By Laurice Laird
Adult students marked their successful completion of Lambeth’s first social enterprise course with a graduation event.
The event, held on June 26th 2013, marked the successful completion of the eight-week course in Tulse hill led by social entrepreneur Colin Crooks.
Students had to utilise their entrepreneurial skills to sell a torch to Florence Nightingale, a word processor to William Shakespeare and to persuade the Vikings to get a motor boat.
Colin Crooks, social entrepreneur, said: “On the day [of the graduation] it was a full day of training. We had a guest from the Fredericks foundation, who gave us a talk about the foundation i.e. the type of projects they support, and what you have to do to get funding to set up a business.
“There were a few workshops in the afternoon, which was divided into four groups. The first group had to develop a pitch to a new customer. The first customer was William Shakespeare, played by me, and their task was to sell me a word processor. They got the best challenge i.e. what a word processor was, what was wrong with using a quill etc. I ended up buying at least one word processor. It was a lot of fun.”
Cllr Jackie Meldrum who presented the graduation certificates joined the group of students, along with the deputy chairwoman of Hightrees.
He added: “The exciting thing is, is that in Lambeth we’ve got so many residents and creative people who’ve got fantastic ideas and real talent, but that don’t know how to put it into a business, and that’s what we discovered at the start of the course 10 weeks ago.”
Colin Crooks is running a five-week shorter version of the course at the Spires in Streatham at 10am on July 1st, July 8th, July 15th, July 22nd and July 29th.
The next full eight week course is due to start in September. More information can be found at www.high-trees.org or call 020 8671 3132.
