Charleville                                                               
• Fit Fun 4 Every 1, St. Mary’s Charleville                                                               (Fitness DVD for people with special needs)
• Most Promising Entrepreneurs: Meadhbh Conroy, Davis College, Mallow & Luke Quinn, CBS Charleville
• Best Social Media: Burn a Boss, St. Mary’s Secondary School, Charleville  Boardz Inc, Presentation Secondary School, Mitchelstown

43 mini-companies in total took part in the event which is designed to give students who are running their own student enterprises a taste of what it’s really like to be entrepreneurs. At the event, students set up exhibition stands and gave a 10 minute interview to a panel of judges comprising of members of the local business community. The judges included:

• Geraldine O’Brien, Subway, Mallow
• Sean Jeffries, Sean Jeffries Photography
• Cathy Fitzgibbon, Cork Independent
• Donal Murphy, Donluoco
• Emer Howard
• Shane Anglim, Bank of Ireland, Mallow

Head of Enterprise at Local Enterprise Office, North Cork, Michael Hanley, speaking after the event said ‘We are absolutely delighted with the turn-out at the event this year and it is very much a testament to the hard work and commitment of the teachers and students in the schools in the North Cork region’.

Further information: Joan Kelleher