On Thursday 5 May, two teams of five Lower Sixth students made impressive presentations to a panel of judges at the culmination of a Business Partnership Challenge, kindly organised by Woldingham parent Troy Warfield. 

Starting in March, the students were challenged to help build a strategy for the launch of Oche, a gastro-gaming venue in London, opening this summer.

Over the following weeks, during working lunches, one team created a marketing strategy for the venue, whilst the other team focused on developing a community engagement and charitable strategy. Each team was supported by Upper Sixth mentors.

The students relished the opportunity to work on a real-life business venture and develop their business, communication and teamwork skills, as team leaders Zara and Victory describe below.

Zara

Our team had the marketing brief and our task was to come up with ways to promote Oche as a new business in London. My team, alongside our mentors, held countless meetings in order to make sure that our marketing plan was perfect.

 We began by outlining our short and long term goals. Our umbrella short term goal was to strengthen the social media presence to increase the number of walk-in customers, which would help achieve our long term goals of a consistent number of customers each day, while increasing our market share of interactive restaurants/bars in London.

 A few weeks into the project we had the privilege of meeting Daisy Keeley, Oche’s social media manager. We discussed ways to promote Oche as a brand, such as introducing promotions, online bookings and, most importantly, booking games. We are very happy to say that some of our ideas have already been implemented on the website and cannot wait to see our other ideas being integrated with Oche.

Victory

My team’s responsibility was to come up with ideas for Oche’s fundraising and how the business can establish a global community. We spent nine long but fun weeks researching, brainstorming and discussing ways Oche can reach its full potential in both areas. Oche’s motto is ‘shared happiness’ and we used this as our inspiration. 

 To establish a global community we came up with ways for Oche to improve the wellbeing of people and the environment. Our ideas included providing employment opportunities for the local community, creating a safe space within Oche for people with disabilities, and implementing sustainable measures within Oche’s work culture.

 For charitable fundraising, we suggested setting up booths of different activities, alongside the main event of a live auction where upcoming artists from the local community would perform. 

We also presented our belief that the secret to raising a substantial amount from your fundraiser is to extend it beyond the actual event. So we proposed a pre- and post-event action plan to help Oche maximise the funds raised. 

We all learnt a huge amount from this experience and are very grateful to Mr Warfield and to Woldingham for the opportunity.

Following their excellent work on this project, Mr Warfield has asked both teams to give their presentations, this time virtually, to the wider team at Oche, and has invited the students to a meal at Oche when it opens.