Suffolk New College does Dragon's Den

The Centre for Independent Living & Learning (CILL) at Suffolk New College, recently staged a ‘Dragons Den’ style event for each of its Business Enterprise Classes to present business ideas to a panel of Business ‘gurus’. The panel of dragons consisted of Nigel Parsons and Paul Noy from Natwest Bank, the College Chaplain David McLeod and Rod Burrell, previous Business Development Director along with Andy Gooding Head of CILL.

The day was held on Tuesday 18th March 2008 and involved 50 students and 20 members of staff. It was a great success and the event organiser Nicki Yucel, Course Tutor has had lots of positive feedback from the participants. Few of the students suffered from ‘stage fright’ in front of quite a big audience - in fact, it was difficult to get the microphone back off some!

Presentations were delivered by each class in the morning on businesses they had already launched and after a break for lunch, spent the afternoon presenting a new business idea with a view to getting advice and guidance from the dragons, as well as the cost of starting the business. The dragons then consulted as a team to decide which of the classes had the top 3 ideas and prizes were awarded accordingly. In addition, every class was awarded a £50 start up cost, so everyone could get their businesses underway regardless of being 1st, 2nd or 3rd prize winners. Every student got a certificate as recognition of their contribution. Overall there were 3 prizes for the businesses proposed, which were based on the amount of profit each business makes:

1st Prize went to ‘Pigaliscious’ - Customised Piggy Banks and gift wrapped chocolates.

2nd Prize went to 4 Gems - decorative greeting cards.

3rd Prize went to Funky Stationery - great stationery packs at an economical price.

Nicki Yucel, Course Tutor said: “The students thoroughly enjoyed the day and are still talking about it and some are looking forward to doing it again next year!” We would like to thank our panel of ‘dragons’ especially the support received from Nigel Parsons and Paul Noy from Natwest Bank who gave up their time to participate.