Mini Company....this is it!

I haven't written all week so I'm gonna catch up now...
On Monday we went for the Kildare finals of the Mini Company competition. Myself, Hayley, Michelle, Ailbhe, Leah, Mia, Clara & Emma met up in my house on Sunday to fix up some last minute things...our posters had completely stuck together with double-sided sticky tape from the last competition so Clara & I spent aaaages trying to pry it apart (using a hair-dryer, oven gloves, a towel, a barbeque tongs, and butchers knife and nail-polish remover). Eventually we separated them but they were so crumpled that we had to make a border to go aroun the egde to make them look better.. :/ Anyway, we got our work finished and by the next morning we were ready to head off to the Osprey Hotel in Naas to our competition.
We arrived there at around 11am and spent over an hour setting u our stand and getting ourselves ready for the day. Emma & Mia had ensured that morning that we got a decent display board which wouldn't fall down (like the one we had in our regional final!). We got it up and put black sheet over it with fairy lights. My dad had helped us to make a big thing in the shape of our de-knotter with our mini-company name on it and we hung that up above the board (after the disastrous one we made ourselves out of paper-maché). We started to panic when the internet wouldn't work but we manage to get the home page of our website open so the judges could see it. We set up our table and then went for lunch (potato wdges and chicken goujons...mmmm...) courtesy of the competition.
At 2 o'clock the judging started. We had three judges...the first was a lady who was judging our interview skills and our stand as well as the product itself. The second was a man from AIB who was judging our finances, and the third was another man who was judging marketing and sales. Overall, we were very happy with our interviews. Out of the 18 schools in the final, our school had the most entries (four); Baby Cakes, The Just Desserts, Spoover and us. After the judging we had to wait a short while before the results were announced...meanwhile there was a lot of attention from people who had come for the prize-ceremony in our project. We were saying that had we manufactured we could have made loads of sales that day....oh well!!
Finally the results were announced..The Just Desserts were the first to win a prize...they won the judges award for excellent presentation and an excellent interview (they made cookbook on a USB key)...well done girls!! Four other prizes were given out...most innovative, best business report and best display. Then they announced that we had won second place! We were sooo happy...out of 120 groups who entered in Kildare we had come second! We got a gorgeous trophy and €200, and we were offered a free marketing package from KFM, our local radio station. Sadly, we won't be going through to the next round but we're still really happy with how we did...I don't know yet what the future hold for Knot A Problem but we might yet manufacture...keep an eye out on http://www.dknotter.com/ (our website). Well done to everyone!
By the time we got home that evening we were all wreckedbut had had a very enjoyable day... :)
Btw...we owe a huge thanks to Ms L & Ms L (two different teachers...our year head and our mini-company teacher) for all their help and guidance throughout the project... :D