The BTEC National Business students at the Newtown site of Coleg Powys organised a charity event and managed to raise £473.

As part of their Managing an Event unit the students arranged a charity bingo, quiz and raffle in Theatr Hafren, which was very well attended.

Business Lecturer Liz Ashton said: “The students worked extremely hard over several months in preparation for the event and organised everything themselves from start to finish.  It was great to see that it was such a successful event.”

The money raised will be going to Cancer Research.

Coleg Powys competed in the Welsh finals of the Global Enterprise Challenge at the Urdd Centre in Cardiff but didn’t make it through to the finals.

Initially, a team of Business students from the Brecon and Newtown site competed against each other to see who would represent the College in Cardiff.  The students were tasked with creating a campaign to promote healthy living in young people and had to pitch their ideas to business men Martin Dowle and Rod Evans. 

It was a close contest but the Newtown team won and went on to compete in the finals.  Students were given 24 hours to come up with a business idea to promote healthy living and then had to pitch the idea to a panel of judges.  The team produced a good presentation which they presented in the heats.  However they lost to a team from St David’s College who went on to compete in the finals.

A student from the Newtown site of Coleg Powys, Nikita Malinin, recently won the College category of the High Sheriff’s Award for Excellence.

Nikita stood out from the other nominations due to the fact that he has done very well in his education even though he has only been in the country for a short time; he is originally from Russia.  He has achieved a good GCSE profile and is doing very well on the BTEC National Diploma in Business course.  In the first year of the course he obtained distinction grades across all units.

It was not only the language difficulty that he has had to overcome, but there is a totally different attitude to education in Great Britain compared to Russia.

Nikita also partakes in team sports and has a part-time job at the Metropole.

In September Nikita will be going to Aberystwyth University to study Business Management.

One hundred and fifty Coleg Powys students from the Brecon and Newtown site took part in the Make Your Mark Challenge last Monday, which is the UK’s largest one day enterprise competition for secondary schools and colleges.  In total over 70,000 students throughout the UK took part.

The challenge was to come up with a new and innovative business idea that takes its inspiration from something local.  The business needed to be a ‘cool’ creation, which is a profitable business that minimises its impact on the environment, and it had to be something new.

The teams were required to produce an ideas sheet, a competitors outline, a money matters sheet and present a three minute pitch to a panel of judges.

The winning team from the Brecon site had produced a company called SNUG, which had developed a new innovative radiator system to help people save money and provide a greener more efficient heating service to the older community of the UK. 

At Newtown the winning team had developed a company called Farmers Alliance, which was a delivery service that offered organic and traditional Welsh farm foods, connecting the local farmers to the local community.

The two winning teams were then entered into the competition and the Brecon team, SNUG, have managed to get through to the regional finals, which are held in Cardiff on Friday.

Julie Turner, Business Studies Tutor at Coleg Powys, found the event very beneficial to students.  She said: “I really enjoyed Monday and was thrilled to bits at how my group worked together. The team working aspect alone was absolutely invaluable for them and I’m sure it’s going to make a big long-term difference in the classroom.”

From 16th to 22nd November 2009, Global Entrepreneurship Week will connect with Coleg Powys students through global activities designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators.  Students, teachers and local business people will participate in a range of activities.

The Global Entrepreneurship Week is an initiative designed to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity.  Millions of people around the world will join a growing movement of entrepreneurial people to generate new ideas and to seek better ways of doing things.  Countries across six continents are coming together to celebrate it.

This is the first time that Coleg Powys students will be celebrating the week through a number of activities.

On Monday 16th November almost 200 Coleg Powys students will be taking part in the Make your Mark Challenge, which is the UK’s largest one day enterprise competition.  Students from Health and Social Care in Newtown and Business in Brecon and Newtown will be taking part.  The competition develops skills such as creativity, team work and communication.  It also provides students with an opportunity to meet local business people who will sport and share their expertise with students.

On Wednesday 18th November Coleg Powys and Careers Wales will jointly be holding a series of workshops at the Newtown site, which will look at various aspects of employment.  Students will have the chance to develop CV’s, think about application form writing skills and meet employers.

Also, throughout the week a number of business people will be speaking to students from a variety of different courses about their business experiences and self employment.

Richard Marriott, Enterprise and Employability Officer at Coleg Powys, said: “This is a great initiative.  It enables the next generation of entrepreneurs to be inspired and acquire the knowledge, skills and networks needed to grow innovative, sustainable enterprises.”