What do marketing, Big Dan Burn, Messi, Erling Haaland and wind energy have in common?
Well, they were all covered in our event in October at the state-of-the-art Energy Central Learning Hub in Blyth, which saw us host more than 40 school students from Cleaswell Hill School and Guidepost Ringway Primary in Northumberland for a morning of talks, workshops, creativity and inspiration!
The session was delivered with Connect Inspires, a career inspiration programme developed by Connect Northumberland which connects local employers with young people across the county through workplace visits and hands-on activities. The day formed part of a programme of events across the region at companies such as Osbit, Arcinova and AkzoNobel.
We explored marketing with the students, showing the different careers available and what a day in marketing could look like, as well as hosting some fun activities, including guess the slogan. Unsurprisingly, “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” proved to be a big hit with the students!
Our digital marketing specialist Sean Merone spoke about his own career journey from school to Horizon Works, and what digital marketing could entail (which is where Erling Haaland and Messi came in!).
To help the students learn more about the industries we work in, part of the session focused on offshore wind. To support this, we had Kristie Leng, Head of Commercial and Elle Somerville, Business Development Executive from NOF with us for the morning: they talked about their careers, event marketing and where their work in the energy sector has taken them!
Students then had a chance to get creative, producing some amazing posters to promote Blyth as a destination for offshore wind, trying their hands at presenting on video and filming, and even writing song lyrics about energy!
The students were also asked to come up with a name for the wind turbine that stands across the river from our office on Commissioners Quay. Among the contenders were Billy Bob, Wind Catcher, Big Dan Burn (Newcastle United’s Blyth-born defender) and a particular favourite, Windston.
And there very happy faces among the students when we took them to Energy Central Learning Hub’s immersive Clean Energy Video Centre.
Samantha Vassallo, Managing Director of Horizon Works, said: “We greatly enjoyed being part of an initiative that is bringing schools and industry together, and showing young people the career paths that are available on their doorsteps.
“It was fantastic to see how engaged the students were during our presentations and the workshop sessions, and the ingenuity, flair and artistic talent on display was truly incredible! There was definitely a lot of budding marketing talent among the students, and thanks to our friends Kristie and Elle, and the experience they had at Energy Central Learning Hub, I’m sure many of the group will go develop an interest in offshore wind.
“We’d like to thank Dee Nguyen, Bethan Hall and the Energy Central Campus team for their fantastic support for this event.”
Zoe Maylam, Executive Director of Connect Northumberland, added: “It was great to be able to offer such an engaging and interactive visit for students to experience marketing careers – we loved working with Horizon Works and were truly inspired by the creativity of the young people involved.”
Connect Northumberland was established to enable Northumberland’s employers to participate fully in their county’s workforce development. Its partners include the Royal Academy of Engineering and Northumberland County Council, and it collaborates with Northumbria University, North East Times, Newcastle United Foundation, Sunderland University and Northumberland College. There is more information on the organisation and its work here.