Cambridge United’s centre-back pairing Greg Taylor and George Taft have been out supporting local secondary school students, participating in the Community Trust’s new Grant Thornton Enterprise Project for today’s EFL Day of Action.
The innovative new programme has been designed to enable secondary school students to develop their entrepreneurial and employability skills in a real-life enterprise context. The project focuses on areas such as teamwork, business development and marketing in order to achieve these aims.
Groups of students from local schools have been given the opportunity to market online discount codes for five Cambridge United home league matches, with Greg Taylor and George Taft appearing at Comberton Village College and St Peters in Huntingdon respectively this afternoon. The players were there as part of the media workshop, in which each respective group could use them to produce marketing materials that will help to promote their campaigns.
The whole project is cashless, as the discount codes have no monetary value. Any profit made from the sales of these tickets will go to charity, adding an invaluable social enterprise element to the challenge for the pupils who take part.
Student participants meet on a weekly basis, supervised by a Business Studies teacher. They are also visited by either a Grant Thornton mentor or a Cambridge United employee who will provide expert support every other week.
Stuart Davies, Associate Director in Grant Thornton’s Cambridge Science Park office said: “Being involved with this programme has been great. These projects are very important to everyone at Grant Thornton and are at the heart of building a sustainable and vibrant economy in the local area.
“Bringing real life business insight alongside football has caught the imagination of the students and their enthusiasm has been clear to see. We look forward to developing our relationship with the Trust as the programme develops.”