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DURHAM UNIVERSITY BLUEPRINT ‘09 AWARDS WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Added 19th Mar 2009

This year saw 12 teams battle it out in the Final of Durham University’s student business planning competition.  The event was celebrated with a black-tie dinner at St Chad’s College on Wednesday 18 March.   After a welcome from the Dean of the Graduate School, the finalists were eagerly announced whilst being presented with their certificates by the Vice Chancellor Prof Chris Higgins.  A generous 3-course meal followed prior to the awards ceremony commencing.

The Overall Winner was Howard Kingston of Irish Ancestral Holidays. After spending many summer holidays working with American tourists visiting Ireland, Howard realised many were desperate to find information about their Irish ancestors and visit where they had once lived – yet no one offered this service! The idea of Irish Ancestral Holidays was quickly born. A specialised tour package company targeting people with Irish family roots, and providing them with a premium, personalised holiday experience, offering the unique selling point of visiting locations where their Irish ancestors were raised.

Howard was also the winner of the Business Award category, receiving a trophy, certificates and cheques to the value of £1,500. The prize was generously sponsored by County Durham Development Company (CDDC).  Howard will progress to the Regional Grand Final in late October, where he will complete against entries from the other four universities in the North East  (Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside).
 
The Overall Runner-Up was Michael Rainsford and Matthew Heap with StuRents.  StuRents.com specialises in student accommodation.  Their website offers a platform for landlords and letting agents to advertise their properties through use of a simple search function that offers a prospective tenant the ability to browse through hundreds of properties, viewing property descriptions, photographs, video walkthroughs, feedback and more. StuRents aims to encourage local business by advertising offers to students through the use of email ‘Offer Bulletin’ assisting local companies to survive the recession, sending their discount offer to their ever expanding database of members. StuRents Ltd also operates StuRentsMedia.com a marketing agency that offers the creation of websites, graphic design and advertising consultancy.

Michael and Matthew also were awarded the prize for the business thought to be of ‘Most Benefit to the University Community’ and will also go forward to represent Durham at the Regional Grand Final.

The Overall Highly Commended Award was presented to ‘Savarin’s’, a high ended chocolate confectionary business brought to us by Sarah Newall.  Specialising in the sale of the finest handmade chocolate from England’s best artisan chocolatiers, Sarah’s business is located on the North East, initially operating from concessions and internet retail.  Sarah intends to grow organically to encompass a number of chocolate shops and concessions, becoming synonymous with the finest chocolate available.

The Winner of the Creativity & Design Award, sponsored by Epigeum, was ‘Friends Vs. Records’, Pip Newby.  Created in 2007, Friends Vs Records is one of Britain's most exciting new record labels, releasing singles and albums by bands from around the world. As well as this Friends Vs provides a consultancy service to larger music companies worldwide, working with some of the biggest names in records, publishing, management and live. This coupled with a burgeoning live enterprise and recent coverage on Radio 1 as well as press features in the NME, the Guardian and Kerrang! will see Friends Vs Records become one of the biggest names in independent music over the next year.  Pip will be joining the others in representing Durham at the Regional Grand Final of the Blueprint.

The Winner of the Social & Community Enterprise Award went to Christina Maiden with her ‘Off the Page’ plan is a theatre in education company which will bring National Curriculum set texts to life for students in North East Secondary Schools. Through interactive drama workshops and performances, English Literature will be taken ‘off the page’ and into students’ experience, better equipping them for their examinations and helping them to engage with and enjoy English Literature.

The night couldn’t have been possible without the continued support from our sponsors, which included One NorthEast, Dickinson Dees, County Durham Development Company (CDDC), Epigeum, Finance Tree, Prontaprint, NECSE and Josephine Butler College. 

And not forgetting those that didn’t win in award, but took part in pitching their bright business ideas and producing plans, thanks to the finalists: Ask Gecko - Andy Stephenson; Envision - Gary Lintern; Buffstuff - Lucy Smith, Rosaline Watts, Sofia Marques da Silva & Katherine Teasdale; My Textbooker - Philip Poots & Nick Rooke; Opotune - Matthew Jackson; Purple Books - Sean Preston, Max Fishman & Chrissie Kemp; and finally, ‘Now What’ - Alex Howell.

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