kiaora@standtall.nz
Kia ora everybody, it's Manaia Peina here the Bay of Plenty and Rotorua Regional Coordinator for YES!
What an amazing year 2025 has been for all our enterprise students.
We started the year off in February with our annual Spark tank event, which 210 students attended. This event aimed to gather all the participating schools in the Bay of Plenty to introduce and inspire them about entrepreneurship, ideas, building business and why the Young Enterprise Scheme is a great opportunity for them to give it a go.
Midway through the year in June, we hosted the Mid Year pitch event at Basestation. We were and still are beyond proud of the 45 teams who pitched in front of our amazing judges. With four rooms running consecutively at Basestation and 12 judges from our community giving a whole morning of their time, we sure could not have given our young entrepreneurs the same amazing opportunity without their support.
Some of you may be thinking “Did they sell their products?” Well yes, they did! They planned, created, and sold in a few different ways such as online, via social media, and in markets. On the 7th of August Stand Tall with the help of Sue Boyne allowed the students to set up a stall and sell at the yearly Canvas careers expo. In 2024 we had 15 yes businesses set up a market stall at theCanvas careers expo this year we had a massive 21 yes business! Here are some cool pics of our students selling platforms.
A highlight for me was hearing that Sunlive Bay News had reached out to Otumoetai College Cook & Collaborate wanting to publish an article on the girls recipe platform. Click here
and have a read-along.
Finally, in September the businesses had the rather large task of completing and submitting their annual review. The annual review is a 10-page business summary that needs to meet the chartered accounts marking criteria. The criteria include Executive Summary, Innovation, Production, Marketing, Sales, Finance, Sustainability. 34 of the businesses submitted their Annual review. They did the mahi and now they get the treat!
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