Writing Invoices

Tonight, Andy wrote out invoices for those who have pre-ordered our product, stating their name, date issued, invoice number, net, number purchased, gross and total paid. These invoices shall be used on Sunday, when we return to the Oasis Church to give those who bought our product, their gift.

Oasis Church Sales Pitch

None of us had ever been to church before on a Sunday, but today we had the chance to go to Marie's church service, so that we could make a sales pitch to the people of the church, and hopefully raise their awareness of what we are doing, and persuade them to buy one or more of our product. The whole service came as a pleasant surprise, as it involved not only prayers, but singing and role plays, as well as the healing of people in pain.
The sales pitch went down very well with the audience, giving us a round of applause, but also, (something which we never expected) they said a prayer for us, and welcomed us into the church, and Christianity. The sales pitch went down so well that we sold 25 of our product, but we suspect that more people will buy our product next week, when we return to the Oasis Centre, where will shall give our customer their product, and collect our money.
Both today and the Alpha Course meeting has made us more aware of Christianity, and what benefits it can bring into our lives. So as well as learning about how to run a successful business, we have learnt a lot about the faith in which we are working for.
Finally, we must thank Marie for letting us attend her church today, but also to everyone who welcomed us into the Oasis Centre, listening to our sales pitch and purchasing our product.

Emailing Mick Mellows

Yesterday, Harry and Billy wrote an email to Mick Mellows, asking about whether or not Linvoy Primus could come into our school to help promote our calendars, and if so, give a possible date. Marie said that she would try to get hold of Linvoy, as she was going to see him. Marie also forwarded a email she sent to someone at The News, as we were hoping to get an article about our limousine ride and our product.
Whilst all this is happening, Andy continues to work on the business plan, and Sammy is trying to get donations from the Portsmouth City Council.

Business Plan Movie

This week, being Half Term, Harry, our Operations Director, has been working on the movie of our business plan, on Windows Movie Maker. This movie will accompany our business plan when handed in, and a visual representation of our business plan, and all the work we have done over the last few months.

Meeting No. 11

Last Friday, Marie came in to see our prototype of our product, and catch up on all the work we had done since we last saw her. She also talked to Andy about the business plan, and how it was going. We also showed her the display board which we had created and put in the schools reception, and what time we needed to be at her church for our sales pitch to the people of the church. Finally we talked about our article that would go into The News, our local newspaper. This article would be about our limousine ride, but more importantly, our business and product that we wish to sell.

Beginning the Production of our Product

On Tuesday, Billy and Harry arranged to go to to the printers to begin the production of our product, but unfortunately, the man who we know was not there, so we went on Wednesday instead, giving him the edited version of our product, and telling him how many copies we wanted.
This week, Sammy has the prototype of our product, to which he had taken to the Portsmouth City Council, to try and get some pre-orders for our product, as he dad works in the council.
Billy and Harry also got together on Wednesday to decide on what to say on Sunday, when we go to Marie's church, to explain what we are doing, and hopefully sell some more calendars. They also designed some posters for that day to go with the ones Rob had designed.

Limousine Pictures

These are some of the pictures taken on the day of our limousine ride. Our school photographer took these, both before and after our journey to Marie's office building.

Receiving the Prototype

Fantastic news! After all we have been through, we have finally come to the stage where we have received the prototype of our product, which has been printed professionally by a printing company, known as Chameleon Print. Our prototype looks brilliant, and will definitely will boost the sales of our product, as they can now fully see what they are buying. All we need to do now is make any adjustments, and make that order.
On top of this, Robert designed a poster today for our product, which shall go up around our school, advertising the price and layout of our product. These will hopefully go in registers so that teachers can put them up in their classrooms, and places around the school, such as the cafeteria.
Whilst Rob did this, Billy and Harry wrote down their sales pitch for tonight's Governors meeting, in which we hoped to make a few pre-orders, and their support in selling them, as most of them worked for companies. However, when we went to see what time we needed to be there, we were told that it was yesterday that the meeting was held. We were informed incorrectly by the Head of Governors, who told us that it would be tonight. But we couldn't abandon our hopes of selling to the Governors, as they were a large audience, so we asked about other ways of contacting them. We were told that each Governor has a pigeonhole in the main reception of our school, and is regularly checked. We thought that if we wrote a letter to each of them, we could still make it possible to sell to the Governors of our school.

Modifying the Product Again

When phoning up to confirm that we could see the printers today, they told us to modify the product, so that it will not cause what is known as 'bleeding', when coming to trim the product down the size. This meant that we needed to make sure that the border of our product hangs over the edges, so that we trimming it down, we cut through the border, and not on the edge. This will make our product more professional, meaning more sales, and therefore more profit.

