And what a winner he is!

July 30, 2016 by Joanna

And what a winner he is! 

As most of you are probably aware here at Scott & Stapleton we pride ourselves on our continued involvement within the local community. I would love to take the credit for this (and often do) but my colleague Simone must take the lions share. She is heavily involved in projects within West Leigh Schools and the Leigh Town Council and we are always doing things with or sponsoring events with these organisations.

We were recently approached by the Belfairs Academy to join them in the affiliation with them, Darlinghurst School and the Cecil Jones Academy. We really liked what they were doing and jumped at the opportunity to work alongside them. We all got our thinking caps on as to how best to promote our partnership and as they really liked our branding, came up with the idea of their students entering a competition to make a new pattern that we could use for our 'for sale' boards and continued marketing.

We thought it was a good idea but didn’t really think that the students would be that bothered and that they may not even had heard of us! We needn’t have worried, we were inundated with entries and the vast majority were excellent. This wasn’t just the scribbled doodles of some students bored during lessons (like I used to do), these were polished designs, made professionally with a great deal of thought given to the brief.

It came to the point of having to choose a winner and at the office we were far from unanimous. There were so many strong entries and we all had our favourites. After many a crossed word we all eventually picked a winner and were delighted to be given the opportunity to present them with a prize and more importantly, a life size board of their design.

Helen and I were invited to the open day at The Belfairs Academy on Highlands Boulevard and we were both hugely impressed. Helen was a former pupil at Belfairs School and could barely recognise the place. For me, it was my first visit. The new building is fabulous, completely state of the art and the grounds are superb with amazing outside learning areas and sports facilities.

We met one of the governors who we were chatting with and he explained how the whole project cost in excess of £30m. It sounded an enormous amount of money but when you saw the finished article you actually thought it was good value!

We were there on what they called the Legra Summer festival. This was an open day for existing and former students, as well as members of the public to come and see the fantastic new school and celebrate the first anniversary of the affiliation between them and the Legra Academy Trust. There was lots going on and so much to do; everything from assault courses to fashion shows, science experiments, art exhibitions and treasure hunts. Of course Helen and I immediately made a bee line for the bake off stalls and food area to try the wares. 

So the competition winner...... We read out the third, second and a special commendation and then was delighted to announce the winner; James Beasley. Luckily he was actually there and he was over the moon. His fish design was excellent and really tied in with our area and the style of Scott & Stapleton. We had had some boards made up with James’ pattern and he was delighted to be presented with one. He promised me that he hadn’t had any help from his parents and this was his own work and his mum backed him up saying that she hadn’t even realised he had entered. I said that we were going to put loads of James boards outside his parents house but I don’t think his mum was keen so we might not bother with that. So when you see one of our new ‘fish’ for sale boards up, that is all James Beasley’s work.

Remember the name because I am sure he has a bright future in marketing or design.