The SuperJam Adventure Reaches The Magic Kingdom...
At the weekend, I visited my old pal Mickey Mouse at Disneyland Paris. He loves SuperJam*.
I was very kindly invited by European Study Tours to speak to 1,600 British school kids who were on an amazing business studies and ICT school trip.
After I went on the roller coasters, I spoke in a massive Disney auditorium to the students; sharing with them the amazing adventure that I have been on over the past few years. I told them the story of how I took my Gran's recipe from the kitchen table to the shelves of Waitrose and other massive supermarket chains.
The students enjoyed the talk and were generous enough to laugh at my awful jokes. They made me feel like a celebrity by queuing up for about forty five minutes to have their pictures taken with me!
Thanks again to European Study Tours and all of the pupils on the trip. See you next time Mickey!
I've very gratefully been invited to speak at a variety of events over the coming months. I figured I should pop them onto the blog, incase you fancy coming along. Some of the talks are at conferences that you need to buy a ticket for.
28th January: 'Enterprise Spotlight' at the University of Hertfordshire, 6pm-8pm.
2nd February: 'My Life is my Business' event at Darwen Aldridge Community Academy, 11am-4pm.
3rd February: Strathclyde University SEN event, All Bar One, Glasgow, 7pm-10pm.
1st March: Disneyland Paris, European Study Tours, all day.
6th March: Scottish Youth Parliament, Lanarkshire
10th March: Use Your Loaf event, Durham, all day.
11th March, CIPD Conference, Perth, all day.
17th March, Philip Allen Updates event, London, all day.
24th March: San Juan University, Puerto Rico
25th March: Columbia University, New York City
30th March: West Cheshire College, Chester
16th April: Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
Last week, I was very kindly invited to speak to the pupils at a school on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales.
The pupils, aged 14-16, were working on coming up with ideas to set up their own small businesses as part of an after school group run by the "Mentermon", a government-backed organisation that aims to foster enterprise on the island.
I shared the story of how SuperJam came about and how we got the SuperJam Tea Parties off the ground. The kids were very enthusiastic and asked questions for about half an hour.
While I was on Anglesey, I got to stop off at "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch", a small village that holds the Guinness Book of Records title of having the longest place name in the world.
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Last week, I shared the story of the SuperJam adventure with a few hundred school kids at the Changeworks Make Waste History Conference at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh.
I also spent the day running workshops for four groups of pupils, giving them the opportunity to come up with their own enterprising ideas to try and reduce food waste. They then pitched their ideas to the whole group, 'Dragon's Den style', and one team was voted the winner.
The pupils came up with all kinds of ideas; from feeding food waste to pigs to creating a website to help shoppers predict what they need to buy better; helping them to reduce the amount of stuff they throw away at the end of the month.
The event coincided with the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen and the hundred of kids who came along definitely left with good ideas on how to reduce food waste. You can read more about it here.
Throughout November and December, i'll be sharing the story of how SuperJam grew from my Gran's kitchen to the supermarket shelves. You'll be able to come along and hear me speak at the following places:
Last week, I was very kindly invited to visit Wick, which is a few miles from John o' Groats (the most Northernly point of mainland Britain).
The reason for the trip was to give a few talks at local schools, including to over 300 kids at Wick high school. I also had the pleasure of visiting the Laurandy Centre, which was hosting the most Northerly ever SuperJam tea party for 30 or so elderly guests.
It was a really lovely trip and I was shown around by Professor Iain Blaikie, a friend of mine, who organised the trip and is a big believer in getting entrepreneurs, inventors, astronauts and political figures to speak to pupils at the local schools.
We even went for lunch on the shortest street in the world, which is in Wick and is about one and a half meters long!
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SuperJam Wins Nectar Business 'Entrepreneur of The Year' Award.
This week, I was delighted to be told that SuperJam has been awarded the 'Nectar Business Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award'. There were a number of really great companies that were also up for the award, so it is a real honor.
