Meeting with Wild-Life trust

You may be wondering, why did I post a picture of a badger on this blog? First of all, its 10pm and I'm still in the office so finding the perfect picture is not exactly my first priorities. Secondly, I must say.. its pretty cute, and it attracted YOUR attention! Didn't it? Thirdly, this morning I attended a meeting in the Environment Centre with the Wild-life trust. A few companies from the Environment Centre was asked to join the meeting which introduced a new project the trust is doing, which is setting up a new reserve. The difference with this reserve however, is that it's right next to the motorway allowing greater publicity and footfall.

These reserves also hold many education activities, encouraging a hands-on apporach to learning, and thats where our company may fit in. It seems that they are quite interested in the OvOs and education pacakage that our BEEcycle has to offer! We will soon see where this can go.

HSBC Unipreneurs

This is a pretty late blog for this competition... actually VERY late... The competition was held back in April 2008, but since I did not start the blog until a couple months back, it has taken me this long to report on it!

The competition was held by HSBC to seek out the most entrepreneurial student or recent graduate in the UK who has a good business idea or started a potentially high growth business. The prize was £20,000! The process started off by applicants sending in their business plan summary, which then got sifted through from the hundreds down to 100, and then down to 20 and then down to top 10 where they will need to pitch to a few judges. The 10 was then sifted down to the top 5 which had to do a presentation to a large audience of VIP's and investors, and it was then down to the matter of audiences votes to select the winner


It was a long process and but unfortunately I didn't win, and only managed to get down to the top 10... Nevertheless, the competition was fierce and the company who won really did deserve it. 'Scratchface' designed a computer software which allowed colour blinded people to read the computer screen more effectively and easily. So it was definitely a good product for the good of society, and I truly hope that they do well. Although the £20,000 would have helped the company immensely the experience I got from this was valuable, and I know BEEcycle will get the 1st prize next time ;)

Also thanks to Desmond who lent me his place to stay over in London!

Earthworms close relationships with BEEcycle

When I mention to my friends what my company does and I mention one of them being earthworms, most of the time (if not always) I get 'the look', and my social circle would suddenly diminish to a certain degree....even more so when I mention the wormery that I have in my kitchen... and suddenly I am left with the wall. Thank goodness biology and ecology students, graduates and professor are far more understanding....

Jokes aside, as the managing director, I do place the company's concern as a priority, and that is why the business in worms is important, The potential of recycling and land remediation. Today the BBC has just written an article about land remediation using worms, and you can see it here.
Recent studies have shown worms being able to remove toxic chemicals from lands, however it has been known for centuries that worms are the intestines of the Earth. Worms compost and recycle organic waste, and also remove any impurities in them. There are more than 4000 different species of Earthworms, and each one are more suited or better adapted for particular environments. The ones used in the studies are probably Lumbricus terrestris and Aporrectodea tuberculata. These are burrowing worms you usually find in the UK gardens, and they dig deep down making burrows coming to the surface only to feed.

BEEcycle currently focuses more on composting only, and the worms that we use are slightly different. We use what are called 'soil dwellers', which stays near the surface of the soil feeding on organic matter non-stop making it more suitable for wormery bins. Examples of these species are Eisenia Foetidas and Eisenia Hortensis (formerly known as Denrobaena Veneta).

These are also the 'secret' to the composting action of our OvO's, and we definitely won't be limiting our future use of earthworms here!

Stationary designs

In the beginning of August I had to use up a budget from a grant which I can use on stationary and marketing materials. At the same time printing.com was nice enough to come up with a stationary offer. 1000 business cards, 1000 leaflets, 1000 mailing stickers, 1000 compliment slips and 1000 header paper all for £299 (originally £799). Being the shrewed business man that I am, I chose the package and also ordered some CD jackets for the educational material CD's. The happiness pretty much ends there, due to the fact that design is NOT my forte, and I could not stretch the budget to hire a designer. So down goes many late nights again, ALOT OF HELP AND ADVICE FROM FRIENDS and my amateur photoshop skills.

I didn't even know the difference between CMYK and RGB.. Problem really arose when I did it all in RGB and had to do them all again in CMYK, and then got told it was not in the correct resolution and had to do it again in 300dpi... Result was ugly artwork designed 3 times... minus my sanity and calmness and probably a few hair. Replaced the mouse and keyboard a few times as well...

In shame, I have posted up pictures of the designs here for you to criticize and for the designers to cringe with hatred and disgust.

header paper:
Compliment Slips
mailing stickers:

CD cover inside and outside:

OvO leaflets (the front is designed to fold over, so stop your quick snapping on the upside down photo)


In the end it all looks very similar, which is good because it brings this format out as the BEEcycle brand. However in all honesty its simply because I am not creative enough to bring in new ideas...which worked for the better!