Networking event is an egg-citing evening

By kstyan

MORE than 40 people gathered at The Royal Wells Hotel in Tunbridge Wells to take place in an Apprentice Challenge Evening, jointly organised by Sarah Cundle from Horwath Clark Whitehill and Lucy Hodgson from Page Personnel.

"This is the first in what we hope will be a series of events," Sarah explained. "Lucy and I wanted to offer the local business community a new type of networking event and give participants the opportunity to show off their hidden talents and identify business skills they never knew they had."

Guest judge at the launch event was Lisa Casson from Remedy Creative, in Southborough, who said she was looking forward to seeing what happened when "the best business minds in Tunbridge Wells use the left-hand side of their brains".

Among those who attended were Jackie Matthias from the West Kent Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Alyson Howard from Meta Corporate Finance, Alyson Young from Bishop and Sewell, Craig Strong from Capital Currencies, Mark Howard from Creaseys, Darren Austin from Wells Associates, and Joe Waters from Gener8 Finance. They were split into teams of five or six and set a challenge involving an egg.

Every team had to construct packaging for their egg using paper or card, sticky tape, scissors, four drinking straws, four paper clips, one rubber band and a balloon.

They were also given felt-tip pens and A3 paper to use in the preparation and presentation of an advert.

The teams then had just over an hour to prepare packaging from their egg, design an advertisement for publication in a national newspaper and prepare a five-minute pitch to the "buying team" of Sainbury's – in this case Lucy, Sarah and Lisa. Finally, the packaged egg had to survive a 6ft drop.

The teams were given points for a successful drop, teamwork, originality and creativity. Extra points were awarded for ingenuity, creative thinking and business acumen.

The winning team was The Famous Five, made up of Emma Roberts from Creaseys, Richard Coleman from Maxim PR and Marketing, Liz Turk from Runcorns, The Original Property Makeover Company, Paul Matthews from Bespokes Chartered Accountants and Clair Povey from HSBC Premier, who presented their concept Mr Egg.

"Mr Egg – and we anticipate a range of Mrs Eggs as well – will be targeted at children to encourage them to eat a decent breakfast," said team leader Paul, who showed the panel the prototype – Mr Egg in Space.

For details on the next Apprentice Challenge Evening, contact Sarah Cundle on 01892 700200 or email sarah.cundle@horwath.co.uk or Lucy Hodgson on 01622 607490 or send an email to lucyhodgson@ pagepersonnel.co.uk