How a cooperative is set

THE SCHOOL COMPANY "SPECIAL CARDS” RUNNING AT PRIMARY SCHOOL No. 6

IN OLSZTYN, POLAND

Our company started working from September , 2018, during the opening ceremonial start of the Erasmus Plus project “Y.E.S.”. Our students, parents and teachers took part in this ceremony.

Our company “ Special Cards” will deal with artistic handicrafts. We have invited all students, who are interested in arts and crafts, to participate in the activities of the company . We will deal with manual production of various decorative items and ornaments. We will mainly use natural and recyclable materials.

Our motto is the ecological production. Some times a year we will sell our products in school markets, Christmas and Easter ones, Teachers’ Day, Women’s Day.

The profits of our company will be reasonably shared: for the development of the company and development of the company members but also part of it will go on a charity. We will invite all students, parents and teachers, but first of all, we would like to encourage our children to prepare
projects and then realize their ideas

. The members of our company will meet regularly to prepare production systematically .

Our main goal is to focus on teaching our students how to cooperate with others and be persistent and
responsible for their duties.

 The young members of our company will promote Polish culture and traditions of our region by creating artistic decorations.

Our company logo was chosen through a competition, in which a lot of students participated . All projects were presented in the school exhibition. The best project of the logo started to be the logo of our school's company.

The business meetings of the members of our firm take place regularly. At that time we discuss what the exact needs of our local market are and we check them by school surveys among students.
In this way, we learn what of our products are the most popular in our school. Cards, ornaments and decorations are very good as small gifts during Christmas or Easter.

We organize art competitions on interesting projects of hand-made products.

Together we establish the action plan for the coming school years. The two main activities are connected with organizing the Christmas and Easter markets.

SCHOOL BUSINESS

“SPECIAL CARDS”

BUSINESSPLAN FOR THE ACTIONS:

ART WORKSHOPS AND SCHOOL MARKETS

Company : “SPECIAL CARDS” at the Primary School No. 6 in Olsztyn; 17
Gdyńska Street
Planning period: September 2018 – June 2020

Goals and vision statement:

 Making postcards (Christmas, Easter, birthday), decorations, articles
and presents, organization school markets

 sale of production with a minimum 30% profit

 distribution of profits: 35% for students-employees ( their decision),
25% the charity campaign

Finance required:

 5% advertisement

 35% materials for the next products

Short description of the products:

- handmade different cards from paper and decorative items and also with using special machines making decorations for the cards
- gold or silver laquered Christmas trees 3D made from pasta and beads
- handmade and laquered Christmas trees 3D made from pinecones
- Easter decorations : eggs , baskets
- hand-painted paper for wrapping presents
- Christmas wreath from natural product: nuts, pinecones, dried fruit

Short desciption of the market:

 Pupils of the Primary School No. 6 in Olsztyn
 Teachers of the Primary School No. 6 in Olsztyn
 Pupils’ Parents

People responsible for the project:

 Coordinator: Małgorzata Cioch – a teacher
 Project manager: Urszula Wróblewska – a teacher
 Advertisement: classes 6b, 6c (in 2018) SP6
 Production: students of 6 and 7,8 classes SP6

Strenghts of the project:

 Property: tools and capital assets necessary to production
 Financial resources
 Product: connection with coming festivals and great demand for the
Christmas and Easter products
 Promotion: posters and leaflets made by students, direct meetings with the
potential customers
 Distribution: free of charge place at the school fire for the local
community

Weaknesses of the project:

 The market limited to school community
 Production line based on unqualified workers
 Time of production limited to 8 hours
 Time of sale limited to 4 hours

Source of funding:

Financial contribution for the others means of productions are funded from:
 the resources from the Y.E.S. project realized within the framework of
the Erasmus+ programme – The project management – 50%

 the own resources of the school – 50%

The sales plan:

 markets organised two weeks before the festivals

The marketing plan:

 Market analysis – 30th September 2018

The school markets will be the only events of its kind. The project has no
competition. On the basis of interviews with the potential customers,
observations, conversations there is a great interest with hand-made products
among students, parents and teachers.

 Advertisement
- Production of the advertising posters one week before the planned
markets
- Production and dissemination of leaflets with trade offer

 Sale promotional campaign on the school grounds

 Direct selling at school

 Fixing of the product price

Summary and risk assessment project:

The scale of threats should be estimated and „the emergency plan” should be
proposed to mitigate the undesirable effects.
The project depends on:
- resources of students; students are the biggest group of customers
- labour shortage in the first phase of the project: hand-made preparation of the
basic elements of the products
- exceeding production costs
- wrong evaluation of production, selling and the financial result
- incorrect planning of the implementation deadlines of the project phases
- technical progress