Monday, April 28, 2008

The Jewelry Business

Whew! I've had a busy time, here!

This past weekend I spent from midday Friday till midday Sunday at Camp Libby in Defiance, OH for our second annual Girl Scout Camp CEO. The idea is that successful business women are each paired with a young woman, in grades 10, 11 or 12. The purpose is for each of us to learn from each other.

The weekend was a mix of business training and team training, with the team training being outdoors at the climbing wall and "giant" ladder. My friend, Lori Cannon, who was named Distinguished Woman of the Year, is the leader of the pack when it comes to this weekend.

We decided that we wanted to have some fun with the business learnining experience for the girls and the women. Between the two of us we created a game that would help the girls to understand that starting a business is not just about coming up with a good idea. You can imagine our nervousness with the thoughts of how this was all going to play out. In theory the game sounded like a great idea, but in reality would it be fun and educational?

Well, the jury is in. It was fun and we all learned. There were some bumps in the road, which will help us to perfect this game for the future. I think for me, the best comment was from Emily, one of the students. At the end of the weekend yesterday, she shared that the first couple rounds of the game, she had no idea what the game questions were talking about, but as the game went on, she began to get the idea.

The object of the game was to accumulate points that would turn into money that they could use for initial investment in their companies. We told all three teams that they were in the jewelry business, but that one was retail, one was wholesale and one was manufacturing. Each team then had to prepare a short presentation as if they would be presenting to someone who would invest in their new company. They needed to gain the difference between the money they had accumulated and the total amount they needed.

The three girl teams did a stupendous job of presenting and grasping the ideas of having to find a source of money to start their businesses. I thought back to when I was seventeen or eighteen. There was no way that I even understood the concept of starting a business, let alone, asking for money to do so.
I'll write about the outside "work" we did tomorrow!

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