BAZAAR
Virtual market of mature
entrepreneurs
Partners Meeting
Newport (United Kingdom) October 25-26, 2011
Minutes
Welcome by Janet Pinder, Associate Director of the Centre of
Community and Lifelong Learning at the University of Wales, Newport.
Janet
welcomed all the delegates in Newport and gave a brief overview of the
University’s mission.
Rebecca
Richards went through the agenda of the day and introduced the first speaker,
David Pugh, Chief Executive of Prime Cymru – Wales. Prime Cymru is a charity
that works to help people over 50 to set up in business or find employment. The
charity was established by the Prince of Wales in 2001. Prime Cymru has worked
with University of Wales for implementing the Bazaar project in Newport. The
presentation included a summary of the organisation’s activities and its
involvement in the project. David was asked if he could support the Bazaar
platform. He explained that the organisation was a small-scale charity (10
staff) and as a result, it has not the resources to take responsibility of
maintaining the platform. However, Prime Cymru said that they would be happy to
assist with marketing and publicity project activities if need be.
The second speaker was Rachel McCarthy from Go Wales. The role of
the organisation is to promote Student employability. The organisation works
with 1400 companies from different strands.
The third
speaker was Barbara Barnes, Online Entrepreneurship Tutor. She has worked with
Prime Cymru to market the course but also started to recruit students
separately, some of them under 50+. The course is now opene
to traditional learners. The course has been accredited (10 credits). Barbara
explained that one of the problems of the platform was that it was not
user-friendly when used to promote services. It seems that the platform works
better when users want to advertise products.
This project has been funded with support from the
European Commission.This publication reflects the views only of the author, and
the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of
theinformation contained therein.EU Project No.
502846-LLP-1-2009-1-DE-Grundtvig-GMP
1
Two students
(Val and Phil) came along with Barbara and have been given the opportunity to
talk to the bazaar delegates about their experience. For instance, traditional
students from the School of Art, media and Design have engaged with Bazaar
learners to see how skills could be exchanged. Students have helped learners to
make logo of companies or photos for their project. Both were pleased with the
course and find it invaluable. Val (jewellery designer) needed help from people
more technological minded. She has already posted products on the Bazaar
website. Phil’s website is under construction and would like to be a web
designer.
Barbara
recommended that the online entrepreneurship course should be 20 weeks long
instead of the current 12 weeks.
The fourth
and final presentation was made by Carol Cresswell from EDA (Entreprise
Development Associates). She has experience in developing Entrepeurneur
projects in South Wales. She initiated a scheme called “Taste of Enterprise” which
aimed at giving people a place where they can test their ideas and receive a
range of business supports. She has run Entreprise events. She has also run a
project called “MePlan50+” funded by the European Commission under the Art.6
programme.
At the lunch
break, it was decided to defer the rest of the agenda until the following day.
Guidebook
The second day
of the conference started with the work to be carried out on the guidebook. The
group worked on filling in the Curriculum section in the guidebook. One of the
Project’s outcomes is to produce a guidebook in English (hard copy) which will
include the guidebook electronic version (CD) and
an electronic Computer & IT basics DVD.
Implementation
(WP5)
Suzanne gave
a presentation on this part of the project. All countries agreed that the
Magento software was successfully implemented but that more updated softwares
on the market were providing better user-friendly interfaces in terms of
services trading.
Webshops
Each country
updated the Group on the webshops activities in their country.
This project has been funded with support from the
European Commission.This publication reflects the views only of the author, and
the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of theinformation
contained therein.EU Project No. 502846-LLP-1-2009-1-DE-Grundtvig-GMP
2
Summary of
tasks to be carried out
WP7: All
partners to send Diana their paragraph by 15 Nov
WP5: All
partners to send Suzanna their paragraph by 15 Nov
WP3: to be
sent by 15 Nov
WP1, 2, 6:
Actions for Hümeyra
The final report needs to be sent to Hümeyra by the end of December 2011
along with timesheets, financial tables, staff contracts/boarding cards/ the
participants’ registrar of the Entrepreneurship online course and photos of
lecturers.
The Group
need to send news of the Newport conference to Jorg in order for him to upload it
on the Bazaar website. Please note that Ahmet has already put some conference
photos on the website)
Sustainability
and Business plan for Bazaar (WP7)
The goal is
to have a business strategy for the bazaar platform. Diana gave a presentation
on the difficulties of starting up a business and the solutions that can be
envisaged.
Ahmet
carried on with the Business plan topic with a case of a virtual company who
will manage the Bazaar website and activities. He presented a business cost
analysis that was commented by the partners.
This project has been funded with support from the
European Commission.This publication reflects the views only of the author, and
the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of
theinformation contained therein.EU Project No.
502846-LLP-1-2009-1-DE-Grundtvig-GMP