Making life a little sweeter
Tasked with an assignment to plan and execute a community assistance project, six management master's students sampled the sweet taste of success when they raised money for a local charity.
The event
Laura Watson, Minmin Li, Tengyue Dong, Khafe Oshingbemi, Ezimma Oguagha and Ikenze Kalu joined together for their assignment and organised a fundraising event for Mencap’s Grove Cottage in Bishop’s Stortford.
As part of the module ‘Intrapreneurship and Enterprise’ within their management master's degree, Laura explained: “The module aims at enabling students to obtain both a theoretical and practical understanding of a range of issues found in entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and enterprise development. Our assignment brief was to plan and execute a community assistance project, in line with the key theory within the module.”
Laura continued: “For the event we sold bags of international sweets, a mixture of Chinese, Nigerian and British sweets, to emphasise the diverse cultures which are present at the University. We also felt we could bring a little home-from-home for the international students.”
With their sweet bags at the ready, Laura and the team sold the bags on de Havilland campus over the course of one day and raised more than £240 for the charity, whilst raising awareness through the distribution of leaflets and encouraging students to volunteer for the charity.
Grove Cottage
Set up in the 1960s by a group of parents who wanted to provide lifelong support for their children, Grove Cottage offers social and educational activities for people of all ages with learning disabilities: to develop their potential, avoid social isolation by supporting lifelong friendships and to provide respite for their families. It runs seven clubs and has 120 active members who attend these clubs regularly, giving support and help from 3 months to 70+ years.
Laura explained why they chose the charity as the focus for their event: “We decided our chosen charity would be Grove Cottage, a branch of Mencap in Bishop's Stortford, as I am aware of the great work that they do having worked with children with special needs myself.”
She added: “We hope to have gone a small way to raise awareness of the charity and the fantastic work that they do.”
Support and advice
As an assignment, Laura said: “Tutors were on hand to help with any questions or queries we had throughout the task. However, an emphasis within the module was on practical learning and so we were encouraged to resolve issues ourselves.”
She continued: “This kind of practical learning enabled us to put education theory into practice, which made the topics throughout the master's more relevant. Participating in fundraising helped to develop our self-esteem, as there is great satisfaction to be gained when completing such a task. We were also able to improve team working and networking skills, whilst developing confidence.”
Laura and the rest of the group thoroughly enjoyed this practical experience of running a project first hand, and were made aware of the difficulties, as well as rewards, that organising a project can bring. She added: “We have learnt that even a small scale project requires a huge amount of hard work and cooperation.”
As advice to future fundraisers, Laura concluded: “Be enthusiastic and enjoy the event itself. It takes a lot of meticulous planning and perseverance before the event itself but it is invaluable experience of working in a team.”
Find out more
To find out more about Mencap’s Grove Cottage, please visit www.mencapgrovecottage.org/
To find out more about studying a Management Master's at the University of Hertfordshire, please visit www.herts.ac.uk/courses/MSc-Management.cfm
Contact
Rebecca McAleese
T: 01707 286 476