OUR COMPANIES
BisWitch (PL)
Students
from the Secondary School of Catering and Hospitality in Wisła as part of the
EU project set up their own mini-enterprise - a bistro. At the beginning of
their business activity, students were supposed to choose the type of their
economic activity, the company name and logo. Initially, the bistro was called
'Biswitch', however later students decided to change its name into "Ewryfink.'
At the very beginning, students needed to get familiar with the basic principles
of business management. Next they decided to face the challenge of running
their real mini-enterprise.
Students involved in the project ran their bistro at school. During school brakes teachers and other students had the opportunity to buy some beverages and snacks - ready-made or produced on site. Before Christmas the assortment of goods was enriched by Christmas cards and decorations. Each sale was recorded on the cash register and students needed to learn how to operate it as well. Each month students were supposed to make a settlement, calculate and pay Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) contributions, VAT tax and income tax. Moreover, students signed a contract with the school headmaster and had to pay for the room they rented on school premises. The amount of the rent had been negotiated with the headmaster before signing the contract.
Additionally, students took part in a competition for the best student mini-enterprise. Their business activity was highly valued by the jury and eventually they became finalists of the competition at the national level.
The mini-company set up a Facebook business page:
https://www.facebook.com/EVRYFINK-2191396717775351/
Cestovná kancelária (SK)
As part of the Erasmus plus project, we launched (on the basis of the school companies JA SR) a joint European cooperation with the Czech, Polish and Italian schools in the last week of April. Our Slovak section was in the band "Alice in the Land of Wonders".We introduced the products: party games "Know Orava", bracelets "Slovakia", wooden roses and promotional items with the logo "Slovakia". In addition to the products, we also offered services, namely traveling to the seven wonders of Slovakia discovered by Alice. When looking for individual wonders of Slovakia, we used statistics of unemployment and natural beauty. So we focused our travel agency on UNESCO sights and World Cultural Heritage. We also visited Eastern Slovakia, where there is high unemployment and a beautiful little-discovered country. Into the wonders of Slovakia we included water - in the form of rafting rafts and visits to the Red Monastery, mountains - presented by Roháče, Bachledova valley and Štrbské pleso. The third wonder of Slovakia were caves. We chose the Ochtín Aragonite and Demänovská Caves of Freedom. Castles were another wonder of Slovakia. We visited Orava Castle and Spiš Castle. We did not forget the Slovak culture, which opened the gates to "Wunderland". We also took advantage of the open-air museum in Zuberec, where we made our own products on a short course of wood carving, glass painting and pottery. Another wonder of Slovakia was the World of Science and Technology presented by various museums and the city of several horizons - Košice, which we "discovered" from the underground, on the surface and from above, viewed from the Church of Sts. Elizabeth. Our travel agency also prepared an evening program on ice, fitness or gym, as well as lectures with a young businessman in the coffee museum and a lecture on agrotourism at Edy's ranch. In the Week of Miracles, we had a training course in 3D graphics and printing
"Italian dream banqueting S.r.l." (IT)
The main objective of this partnership is to develop business skills in our students. In fact, when planning it, we started from the assumption that it is fundamental for students attending vocational and technical school to be prepared to copy with the needs of a globalised trade and market and furthermore having the possibility to compare each other business and economic systems would have helped our growing European citizens a lot.
We also realized how important it would have been to give better opportunities to know each other language, culture and traditions and support the awareness of what it means to be European, accepting diversities and recognizing similarities.
In order to preserve the peculiarity of each school it was agreed that a "mini-company" should have been created by each partner school and that, on the occasion of the four students' and teachers' mobilities experiences, they should have been shown each other.
What seemed mainly interesting in this project was the chance for our students to act as "protagonists" and "managers" of the mini-companies.
Since the first of September 2017 we started the project activities at school.
In October 2017 the first organization meeting took place in Namestovo Slovakia where the Headteacher and the School Project Coordinator had the possibility to meet the other coordinator partners and where the fundamental points of the project were discussed and agreed.
Once in Italy, teachers' meetings took place to discuss the project activities necessary to carry it out and choose the professionals to involve in it to work as mentors of our students.
Here are the criteria stated to develop our idea of mini-company:
1. creating a banqueting company following the highest standards of the territory (Pordenone province)
2. involving all our school fourth year courses in it ( not only the catering course) to widespread the benefits of the ERASMUS + Project to the most possible number of students
3. choosing as expert tutors the best possible banqueting company in our geographical area
4. involving all the possible teachers, technicians and office secretaries in the school
5. asking for the support of Pordenone University Teachers of Multimedial
Two main events were created to start the activities of the company at school:
1. the company staff appointment meeting with students and families and a morning briefing with the managers of our Tutor Catering Company "Le Troi Chef" who will support us throughout the project.
In addition a competition was opened among the students to create "the company name and logo". The company staff decided that its name should have been "Italian Dream banqueting s.r.l." and they also voted for a logo among three.
