Tidy Tails clean up at the Waterford City Student Enterprise Awards

On Wednesday February 29^th Deputy Mayor Cllr Gary Wyse presented the Waterford City Enterprise Board perpetual student enterprise trophy along with the winners cheque to a group called ‘Tidy Tails’.

The winning group, from Newtown School in Waterford City founded a business where they designed and created a new bandage wrapping product. Both members of the group, Gillian Bond and Shane Fitzgerald are horse enthusiasts and found a niche in that market for a machine which wraps horses’ tail bandages. They made their own prototype first but then engaged some mechanical engineers to help make improvements on the product. They have made some sales to date and have a number of interested potential buyers both in Ireland and abroad. They will now represent Waterford City at the National Finals in Croke Park on April 18^th.

Other winners include;

2nd place: - Clean Machine from Abbey Community College

Gary Dooley

3rd place: - Makes Sense from the Mercy secondary school

Jenny Walsh, Sarah Phelan, Lisa Mulhall &Chelsea O Keeffe

Best Display: - K8’s glass design from St. Paul’s Community College

Kate Swift.

Best innovation: - Easy A from De la Salle

Robert McCarthy, Mark Hayes, Bill Carton, Jack Hennessy & Dylan Kennedy

Students’ Choice: - Easy Revision from De la Salle

Evan Croke, Gary Drohan, Jamie Slattery & Makzim Lizura

Bertie Rogers (Chair of Waterford City Enterprise Board) praised the teachers, judges and students for all their effort. “It takes much effort and many hours from many people to organise an event like this, and everyone should be very proud”.

The Waterford City Student Enterprise Awards involved over 300 Waterford transition year students every year. It is part of a national competition. Each year almost 15,000 students from all over Ireland get to find out what it’s really like to be their own boss and run their own business by taking part in the Student Enterprise Awards Programme.

The objectives of the programme are;

• To give students practical, real life experience of setting up and running their own business
• To encourage students to think about entrepreneurship and self-employment as a viable career choice
• To enhance the teaching of business and entrepreneurship in schools by combining class room learning with real life experience

Ciaran Cullen Waterford City Enterprise Board CEO (Acting) praised the winning group itself. “Whether it is student enterprise or SMEs, good ideas always shine. Organisation and determination are very important but a good idea will always stand out and this group had the idea, the organisation and the determination. We are delighted with this year’s city winner and are optimistic for the National Finals next month.”

As well as finding out what life is like as your own boss, the National Finals students are also in with a chance of winning some great prizes including:

• A 1,500 euro cash prize for your school
• An all-expenses paid Italian trip worth over 10,000 euro.
• All4One vouchers