The third workshop of this year’s Social Enterprise Hub programme (SEH v3) took place on Monday and we were delighted to welcome Mark Mason and Erica Purvis from Design Nature CIC to the school. Mark and Erica have been part of the SEH journey right from the start and we are extremely grateful for the time and effort they have put into helping us this year.

Design Nature’s presentation was inspiring and insightful. They explained how their company started with a passion for blending design and sustainability, and they shared the challenges they faced, such as securing funding and overcoming early scepticism. It was impressive to see how they turned obstacles into opportunities through innovation and teamwork. Their journey showed us the importance of perseverance and creative thinking in building a successful business. We particularly appreciated how open they were about their experiences; it made the session motivating.

Following their presentation, the teams headed off into the breakout rooms, tasked to design personas of potential customers for our various business ideas. This made us think about our target demographic and what their wants and needs would be. It also helped us reflect on our business idea and how we now need to look at the details of how we are going to communicate with potential customers, produce our products and get them to market. When all the teams got back together at the end of the workshop, there was time for each one to share their work from the afternoon and it was clear how much progress everyone had made in just a short time. This is testament to the inspiring talk from Mark and Erica.

Putting structure to our business ideas will be the next crucial phase of the programme when we return to school after the Christmas Break and we are all excited to move things on another stage. It is all beginning to feel very real, which is extremely exciting!

Lily and Adriana (Lower VI)