The Project Teachers Staff agreed on having two Kitchen Staffs and two Front of House Staffs in case someone was missing and could be easily substituted. This decision gave the possibility to a quite high number of students to be involved and work at it.
It was the same as to the mobilities to Slovakia and Poland: the students were not the same and were chosen according to their level of being engaged in the company matters and respecting the rules, meeting the deadlines, speaking English at a fairly good level.
2. In May 2018 the Erasmus+ company organized a very elegant Galà Dinner were students' parents and the main representatives of the city institutions were invited. It was the occasion to advertise the project and make it know how it was allowing our school to implement its teaching techniques, more and more opened to new relationships with business market and society needs, where students become more and more aware of their professional and soft skills and can better understand the risks and the advantages of running a business.
Until now all the activities which had been planned by the four school partners have been carried out carefully as follows:
1. Transnational project meeting in Namestovo Slovakia from the 16th to the 18th of October, where all the representatives of the partner- schools took part to better discuss how to develop the project learning and teaching activities and tasks and which should have been the week- programs during mobilities.
This meeting was fundamental to us as we did not take part to the first project meeting that Polish, Slovak and Czech partners did, being geographically very close.
It was the occasion to start close knowledge of the international teachers' staff and give a physical aspect to colleagues known only by emails.
2. Since the beginning students have been involved in activities necessary to reach the goal of creating a banqueting mini-company, where everybody has had a role to carry on respecting deadlines, expressing ideas without being rude and bossy, being humble enough to ask when doubtful about decisions to take, organizing events copying with Coach Teachers and professional Tutors, doing extra- curriculum work when needed, getting prepared to live a new and exciting experience in European countries practicing English language and learning new school systems and cultures,implementing ICT skills.
3. The two first mobilities to Slovakia (April 2018) and Poland (October 2018) were extraordinary for the result they gotto our Erasmus groups of students.
In fact, even if very different in their organization they both were successful as to the purposes of the project.
Slovak school gave us the possibility to learn from their wide experience of teaching marketing and business careers to their students through JA companies. As their project company was a Touristic Agency they showed us the cultural and natural landmarks of their country balancing learning workshops at school with tours of Slovakia, which offered the opportunity to our students to know their European mates and practicing English while enjoying trips and activities.
On the other end Poland partners made us know very important local businesses which carry on ancient traditions such as handmade lace and a sheep farmhouse, which has also become an education place for hundreds of visitors and young pupils.
Their cuisine workshops with Polish professionals brought great enthusiasm among our students who had also the possibility to show what they had learned as to cooking in Italy.
The place where the Erasmus students stayed was a quite small and cosy guesthouse which was rented for them only during the Erasmus week .This allowed them to know much better as they shared six days all together. It was like being
in a large house which belonged to all of us.
Teachers too benefitted from this type of accommodation for the same reasons.
Every night, after dinner, the students had an interesting activity or workshop with a Polish expert about some pleasant crafts which made them feel joined in a big family.
In both countries ECVET laboratories were organized by experts:
Slovakia worked on "3D printer" , while Poland on "taking photos".
Each school issued certificates of the activity for each student.
4. During this first period of the project we also contributed to the Project website implementation, sending our project activities videos, contributing to its business vocabulary, providing useful Italian links for our project references.
Communication among partners has always been alive thanks to emails, whatsapp, sms, FB.
5. In April 2019 our school had the task to organize the third mobility in Pordenone from the 8th to the 13th. We tried to give our partners a complete project experience:
- Welcome activities: visit to Pordenone Mayor and tour of the city (Cathedral; Verdi Theater; main historical buildings); visit of the school and Alpini group exhibition
- Mini-company activity (cooking show; tutors' company visit; main food firms' visit)
- ECVET training (mobile devices video making lesson and laboratory)
- Trips to the most important places and museums relevant for the knowledge of our region culture and traditions (Aquileia Cathedral; Grado; Trieste; Venice; Cavasso Nuovo, famous for the production of a special onion and San Daniele del Friuli well known for its ham)
- Organisation of a "Gala Dinner" prepared by our mini-company where a traditional group of Friuli Venezia Giulia dancers took part to entertain our European guests.
6. From 7th to 12th October 2019, our Erasmus students and teachers took part to the fourth and last mobility to Ostrava in Czech Republic.
As for the previous mobilities we had the possibility to get in touch with a new country, school system, culture, traditions, language, food and to enrich our experience in the field of European knowledge through comparison and debate.
In particular we were impressed by the wonderful landscapes and modern industrial sites which showed a great urban area redevelopment intervention.
We can say that all the objectives of the project were fulfilled and that our school has implemented the teaching strategies as team working, organisation skills, and the relationships with the regional production net as well as the students working abilities through the creation of the banqueting mini-company.
In addition and overall the awareness of being European citizens has been greatly emphasized.