Tuesday 30th March

Tuesday 30th March saw Hammersmith & Fulham’s budding young business men and women come together in an event where they presented their diverse, innovative and creative business ideas to a panel of expert judges for prizes including £300 cash, free business training and 1-2-1 business advice and coaching. This was also the finale of a project that had these future business men and women trained in different areas of the business world and develop their own personalized business plans.

The ‘Youth Business Master Classes’, a H&F Volunteer Centre project, ran a series of 6 workshops for 16-25 year olds in Hammersmith & Fulham and covered areas including entrepreneurship, marketing, legal structures and financial planning. A diverse group of young people took up the course and throughout the workshops grew in confidence and knowledge, and were able to tune up their business ideas and perfect their sales pitches for the final showcase.

Held in the plush W12 Room in Loftus Road Stadium, home of Queens Park Rangers Football Club, the venue provided the perfect corporate environment for the young people to truly get the feel of presenting a professional sales pitch. The business ideas included a children’s football academy, a specialist restaurant, a record label for disabled artists and a fashion label for young people and were a wonderful testament to the creativity, imagination and potential that young people can bring when given the opportunity.

Matthew Sims, General Manager of the H&F Chamber of Commerce and Head Judge said, “The young entrepreneurs had some really good ideas, but it also looks like they have put the background work and planning in. The business presentations were exceptional. Its not easy standing in front of a crowd but the students not only managed it but did it with flying colours.”

The evening also had the pleasure of exhibiting the work of another project for young people, The Identity and Barriers Photography Project. With the aim of inspiring young people to explore their lives through the lens of a camera and the theme of cultural differences, young people from diverse backgrounds and walks of life were trained in photography skills including SLR camera operation, editing, lighting and image manipulation and used these to produce picture stories that related to their own personal experiences.

The photography exhibition displayed throughout the W12 Room provided brilliant visuals for attendees and a real abstract look into the lives and stories of the young people involved.

The evening ended with a preview of yet another Hammersmith & Fulham Volunteer Centre Project, The V-Involved Promotional Film. V-Involved is a youth volunteering project for 16-25 year olds which focuses on developing volunteering opportunities for young people in the community, promoting volunteering to these young people and placing them into suitable volunteering opportunities. The promotional film has seen a core group of young people trained up as the film crew in film making skills, camera operation, types of shooting, story boarding, script writing and legal aspects. The film crews are developing a short film that will promote the different types of volunteering you can be involved in and the benefits of volunteering to other young people.

The preview lasted about 5 minutes and displayed the energy and enthusiasm of volunteers involved in the project and the diverse and vibrant range of things you can get involved in. It also demonstrated the true passion many people have for volunteering and left everyone asking - How do I sign up?

HFVC would like to thank QPR in the Community Trust and its CEO Andy Evans for the hospitality and look forward to working together on other exciting projects in the very near future.

For more information concerning HFVC Youth Programmes, contact the Youth Team on 020 8741 9876, or visit our office.