Young Enterprise Recognised

Young entrepreneurial talent was recognised yesterday, as the winners of the ‘Make Your Mark with a Tenner’ competition were announced.

Teams and individuals in schools nationwide took on the challenge of taking £10 loans to set up a business and make a good profit in a month. The average return was £42, while the largest profit came to a grand £736.

Supported by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and funded by entrepreneurs Peter Jones and Michael and Xochi Birch – the founders of social networking site Bebo – the campaign is run by Make your Mark, which hopes to give young people the confidence and ambition to become enterprising.

Peter Jones, entrepreneur and Make Your Mark chairman presented the awards. He said: “These budding young entrepreneurs have shown that they have the drive and determination necessary to make things happen. In a time when teenagers are often portrayed as the source of society’s problems, I’m pleased that Make Your Mark with a Tenner has helped them to demonstrate the opposite – that young people are creative and innovative and that they can be trusted with cold, hard cash to help improve things for themselves and others.”

Henry Pearce from St ThomasChurch in Kent made the greatest return on his tenner: £736. Henry staged a ‘historic fashion show’ and strutted his stuff in a 1920s bathing suit. Like his fellow young entrepreneurs, Henry is donating his profits to a good cause: his choice was a Kenyan school, Molo 220.

The best group return was £493 (on £20) by two students from CullomptonCommunity College, Devon: they compiled a recipe book with recipes collected from local business people.

Other enterprising ideas included a Bollywood Dance performance, a silent disco and a healthy tuck shop.

A silent disco?

Everybody recognises the loon that stands in the middle of the dance floor, shaking their hips and contorting their body to a beat that has no correlation what – so – ever with the music you can hear. Most people would spend the rest of their evening trying to avoid this particular type of person in a bid to avoid the impending embarrassment of being caught within close quarters of them.

However it’s taken a pair of Dutch DJ’s to realise that fun could be had in abundance as soon as you provide everyone with their own set of wireless headphones and encourage freestyle dancing to the music only you and half the other dancers can hear.

To puzzled onlookers it’s an odd sight, a tent full of people wearing wireless headphones, half of whom are grooving to Fatboy Slim’s ‘Rockefeller Skank’, while the other half are head banging to the sounds of Nirvana’s ‘Street Spirit’. Odd it may look, but curiosity would get the better of many an onlooker and it wouldn’t be long before the audience made the transition from fascinated bystanders to enthusiastic participants.

Such is the addiction of the Silent Disco that it’s making its appearance this year across the festival scene at Wychwood, Oxygen, T in the Park, Guilfest, Global Gathering, Womad, The Carling Weekend and Electric Picnic.

The Silent Disco is hosted by NO DJ and DJ OD. The former is a tall Dutchman with a love of Hawaii and hard house, while the latter prefers beer, polka and rock – apparently. Whoever you decide to listen to rest assured you’ll be accompanied by the soothing sounds of commentary akin to the vocal accompaniments of first grade acting in 70’s Dutch porn movies.

Interactivity is a key feature of the Silent Disco, bored with one song? Then simply switch channels on your wireless headphones and you can listen to something else. Two Dj’s play simultaneously, offering a hilarious fusion of uncoordinated dancing and even less cohesive singing.

Losing yourself in the music is all part of the fun and occasionally you might want to stop, take your head phones off and listen to what everyone else is singing. It really is a unique experience.

Popularity of The Silent Disco has been soaring since its inception in the summer of 2002. In 2004 there were 78,000 people who had danced/moshed/skanked (delete as appropriate) to the Silent Disco, a number that is continuing to grow.

If you get the chance this summer stop by the Silent Disco and take a look, I promise you it won’t be long before you’re donning a pair of wireless headphones and dancing like that uncontrollable loon.