Interested in parents' opinions: What would you like to see in a HS "Business Club"?

Parents Forum
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<p>It seems to be a rather strange question but I'd like some of your opinions and suggestions as to what you would expect of or wish to see in a Highschool Business club.</p>

<p>The story goes like this: I've started one last year (meaning we've been running for a year) but I'd like some advice as to how you think this club can help benefit the school's students while at the same time teaching them something productive since the "business-knowledge" level of Highschool students in general is very low.</p>

<p>I've decided on activities such as starting an actual portfolio where we can invest but have so far been restrained due to lack of sufficient funds. As such, I am in need of productive activities that do not involve as much of the "money" factor. One problem I am facing is a deficiency in member-count (and thus lack of helping hands to hold any decent fundraising events)..many kids find "business" to be extremely boring and it simply does not appeal to them.</p>

<p>As you are parents I am of high hopes that you may have some inkling with all you experience as to how I may go about creating a success story.</p>

<p>Your input is greatly appreciated :)</p>

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<p>An actual portfolio with real money is a good activity for adults. How about a competition with "play money" portfolios. Investment is only 1 small aspect of business. Get speakers representing the various business functions in for presentations. Also you can bring in speakers from different industries. Plan on field trips to manufacturing facilities, banks, distribution centers, etc. Participate in FBLA competitions. Bake sales usually raise some money. What's your member count? An exciting agenda will intrigue more students which should increase your membership.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your help and bothering to look at my post ^_^</p>

<p>My current active member count is around 10.</p>

<p>At first we started meetings with Cashflow games but I discovered that rather than becoming an educational experience, students were simply too lacking to understand the game or its real meaning, unable to benefit much from the experience. </p>

<p>From there, I decided to deviate. Instead, I requested that members each purchase a copy of a book on investment which we would follow during meetings to learn more before attempting further, more ambitious activities. These have been a flop due to lack of a competent guide to help us through. We are all relatively new to the concept and I am unsure as to how I can guide these members when I myself am learning from the book. Any idea how I can turn this into a better use of time and allow us to learn properly?</p>

<p>The problem with the portfolio idea is that we have not the means to raise the funds (only 10 members) and we estimate we will need about $1000 /quarter annum.</p>

<p>I have toyed with the idea before of inviting in speakers but as I have no connections whatsoever it is rather difficult to invite random people to visit our school to give a talk to 10 people.</p>

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<p>I am not sure how you could do this - my idea would be to learn about the different aspects of business since not everything is about investing. </p>

<p>I do not know very much about business at all and I find I am always kind of surprised when I am told about the different jobs - what roles do people have and what kind of education do they need to reach that goal. </p>

<p>Someone I know is a purchasing manager - he negotiates all of the buying the company so if it is Nike and they are looking for leather to make soccer balls - the person who is in charge of soccer balls does not negotiate that - it is the purchasing manager since he also gets leather for shoes and other products. This is the same person who works out contracts for office supplies. </p>

<p>You could maybe start with a local company and learn about the different positions in the companies and see what role they have in making that particular business successful. </p>

<p>I do realize this is not as exciting as money making - but then maybe you all will be more knowledgeable when it comes to options for careers later. </p>

<p>Another idea might be for your group to come up with a product (real or mock) and then have a business plan to get the product from idea to reality.</p>

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<p>During my managerial finance class in college we had a "game" where we (in groups of two) chose stocks - you had to pick at least two from a foreign country.. and we set up an account on yahoo to watch the stocks. the rules were that each person had x amount of dollars to start with, and our professor kept track every time we changed anything and he charged a "brokerage fee" which we paid in terms of giving back some of our fake stocks and stuff.. it was a really neat project. If i can find the syllabus from it i'll send it to you, that would explain it better. </p>

<p>also, the business plan idea is great. i think all business people should at least be familiar with business plans. we had to do them in college and my senior project business plan was a good 150 pages long.</p>

<p>also, check with local businesses and see if you can come in for tours or something. during college one of the places we toured was harley davidson, and that was really neat. we got to see all aspects of how harley davidson's were built, from start to finish, and we could stop and ask any questions that we needed to.. you might not be able to get into harley, but maybe some smaller local business.</p>

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<p>I would expect to see students running a business.</p>

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<p>I would also expect to see students running a business, developing a business plan, finding investors, selling a product, and distributing the income to investors. School and class t-shirts seems like a good product to me.</p>

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<p>I'm wondering if the club should be renamed as an investment club rather than a business club, if investment is your true interest. If so, a search at Amazon and Google for "high school investment club" will turn up quite a few resources. The first Google link, <a href="http://www.zillions.org/Features/Invest/invest01.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.zillions.org/Features/Invest/invest01.html&lt;/a>, has a lot of cutesy pictures that make it look childish, but there are some good ideas there. </p>

<p>If you really want a business club, I agree with the above posts -- you need to expand beyond investments. </p>

