Jolly day out :D

My work does this community outreach programme called Think Big where they take random people like me and then take us to help out voluntary organisations, charities etc.  What follows is my experience from when I was chosen to go. 

I set off from my sunny Hometown nice and early and got to the train station 20 minutes before my train left for Manchester, luckily for me I met someone I know who informed me that I was waiting on the wrong platform 3 minutes before my train arrived.  Thank god for long legs! I got to the right platform exactly one minute before my train arrived.  I crammed myself into the train and set off on my adventure.

 

I got to Manchester about 25 minutes before the event started and proceeded to make my way on what I thought was the correct route to MMU All Saints campus.  After recognising some of the local landmarks it dawned on me that I was completely and utterly lost so I proceeded to make way back to the train station and once there set off in the opposite direction to which I had originally taken.  This was also the wrong way.  Luckily I met a helpful man selling Big Issues who escorted me to the university.  To my eternal shame I did not buy a Big Issue from him I just thanked him and went on my way.

 

I found the correct building after a lot of map reading failures and backtracking and I was actually there 2 minutes earlier than the allotted time.  I strolled over to reception and spoke to the security guard who informed that there no such thing as Think Big or Young Enterprise on his schedule, I kept my cool and asked him if there were any schools or colleges attending that day and he informed me there was a college which was coming at 9 o clock and he proceeded to point me in the direction of a lecture theatre where the supposed gathering was taking place.  I entered the lecture room and in the pitch black fumbled around for a light switch, I switched the lights on and then I waited and waited and waited.  After about 15 minutes it dawned on me that maybe I was in the wrong place as it was past 8:45 and still no one had turned up other than me, so I went back out to the reception where I met the Young Enterprise organiser called Jonny who saw my Think Big t-shirt and ushered me up a flight of stairs and into a room where I was greeted with blank stares from a group of university students who were also volunteering.  I looked around eagerly hoping to see one of my other colleagues hovering between the students.  Unfortunately they were as lost as I had been, they had been refused entry into the university car park and had to find a NCP car park, when they did manage to get to the building the security guy had no idea why they were there and had to be rescued by our gallant knight Jonny.  As well as us there was also a lady representing Cadburys. 

 

We were given our briefs and told that most of the heavy lifting will be done by the university students as they had done this before and we were just to move between the desks and give help as and when required.  The Young Enterprise kids were made up of students from three schools from the Greater Manchester area.  The students were split up into groups of 6 and given a budget of £200 million to spend.  They had to create an airline and then try to sell tickets to travel agents for their airline and do a presentation at the end about how much they had made and how long it would take for them to recoup the money they had spent.

 

The students had to create an airline from scratch, they had to make a name, design a logo, uniforms for their staff, pick one destination, pick a suitable aeroplane and work out the profit/loss for all this.  My job was mainly to help the students plan their airline and make sure they understood what they were doing.  I also helped the students work out how much everything was going to cost as well help them plan destinations.  The most fun part of the day was when the volunteers had to pretend to be travel agents and haggle with the kids to get low prices for seats, turns out you can get a return flight to Florida for £70.  All in all it was an enjoyable day for all those involved.

 

On the way home I decided to go for a stroll through China Town as it was a very nice day.  This was when I got a message from work which showed that the call centre had calls queueing, and it was just plain hectic at work.  I gave a small smile, switched off alerts, slipped my phone in my pocket and proceeded to buy a Cornetto. ;D