The winners of the annual Portsmouth College Enterprise Day, designed to teach students the art of business, was announced today as “Mad Jakr”, a team made up of students from the Business Studies and Maths departments.

The event, supported by The Junction - the company that owns and runs Ocean Retail Park, saw teams of students from different college departments enter a challenge to design a brand new board game concept. Within the brief they were to invent a game, produce it and exhibit it to the rest of the group, complete with a business presentation and a 30-second commercial.

“Mad Jakr” took the title for their original board gaming creation, “King of the Couch” and Kate Nicol from The Junction presented the winning team with the College Enterprise Cup. Kate and her colleague, Lois Williams made up the judging panel and came to their decision based on the students’ ideas, teamwork, finished products and presentation skills.

Lois Williams, Responsible Business Manager for The Junction comments: “It was inspiring to attend this event and see the enthusiasm of the young people as well as the very high standards of their products and business models. It was extremely difficult to pick a winning team; however, we felt “Mad Jakr” really excelled with a creative product, an engaging presentation as well as an excellent understanding of business issues such as competition and profit. The Junction is very pleased to be able to provide support for this event, helping tomorrow’s business people develop their business skills.”

Evelyn Grant, Enterprise Co-ordinator at Portsmouth College, comments: “The college was delighted with the support and involvement of The Junction, and we look forward to working with them again in the future. Although this was only our second annual Enterprise Day, the event is proving to be a great success and is very popular amongst the students. We look forward to seeing more wonderful ideas, concepts and presentations next year!”

In an aim to promote safety and enhance environmental awareness, The Junction’s Ocean Retail Park in Portsmouth has sponsored the police in Portsmouth, part of the Hampshire Constabulary, by providing them with ten new branded police bicycles.

The bicycles will be used by police officers to patrol the city, particularly the Fratton area and other hotspot locations.

Lois Williams, Responsible Business Manager at The Junction comments: “This initiative provides greater support to protect the local community from crime. We are committed to becoming a key player in the local areas surrounding our retail parks, whilst also building a recognised and trusted brand that benefits retailers and shoppers. Intergral to our strategy is the provision of retail parks that are safe and secure, and supporting the local police is one way of achieving this at Ocean Retail Park.”

Sergeant Ben McClane of the Nelson Safer Neighbourhoods Team comments: “We are grateful for all the support that we have received from The Junction and are delighted with the bicycles that they have provided. Cycling is an excellent method of transport that assists us in policing the region in an environmentally friendly way.”

There are over 420 police officers in Portsmouth, serving a population of 190,000. These officers are supported by 50 Police Community Support Officers and 190 members of police staff. The new bikes will enable more police officers to have a presence in the town centre, ensuring that it is a safer place for visitors and residents.

Safety continues to be a high priority for The Junction, with many of their parks gaining Park Mark Safer Parking awards, a nationally recognised award from the British Car Parking Association (BPA). The Junction manages its parks through an in-house operations team, who employ on site security operatives to ensure parks are clean, safe, well managed and accessible.

The Junction’s Ocean Retail Park in Portsmouth saw shopper numbers increase by 20% during the Easter weekend after launching an Easter egg hunt promoted by local radio station, Ocean FM to celebrate Ocean Retail Park’s recent £5m refurbishment.

Easter eggs were hidden by participating retailers around their stores and when found by customers, redeemed for the prize written on the egg. Prizes donated by the retailers totalled approximately £2,000 and included a flat screen TV, DVD player and various store vouchers.

Winners of the Easter egg hunt were delighted with their prizes. Max Horner 5, son of Jemma Sinclair (both pictured above) was one of the first customers to locate one of the well hidden Easter eggs. Although, it should be said, he was more interested in eating the large chocolate egg that he found in a bin for sale in Homebase, his mum was thrilled to learn that they had won £100 prize. She said “We were aware of the Easter egg hunt but you never think you can win anything. Although I was focusing on getting my shopping done, Max was keen to look in everything and he just happened to open the bin where we were standing, and found an egg. He was so pleased at just winning the chocolate egg, but when we found out that we had won £100 to spend in the store it made our day!”

Paul Ovenden, Store Manager at Homebase (also pictured above), said: “This was an event that we were pleased to participate in. Although we see many shoppers come through our store every day, particularly at the weekend, this event seemed to attract even more. It is very satisfying to not only observe this increased activity, but to also see our customers faces when they won one of the many prizes that we provided.”

Participating retailers included Curry’s, Paul Simon, Homebase, Halfords, Comet, McDonalds and PC World.

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