We decided that it would be a good idea to make a brochure of Irish gift idea's
targeting the Christmas shopping market. This involved a lot of hard work as we
had a deadline to meet. We got in touch with a designer from Bluebella Designs
through Guaranteed Irish. Firstly we had to research and choose a selection of
Guaranteed Irish products that we felt would be suitable as Christmas Gifts. We
then designed the a draft of the layout of what we wanted our brochure to look
like and posted this to the designer. We had to contact each of the companies to
seek their permission to use their products. When we were happy with the design
of our brochure we sent it to print, we covered the printing costs with the
money raised from our bake sale. We were delighted with our brochures when they
arrived and we distributed them to each family in the school through the
December news letter and locally around New Ross.

Our schools Open Night was on Tuesday the 20th of November 2012. For this night we, as Transition years, were given a room in which we could promote our Young Social Innovators project, “Be Irish, Buy Irish.”

We constructed a brochure highlighting all of the Irish brands that are in shops or that are available in and around New Ross. We also have a comparison of Irish brand prices against foreign brand prices i.e. Heinz ketchup against chef ketchup.We handed these brochures out to the parents of the girls who came in.

We made stickers on which we stated our YSI project name, and also our class.

We bought Irish decorations like ribbons, balloons and Irish flags. We decorated the room with these. We also hung up posters on the walls. The posters contained information on what products are Irish and what products are foreign or imported. We spent the last week drawing out and colouring a massive poster promoting our main point “Spend €4 extra on guaranteed Irish products and you could create 6,200 jobs.”

We painted shamrocks and Irish flags on our cheeks and we offered face painting of Irish flags and Irish tattoos to the possible future mercy students who came into open night.

We did taste tests where we had Club orange and Tayto versus Fanta orange and Walker’s. While the majority of people preferred Walker’s crisps, most people preferred Club orange over Fanta.

We conducted a quick survey with everyone who visited our room where we asked them where they usually shop, what they would buy, and if they would be willing to buy Irish.

Overall, the night was a big success and we all had a lot of fun.

Our YSI class also organised a raffle. The girls on the hamper committee contacted local businesses asking them to donate Irish products to us in order for us to make up hampers. We made three hampers, one food and two beauty hampers. The raffle tickets were sold at the bake sale but all money made was going to our class only. The raffle tickets continued to be sold then throughout the week until Monday 17th December when the tickets were pulled near the end of our carol service, form the raffle we made over €300 and that, along with what we made from the bake sale, allowed us to pay the publishers of the brochure and also have some money left over for future expenses. Both ventures were a great success.

In our group we were working on promoting our fact/slogan, ‘’If you spend €4 extra on guaranteed Irish products, you will create 6200 jobs.’’  We were thinking of good ways to put across this. It was put forward in class that we dress up as big €4’s, so we went ahead with this idea as we all thought it was a great idea. We looked into where we could find big posters to do this. We were talking to our vice-principal Ms. Duhig about this and she mentioned that she had old election posters that we could use. She brought these in for us and we cut and washed them. We then stencilled €4 onto in green paint. They stood out and looked great. On Thursday the 20th of December, with the permission of the school and Tesco New Ross we stood outside and tried to get our message across. We had also made stickers to give out with the slogan printed on them. Unfortunately this didn’t go as well as we had planned. The people were mistaken and thought they had to give us €4. Some people stopped to ask, and we explained our project and they thought it was a very good idea.

Our Y.S.I.  Project: Be Irish, Buy Irish, decided to hold an adjoined bake sale with the other Y.S.I. project: Simply Smile on Wednesday 12th of December 2012 in order to promote and kick start our project in school. It was put forward that we hold a bake sale together in order to wipe out any competition between the two projects. Our Y.S.I project: Be Irish, Buy Irish’s aim of the bake sale was to promote our project but also to raise money to pay for the publishing of our Christmas brochures and other funds in order to make our project more effective in the future.

  To make the bake sale more unique and festive we decided that the bake sale would be Christmas themed, therefore everyone from each Y.S.I class brought in traditional bake sale items along with yummy festive delights.

   In order for the bake sale to be a success, a bake sale co-ordinator was chosen and everyone was appointed a certain job to do. Some of the jobs included:

·         Preparing and making a school announcement said on the days running up to the bake sale, to entice and remind people to come and support our bake sale. Also a thank you notice after the bake sale, for their support.

·         Printing posters to put around the school about the bake sale

·         Asking permission of the principal to hold a bake sale

·         Making sure everyone brought in something

·         On the day of the bake sale: organising the area where the bake sale was being held and organising the selling items onto trays

·         Some were appointed to look after the money and the float

·         Some has the role of selling the items

·         Tidying up

In order to incorporate our project into the bake sale, we used all Irish ingredients when making our bake sale items and we also inserted little Irish flags into the items being sold at the bake sale, to remind people of what our project; Be Irish, Buy Irish.

  The bake sale was very successful and it wouldn’t have been without the support from both the students and the staff of the school. We were informed later on that it was one of the nicest and most successful bake sale the school has ever had, having being organised by students.

   We raised about €153, which was great considering we spilt the money in half with the other Y.S.I. group. We were all very happy with the success of our bake sale and we fulfilled our aim.