Dave and Olly become Dragons!
We were invited to take part in a Dragons Den style event held by Leo next to the Dakota hotel in Mansfield. We didn’t know what to expect, apart from the fact we were going to be part of a panel that listened to fund raising ideas thought up by year 10 school kids from all the local schools.
We arrived to a buzzing room full of colourful designs on huge sheets of paper, laptops being used to design adverts and powerpoint presentations and lots of school kids, teachers and assistants buzzing around all working on their little projects.
We were given areas to work with, and each area had 3 schools, with 2 teams each – totalling 6 teams. We had to walk around and make notes so their ideas were not alien to us when the ideas were being pitched.
I love anything involving psychology, and i love people watching and i love trying to work people out before ive had chance to get to know anything about them. It was quite evident when we were walking around that certain districts had poorer (not in wealth, in standards etc) schools – and within the groups, there was usually one or two people who stood out as the most confident and as the leader.
The event went really well, the group that i picked as my favourite from the start ended up winning, and they got £250 to take their idea to the next level. Some of the dragons also gave in some money to the winning teams, and one of the non winning idea was actually picked up by some of the staff there and they are going to be helping them get it off the ground.
Dave has agreed to help one of the projects that was pitched to him, its about supporting children forced or being forced into child prostitution – and getting them re-homed and looked after - so look out in your facebook inboxes for something about that!
We have offered to help out in the future with any similar projects in school as we both agreed it was really beneficial for the kids, and for us too. it gave us an day out talking to some of the most interesting people on the planet – todays youth.
The things we do as a business are things that are going to appeal to a lot of youngsters nowadays, more so than many of the other career paths they lay before you during your education. So hopefully by working with schools we can find people who would be perfect employees, and snap them up before anyone else does.
Were always up for helping develop young peoples skills and promote business within schools and colleges as we beliove that more people should do what we do, as we love it 
