1st April 2010 - Five Is The Magic Number For Young Enterprise Company

Five North East businesses celebrating their fifth year in business have come together to donate their services to this year’s winning Young Enterprise North East (YENE) start up company.

A ‘five to keep your business alive’ business start-up support package will be provided by five local businesses to help kick-start the winning company at the YENE Regional Final.

The prize package includes, free accountancy support from North Shields-based Blu sky chartered accountants, green office supplies from Ethicalsuperstore.com based in Gateshead, PR and marketing support from Newcastle’s award winning PR agency O Communications, an IT start-up package from Darlington-based Resilient Business Systems and a telecoms package free for a year from Eclipse Networks in Gateshead.

Each year YENE has Regional Final award ceremony whereby students who have set up their own company as part of the school Young Enterprise Company Programme battle it out to become ‘Company of the Year’.

This year the winning student company will not only go on to represent the region at the National Final in London but will also be awarded with the ‘five to keep your business alive’ business support package to help them turn the business into a real trading company.

Young Enterprise North East chief executive Catherine Marchant said: “This year the winning team will win the ‘five things you need to have to get your business started’ package from the five local companies that have kindly donated their services to help the student company get up on its feet.

“We decided to form the start up package and give this as an additional prize to the winning Company Programme business as, in the past, these companies have found it difficult to turn their school-based business into a reality.

“It is a key objective of YENE to ignite the passion for business, and encourage young people to want to go on from their Company Programme to running their own business for real one day.

This practical business support package gives them a platform to make a go of their business idea in the real trading world. The prize contains everything they need to get started, from IT, telecoms and accountancy support to offices supplies and knowing how to promote their new business with the PR advice.

“I was overwhelmed by the support of the local business community. It is nice for them to be able to celebrate their fifth year in business in this practical and charitable way.”

Eclipse Networks director James Drake said: “As part of our fifth birthday celebrations we wanted to give something back to the community and when this opportunity arose, we thought it was a great idea; something practical that we could easily assist with but something that will make such a big difference to a young start up company.”

Blu sky Accounting partner Dave Gibson said: “We are pleased to be able to celebrate our fifth birthday by donating our services to a young company. Hopefully with our help they will also be successful enough to see their fifth year and beyond in business.”

Andy Read of Resilient Business Systems said: “As a young company ourselves we know how difficult starting out can be. We are therefore delighted to be able to help out.”