Nectar Business said:
“We're delighted to announce Shiply.com, SportStars and SuperJam as the winners in the Nectar Business Small Business Awards. It's staggering to see how successful these three businesses have been in their individual ways. From, Shiply.com who have achieved incredible success in less than 12 months, to SportStars who spotted a gap in the education market to create a highly successful business, to young entrepreneur Fraser Doherty who set up SuperJam, the fast-growing jam brand in the UK - it's inspiring to see each of these three businesses leading in their field.”
“Everyone who runs a small business, especially in the current climate, has to work extremely hard to get it off the ground and make a success of it. The awards have represented a fantastic opportunity to celebrate great business ideas, business practice and people and I would like to congratulate all the small businesses from across the UK that entered.”
Thanks very much Nectar Business - it is a really wonderful pat on the back, encouraging me to continue to grow the business, as well as the SuperJam Tea Parties, as ambitiously as possible.
A few years ago, when I was trying to get SuperJam off the ground, Channel 4 followed me around to make a 30-minute program about what I was doing.
As part of the program, I was given advice from the hugely successful Scottish entrepreneur, John Boyle, who built and sold Direct Holidays and then later set up Zoom airlines.
In the program, his advice was not to try to supply SuperJam to supermarkets. Of course, I ended up going against his advice and following my dreams.
The program was repeated on Channel 4 this morning and you can watch the entire program on 4oD online, here.
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I have today been spending a bit of time watching the amazing talks and lectures you will find on the 'Do Lectures' site. The speakers include the inventor Trevor Bayliss, author and bread expert Andrew Whitley and Guy Watson of the Riverford Organic box scheme.
The idea behind the event is that 'People who DO things can inspire others to DO things'. Every year, the event invites DOers from business, the arts, campaigning, inventing and so on to share their stories and give insight about what inspires them, what motivates them and why they do what they do.
The event is sponsored by the wonderful Howies company, who produce a great collection of ethical clothing.
David Hieatt, co-founder of the event says "When you listen to their stories, they just light a fire in your belly to go and Do your thing, your passion, the thing that sits in the back your head each day, just waiting, and waiting for you to follow your heart.
To go find your cause to fight for, your company to go start, your invention to invent, your book to write, your mountain to climb."
The event takes place in West Wales and all of the 60 delegates camp out over the course of the days. For more information, check out the website.
You may have seen this film in cinemas last year. It is about a group of elderly people in Northampton, Massachusetts, who have formed a rock band. They have a combined age of over 2,000 years.
They have grown in popularity so much over the past few years, especially after a film was made about their story, that they play to sell-out crowds all over the world.
MSNBC Says:
"Some of what they sing shouts the honest part of growing old. Their concerts are intelligent and deep. Ninety minutes nonstop, constantly shifting from laughter to tears.
"Nothing to do and nowhere to go,” they croon. “I want to be sedated."
It took standing ovations for director Bob Cilman to convince the chorus to sing the songs they used to tell their kids to turn down."
This is, of course, similar to the story of the British group 'The Zimmers', who shot to fame last year following the release of their single 'My Generation'.
These stories are inspirational because they demonstrate that, regardless of how old you are, you can still be entertaining, funny and try to improve how other people are perceived and treated in society.
Of course, through The SuperJam Tea Parties, I hope that we are able to bring fun and motivation to the lives of thousands of elderly people who are living alone, are housebound or who live in care.
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I'm becoming something of a regular on BBC Scotland these days.
You can listen to a nice little chat we had this morning about motivation and achieving what you want in life here. . The part where i'm nattering is about fifteen minutes in.
I think that the entrepreneur's ability to motivate themselves to get up every morning and bash on with their idea is one of the big factors that separates the ideas that work from the ones that don't. It took Dyson hundreds of attempts at building the dual cyclone before he eventually came up with his now world famous vacuum cleaner. A lot of people wouldn't have been able to motivate themselves to get up every day and think about vacuum cleaners.
I've managed to motivate myself to get up every morning for almost six years and think about jam; mostly because I love the stuff and also since I have been able to always think in terms of where i'm aiming to get in the long run. It doesn't matter if today doesn't work out too good, as long as everything on the whole is moving towards where I want to go; transforming the world of jam!