Giving the Product to the Printers

Not only was today the first day of our display board, but also the day we took our product to the printers, so that they can check that it is all correct and printable. We expected that they would be able to print one for us then and there, but they said that could give a prototype to us either tomorrow or the day after. We were also shown around the printers, so that we know who is printing our product, and how they go about it. As well as this, we talked about the price of the product, and the total cost for X amounts.
Our display board went down very well with both students and staff, with both of them asking questions, and some already writing pre-orders. Once we have a prototype of the product, the public can see what they buying, and we will hopefully have more pre-orders.

Modifying the Product

After being called out during lessons, Andy contacted the printing company, who had information on S.O.N.'s product. The man at the printed company, who Andy knows, informed Andy on the prototype of their product, telling them the ink format was not compatible, and must be changed to CMYK instead of RGB. This meant that the entire product had to be modified, but it didn't take as much time as first thought.

S.O.N.'s Display Board (Meeting No. 10)

To increase the publicity of our business again, as people may have forgot about us over the Christmas holidays, we came up with the idea of creating a display board to go in the student reception. Using our teachers boards, which he uses for Duke Of Edinburgh (which some of us participate in), we had a lot of space to fill with pictures and information about S.O.N. They could also pre-order our product by filling in a form, which would help both them and us. This display board would be manned at break and lunch times, so that they can answer any questions and encourage people to sign the pre-order form.
Tonight we stayed after school, like every other Friday, to put together the board, by printing off pictures and captions for the board. As we did not have enough Velcro to stick it all to the board, we set out where we wanted everything to go, and then drew the layout on a piece of paper. Putting this all together took about an hour and a half, but by working together we completed it sooner than normal.
As well as this, we retook the photos of each other, and the ones we took before we not as good because of the sunlight shining in our eyes. These would be used for the display board and in the business plan.

Meeting No. 9

Apart from the first class transport, today was a very good meeting. Not only did we show Marie our business plan so far, but also example pages of our product. She, and her partner, Derek, seemed very impressed with what we had done with our product and the business plan, as well as what we had done so far. As well as this, they both gave us very useful advice on what to do in the coming weeks, to improve the sales of our product. With their advice and our commitment and teamwork, we can sell many more of our product than first expected, meaning an even greater profit to go towards the charity we are helping, Faith and Football.

The Way To Travel!

We are speechless! Not only because of what we talked about in our latest meeting and the possibilities we have, but the way we arrived to the meeting - by limo! All arranged by Marie, our business mentor, and with all the teachers at our school knowing, it came as a bit of a shock to walk of reception to see a stretch limo before us, along with chauffeur and photographer. We expected to be travelling to see Marie by minibus or car, but never a limo! We can't fault the service, but it felt very different to be treated as VIPs, and not students. Complete with a Xbox 360 and stereo system, it was an awesome experience, that we shall never forget, and will be highlight of our Enterprise Challenge (other than winning it!)
Tomorrow shall be an interesting day, as everyone knew about the limo, and we will be bombarded with questions about our way of transport.

Parent Link

At our school we have a leaflet which goes home to all the students, called Parent Link. This is an ideal oppurtunity for us to advertise to the public, as the parents wil read it and see what we are doing and selling. We wrote a little article to go in this terms Parent Link, giving a brief desciption of what we are doing to help charity, and how they can help us, by contacting us and buying one of our products. Because we only had a small section of the leaflet, we could not write as much as we wanted, but it was enough to persuade people to buy our product. The article had to be written by Thursday, so we only had a few days to think of what to write, but it wasn't hard, because we had plenty of experience about writing about what we are doing in the letters and business plan we have wrote.

Finshing the Product

Today we finally finished and edited the product, so it is ready to be sent to the printers. As it is more expensive for us to create our own design and layout for our product, we sent an email to the printing company to make sure that our design can be printed, because some programs are not compatible with the printers. We quickly received a reply, saying that they would check for us if our design worked, and would reply ASAP.
We are very happy with the product we have designed, as it has taken us many hours and days to create, collecting the images and putting it all together.

Feeling the Pressure

With less than 2 months left of the challenge, the pressure is now more than ever. Today we prepared the prototype to be sent to the printing company, as it needs to be done as soon as possible, because we must allow time for printing. The layout and design of the prototype is very important, and must be perfect. If this stage does not go according to plan, if could be disastrous for the S.O.N.