<p>It is often easier to get support for a business if the proceeds benefit the community in some way. With the imaginations of 10 members working together, I'm sure you all can come up with plenty of possibilities. One that has worked quite well in our area is a small thrift shop that solicits used clothing, toys, etc., in good condition on consignment, turning the profits over to a local cause that is widely supported by the local community. We have a local education foundation that entertains grant proposals for projects that benefit K-12 students in the district. The benefit of working with a group like that is they offer continued support after students graduate, even if it's just making sure that there is a knowledgeable adult available to advise the students.</p>

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<p>NAIC has guidelines for investment clubs--aimed at adults, but has published several articles on starting investment clubs in high schools. Sorry I don't have link. </p>

<p>My kids high school started a school store. It is run by parent volunteers and proceeds go to PTO. Perhaps if your school does not already have something like that, you could start one and split profits with school. They sell school supplies that might be needed on emergency basis (notecards, batteries, lead refills, paper, etc), school logo items, healthy snacks, and special requests from teachers. They open the store before school, during break, and at lunch.</p>

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<p>Check out the National Academy of Finance.
The URL is <a href="http://www.naf.org%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.naf.org&lt;/a>
I participated in this program in my school and it was pretty worthwhile. You had to apply in your freshman year or in your sophomore year. I think a B average was needed and to fill out an application. Basically, you took business classes instead of electives. So my electives looked like this:
9th Grade: Computer Applications,
10th Grade: Intro to Business
11th Grade: College Accounting, Economics
12th Grade: Financial Planning, Entrepreneurship
(the Entrepreneurship was accredited by a local college so we got college credits)</p>

<p>Besides taking these classes we were required to do a summer internship between the 11th and 12th grades. This internship was paid and with a local business (however some kids worked on the commodities floor in the NYSE). I did mine with a local Real Estate Agency and learned a lot. Besides the internship we were able to go on field trips to Merrill Lynch twice (once we went to their annual shareholders meeting), Morgan Stanley in New York, Citi Group in New York (where the CEO/founder of the N.A.F. Sandy Weil spoke to us), and some local financial firms. </p>

<p>We raised some 5,000 USD for scholarships through our Fashion Show and Golf Outing fundraisers. I felt that this was a really enriching experience (especially the summer internship). If anyone has any other questions I'd be happy to answer them. Just PM me :)</p>

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<p>MagsMom - * I agree in the idea that we should venture to explore other aspects of business and not solely investing, but rather using investing as a starting point (though that has failed).</p>

<p>I like your idea of starting with a local company and getting to know their roles and such, but the problem would be whether or not the company would be willing to spare the time for us. It would also be rather odd if I just approach them without actually knowing any of them to begin with. I will be trying to do some research to find some companies around the area. Perhaps one of them will respond positively?</p>

<p>Starting a new business and coming up with a business plan to get it to reality would also be great - provided we have the funds for it. I guess fundraising is also one big issue here.*</p>

<p>fendergirl - *I am curious about the stocks idea. Is it something that a lot of time is spent on or is it more of an individual activity? I'd like to work on something that everyone will enjoy doing and learning together as a club. </p>

<p>Forgive my..uh..lack of knowledge, but what does a business plan actually consist of? It is something that people will actually use as a beginning step towards getting a business started? I will try to learn more about this.</p>

<p>When you mention visiting local businesses, do you mean we request to see how they work or that we request for them to show us what each person does /functions as in the company itself?*</p>

<p>*Northstarmom & dmd77 *- Yes but with running a business comes the need for an initial sum of money which we are unable to obtain. Also, the concept of selling a product and distributing the money back to investors is something that the school business class does for their term project. Initially they sell stocks. Then, they import american candy (yes, no american candy here where I live) and they sell it. The profit gained from this is then redistributed back to the people who invested their stocks, each person earning roughly 20% of what they put in..(too bad they capped the maximum amount to $300, otherwise I would have invested more)</p>

<p>1Down2togo - *Initially we also debated over whether our club should not be named something more related to investing than business, and since we had already named it as a business club we left it as is. From what I know both are closely related and you cannot step into one without touching on the other? If not, then we've got some rethinking to do..but I have realized that an Investment club is more recognized than a business one.</p>

<p>I think you have a good point there in that the fundraising will only work if it benefits the community in some way..I'll have to sit s'more on that idea.
*
mkm56 - *Is this the link? <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/education/investment_clubs/article/101133/So_You_Want_to_Start_an_Investment_Club%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://finance.yahoo.com/education/investment_clubs/article/101133/So_You_Want_to_Start_an_Investment_Club&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I was unable to find another but it seems to be more of an advertisement that requires clubs to pay to join - something we aren't privileged enough to afford. I kind of disagree with the NAIC in this manner, actually, since to start learning from them we would have to pay before doing anything else.</p>

<p>Perhaps you were referring more to a page on ideas for a high school club? If so, the link would really help me since I'm trying to gather a whole bunch of ideas and create a solid plan for the club next year.</p>

<p>Unfortunately our school has a very well-run PTA who "rent" a part of the school to sell such materials. :(*</p>

<p>willmingtonwave - *Hm...I took a look around their website and they do offer a lot of valuable experiences for students however the downside is that there's no such academy or even an equivalent where I live.</p>

