Emotional friday

Well the last day we started with doing business plans. You could do it by your own or with a group of 2 or 3. I did it with Ella about her own business which is making clothes from recycled materials and the topic is near to my heart also so it was easy to me to identify with it. :) So we made a presentation about Ella's business with very cute (?) pictures and all and got to show it to the whole group (only 3 from 14 business plans were presented to the whole group!)! It was nice and I think Ella made many new customers already. :)
Day was busy with the business plans and presentations and a bit stressful too because it felt like we wouldn't get the plan done in time. So I myself was totally tired after the presentations. But the night was young. :D So we had a quest, a wedding planner!! So the topic for the rest of the evening was wedding! We did draw the roles and it was time to get ready for the wedding party. It was lots of fun though I was tired as he**.
I didn't actually get a good picture of the groom and the bride, but here's brides mother:

She's so pretty

After the ceremony, wedding reception and all that it was time to get back to that fact that it's our last night together. So many of us got quite emotional (me included)...

Thursday is full of hope

Or that's what we say in Finland.

On Thursday we went off to Worcestershire where we visited a cathedral. It was really beautiful and very old. Then we had few hours time of our own to explore the city. I bought an awesome book about pirates to my nephew who had a 4th birthday during my trip to England, so I missed it. Ella wanted to go to a pub and drink Pimms (?) which I don't know what it is and they didn't have any fruits, so the cocktail was quite.. simple. And that's all from Worcester.

The view was almost breathtaking when we walked from the venue down to Malvern centre

From the cathedral.

When we got back to venue, we had two quests who talked about their businesses. The first one was actually the owner of the venue where we were staying. The other one had several (?) businesses and was a real business man with pictures of dollars in his eyes (do you say it like that? In Finland we do. anyway.) Both of them were really nice and fun.

Houston we have a problem(s)

Wednesday was the day we worked with the problems what the entrpreneurs gave us to solve. It was hard. we started with one problem and it seemed like we created like 20 more.

Our problem to solve was how to get more customers to visit and eat in White Haywood Restaurant. We had lots of Ideas how to imrove the business. The ideas were from petting farm with monkeys and bunnies to treasure hunting and everything between. We didn't agree in everything and got really frustrated in some point. We didn't know how to do the budject and with some of the ideas I think we just went too far. After all we got it all together.

We decided to present quickly our ideas for new business ideas what they could use to develop their business, then we gave some ideas how to improve using the social media and making a social media plan and so on.
 We also made customer experience plan what showed the whole experience from customers point of view starting from booking the accomodation to experiencing the leisure and going back home and posting on social media about their vacation. The presentation went surprisingly well and Pauline was really glad for us making an effort . It felt good to hear that she's definetily going to give our ideas a thought. So we didn't struggle for nothing.

Visiting local businesses in Herefordshire

Wow! Tuesday was another busy day full of everything!
We went to visit 3 really interesting entrepreneurs around Herefordshire. I think they all had really unique and special businesses.

The first one was a very adorable and small shop and a post office called Hope of Longtown. From my point of view it's amazing that such a small shop can even manage. In Finland we just don't have shops that small. They just would not manage when the big markets have taken over. Or then it just hasn't been done properly in Finland. Either way I'm really impressed of that pretty shop.

The second business we visited was a White Haywood Restaurant.
It's a Farmhouse restaurant with B&B accommodation. The restaurant was absolutely beautiful and food was incredible good and made mostly of the products from their own farm! Respect!

Last but not lea.st we visited Wiggly Wiggles which was a multitask business manufacturing and offering manymanymany products from worms to wedding flowers!

Though all the businesses were running fine they all got some issues what thay needed to be solved. So there was a subjects for the next day. To create concluutions for those problems. What did we gome out with that I will tell you tomorrow. Now I reallyreally need to go to sleep and I think I will sleep veeeeery tight 'cause we just climbed up to the Malvern hills and back. It was lots of fun and the weather was absolutely great and the view down to the city was pretty and and I saw my first shooting star ever and made a wish and now I'm totally exhausted! Hyvää yötä!

So beautiful!

Becoming an entrepreneur

Today we have been thinking. Thinking a lot. And having many conversations. In many different topics.

First we started with thinking about what is an entrepreneur; what are the weaknesses and qualities. Then we continued on thinking about business plans and  what does it include and how to make it. We had quests and we learned a lot from them. About starting the business and making the business plan and how to get everything out of social media to help your business.

So the day has been full of information,conversations, and inspiration also. Now I should put it all in "How to become an entrepreneur" .

Well I'll try. Atleast you need to have an idea, you need to be enthustiastic, dedicated to your work, be organized and be bold.
atleast all that. You need to be many other things also. 

About me

So I guess it would be fair to tell something about myself. My name name I told before and also my age. I live in the middle of Finland in a small village called Kinnula. There's around 1700 people living in Kinnula, so it's really small! I've born there but moved away to study when I was 17. How I got back in the age of 23 is a bit mystery for myself also, because I sweared I'd never move back once I get out. It felt like so small village and its countryside has nothing to offer me. Well anyway something strange happened and  it included a man and suddenly I found myself back in the starting point. Soon I found myself also living in a farm which I hadn't been planning. Life is a big surprise for me guess. It has taken me in many places which all weren't so nice but now I'm feeling good.

My home and my dear lambs Kaarlo and Marjatta

That's my story shortly.  So now I work in our farm with my husband and a big part of my life is also my other job.
I'm working as a manager of Kinnulas 4H-corporation. I started to work there on february 2011  and I need to say that I've totally lost my heart for that. I love to work with children and young and I feellike I'm doing something important for my community. Later I'll tell you more about my for in Kinnulas 4H and something about Finnish 4H organization in general also.

What is this all about?

Well I can tell you. My name is Marja and I present Finnish 4H-corporation in a "Rural Youth Europe Autumn seminar 2013" with two other young from different parts of Finland. The seminar is located in Malvern, England and the main theme is entrepreneurship. There are about 40 (?) 29 young participants from all around Europe and from different organizations.
What I think is the greatest thing this far is to see that I still young! <3 I think back home 27 years old isn't young anymore. But I feel young.
Another thing that makes me happy right now is to get to know new people. They are all so fun! I've been laughing so much and I'm not homesick almost at all! And that's surprising. I get homesick very easily. Even though I love to travel.


Looking ahead to the week...
I want to gain lots of new information about entrepreneurship around the europe and I want to get inspired and I want to get new friends and then I want to learn new games and see beautiful landskapes and also I would like to be better in speaking English when I get back home and then back home I hope that I have new tools so motivate young people in my home town to start their own business and what would be also great ofcourse is to have some new ideas to develope our own farm. Oh and what I would love would be to see some animals! I saw a lots of sheep on our way here, but just from the train and the car. AND I'm looking forward to get to visit in different kind of companies! I love visiting! Especially abroad. It's so exotic. Everything is exotic.