Exeter College and Chamber of Commerce join forces to create Young Chamber for students

Exeter College is partnering with Exeter Chamber of Commerce to launch a ‘Young Chamber' for participating students this summer. The Young Chamber is a national Government initiative, providing students with a direct link to businesses in their community and hands on work experience. The Chamber will act as the gateway to these businesses, removing any pre-existing barriers and offering an easy communication channel.

Derek Phillips, Chairman of Exeter Chamber of Commerce said, ‘The Chamber is the voice of local businesses and the Young Chamber will give a voice to students allowing their views and opinions to be heard. This is extremely important as they are the business people of the future - we currently don't have anyone of this age helping to make decisions about developments in Exeter. The Young Chamber is set to play a crucial part in this role.'          

Exeter Chamber of Commerce have organised a series of workshops by various Chamber members in accounting, marketing & PR, admin, events management and recruitment, to prepare the students for the roles they will need in the Young Chamber in order to set up and run the scheme.

Cullompton Community College is a commendable example of a school with a thriving Young Chamber. Amanda Farmer, Assistant Principal and leader of Young Chamber from Cullompton Community College said, ‘The Young Chamber has successfully run a profitable school shop for a year, teaching the students valuable retail and accounting skills and giving them the opportunity to become involved in running a business.  They planned and delivered a training event for 130 Year 5 students from 6 local primary schools during Fair Trade Fortnight in March 2009, launching a new campaign for the school to achieve Fair Trade School status by 2010. Students developed knowledge and understanding of the principles of Fair Trade and skills of empathy and colloboration, which is part of the school's Building Learning Power Programme.'

Laura Parratt and Charlotte Cunningham, students from Cullompton Community College both aged 15, went to Exeter College last week to speak about their roles in the Young Chamber and encourage students to join. Laura said, ‘We received £10,000 funding from the Co-op and £14,000 from the Young Chamber which helped build the shop and contributed to other ideas. We did a year's market research before we opened the shop to find out what students and teachers wanted us to sell.'

Charlotte said, ‘We worked very closely with some of the local shops who held training days teaching us how to run a business. We have learnt so much from this experience, we didn't realise just how much we would learn before we started.'

Jo Granton, Head of Business at Cullompton Community College said, ‘The Young Chamber empowers students to run their own businesses at a very young age and the experiences gained will be enormously helpful for their career development. Students will enter a competitive world when they leave school and college - having these additional skills and hands on business experience will be extremely important for their future careers and CV's.'

Sharon Lambert, Deputy Head of Business at Exeter College said, ‘Exciting times lie ahead for the Exeter business community and the Young Chamber is a fantastic opportunity for our students to be part of it.'

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