<p>I'd like to get some idea as to how summer internships can be worked out, though. Are they available for international students and are they fully paid for? Otherwise it's pretty much off the list for now..</p>

<p>How were you guys able to raise that sum of money? Or rather, how did you organize such large scale events successfully including publicizing etc.?*</p>

<p>** Thanks to everyone for helping out, I am grateful for the continuous support that all of you are able to offer students/users of CC :)</p>

<p>I am currently working hard on getting up a plan for my club to be more successful this year, both in terms of activities and member-count, so all of your advice is very valuable and important to me. **</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.betterinvesting.org/youthinvesting/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.betterinvesting.org/youthinvesting/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Looks like the club dues are $40. I belong to an adult investment group through NAIC and this organization furnishes alot of info, website help, computer tools, etc. It might be worth checking out. I have not been involved in a youth group--but look at the links at this site and email them questions.</p>

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<p>More specific to Marketing is the DECA club. DECA has local, state, national levels of competition in different areas of Marketing. My D's one nonAP class this year was International Marketing. Her business that she developed was a college counseling service aimed at international students who wanted to study in the US for undergrad.</p>

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<p>Business is about connections and motivation. Look within your member group for a passion -- music? art? sports? drama? books? science? Chances are there are for-profits and not-for-profits in the community connected with these interests. Tap into them for expertise and assistance in developing a business where the profits are split between the club and a worthy related cause. Take music for example. Benefit concerts that charge an admission, and the proceeds get split between the club and, say, the middle school music department. Local (good) talent donates their time to perform -- maybe a few Friday nights featuring local jazz bands at a coffee house; a Sunday afternoon classical piano recital at a local church; a summer "concert in the park"...and all the work in setting up these events is provided by your club, like a little local Bill Graham Presents. The coffee shop splits some of its snack/beverage profits; you charge for refreshments you buy from a local business that gives you a discount and/or offers to take back unsold items, etc... Or you could come up with some ideas to benefit local youth sports leagues, tapping into the expertise of one of the movers and shakers behind, say, the local Little League. There are always talented business people who volunteer their time to organizations that benefit everything from the local public library to the small, struggling town theater. They can be found through picking up the phone...Masons, Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, performing arts societies, friends of the [City] library, local artists, teachers, churches... People are often more willing to donate time to something that they have a passion for than money. So figure out a way to use their time to generate money. Sooner or later, you should have some capital to invest, and your business club will have a new department. ;)</p>

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<p>fendergirl - I am curious about the stocks idea. Is it something that a lot of time is spent on or is it more of an individual activity? I'd like to work on something that everyone will enjoy doing and learning together as a club. </p>

<p>Forgive my..uh..lack of knowledge, but what does a business plan actually consist of? It is something that people will actually use as a beginning step towards getting a business started? I will try to learn more about this.</p>

<p>When you mention visiting local businesses, do you mean we request to see how they work or that we request for them to show us what each person does /functions as in the company itself?</p>

<p>=======================</p>

<p>as per the stocks, what we did was set up an online portfolio on some website (i want to say it was yahoo.) we set it up like a fake game. each group had like 50k of fake money on day 1 to invest.. you had to choose different stocks to invest in and spend the whole 50k. once a week you could make any changes you wanted to, however you didn't get any additional money.. so if a stock was doing poorly you could take your money away from it and put it into something that was doing better, etc. the group who had the highest percentage gain at the end of the semester didn't have to take the final. </p>

<p>and yeah, many people use business plans. i actually recently had to help my mom make a business plan for her company. Just google "business plan" i'm sure you can learn a lot about it.. it's good to do as a group.. especially if you're doing a comprehensive plan. I made one for a crime scene clean up company and it was very neat.</p>

<p>as far as the businesses, you could contact a local business and just explain that you're from the blah blah business club and are interested in seeing how the operations work at the company.. Maybe they will offer you a tour, or maybe you can shadow someone for a day, i don't really know.. i'm sure all companies are different. in one of my classes we were assigned a project where we had to interview a manager from a company on what they do and this and that. i interviewed someone from Tyco Electronics. It's just a good way to do some networking, esp. at a young age.</p>

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<p>My son's class played a similar stock game and I was horrified. I view equities as part of a person's long-term savings. By judging the outcome over such a short period, it was encouraging the kids to become the equivalent of day-traders or gamblers, in my view. When I questioned the kids, including my son, about why they had chosen one investment over another, it was for ridiculously shallow reasons such as recent historical performance. I would rather see kids experiment (using fake money) with different asset allocations than making individual stock picks. Exchange traded funds are easy to follow. As for learning, your group may want to follow some of the weekly columns rather than tackling a book. Moneychimp comes to mind as a good site.</p>

<p>Kids may find it fun to interview local "business people" and ask how they got into their careers--undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees, lessons learned. Ask about intern opportunities. Your group could put together a reference book and build up additional information over time.</p>

<p>Finally, any activity the group does to enhance Excel skills will give the kids a leg up when they do start those business internships.</p>