News Stars of Young Enterprise 16.07.2020

Collyer’s 2020 Young Enterprise team have been celebrating a successful year. The student company “Respire” produced a “gym in a bag” of resistance bands, enabling customers to take care of fitness anytime, anyplace! The team featured Maria Bensusan, Oliver Broom, Neil Burbidge, Matt Forster, Josh Lea-Clayton, Ella Lewis, Lorna Macrae, Alex Osz and Managing Director Anaya Wakefield.

The team sourced packs of fitness ‘resistance bands’, which can be used to strengthen muscles and build fitness. They branded them with their own logo and produced a leaflet of exercises (using team members to model the different moves!) and sold the product for £9.95.

Prior to ‘lockdown’, the team achieved successful sales via various face-to-face opportunities (a stall at Horsham Market, Collyer’s NG2U event, stands at various gyms in and around Horsham) then moved to online sales (via their website) when lockdown took place. The group found that when people were at home more, the demand for their product increased and they have now sold all of their stock!

The YE Area Finals Showcase had to take place on a virtual basis this year, with Collyer’s students delighted to pick up the prize for Best Marketing.

Collyer’s Employability Co-ordinator Lucy Hargreaves was proud of the team: “Respire have managed to do a great job under very difficult circumstances, and learnt a lot during the process.”

Deputy Principal Steve Martell said: “Huge congratulations to the Respire team and massive thanks to Nick Broom and Dominic Wakefield for their professional business advice throughout the project. They are inspiring business leaders who have been so generous with their time supporting Collyer’s over a number of years. Without their guidance and sponsorship the project would simply not have been possible.”

Lucy Hargreaves added: “We are also extremely grateful to Matt Ryan, the Area Manager for Young Enterprise in  Sussex, South Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, who co-ordinated the process across the region and kept the competition going in difficult times.”

(Team photos taken before Social distancing rules)