Pupils get down to business

Press, 5 June 1982, Page 20

Pupils get down to business

By

NEILL BIRSS

The boardroom of North Canterbury Transport Holdings at Rangiora provides a decorous setting as the chairman takes his directors skilfully through the agenda. The product manager gives a succinct report on a prototype and costing as other members take notes or study the photo-copied sheets of figures. The entrepreneurs of Form 7. Rangiora High School, are in session at a board meeting of Rakau Products Incorporated. They are discussing sales of their lines: boards for the game, solitaire. and egg-cup holders. They are discussing costs, schedules, marketing, and possible new products — all in their lunch break from school.

One of the six Canterbury schools, taking part in the Chambers of Commerce young enterprise scheme, Rakau Products, is run closely on the lines of a typical business firm. Capital of $5OO was raised from the school's pupils, parents. and staff, after a prospectus was issued in the first term. The board of directors was elected by the shareholders and the chairman by the board.

The school enterprise at first manufactured the wooden solitaire boards, in the rooms it rents, using bought, borrowed and leased machinery. Wooden egg cups were the next product. They are bought from a Loburh manufacturer, sandpapered, and prepared for staining by

another firm, and then marketed to shops. Rakau products have been in shops between Kurow and Rangiora: now the search is on for variations such as egg cups with place names engraved on them, and for completely new lines. Those on which assessment reports were made to this week's board meeting included wooden goblets, and egg-cup holders.

The products manager. Roger Hunter, reported to the meeting on the problems that cropped up in the making of the prototypes, on the incentives for bulk purchase of raw materials on wood qualities, and on the direct labour in each item. • Nick Smith, the chairman, probed as each member reported on his or her specialty

(four of the seven directors are girls) asking what was in the shops in competition with the products, encouraging the directors to give opinions from the viewpoint of their individual role (such as sales director or finance director), and generally steering the group along with an emphatic, approving or disapproving tone of his voice in the manner 6f a board-room statesman.

The teacher who shepherded the company into life, Mr Mark Lynn, added the rare but constructive remark. reminding the observer. that it is, after all. an educational venture. Usually, too, Mr R. A. Erringtoh, the secretary of the school firm's “big brother,” Transport North, Canterbury, is present and helps with advice if requested. "They’ve taken it seriously since the word go,” says Mr Errington. “I've sat at the back of the room and just advised them on technical rather than management, points. “They've worked very hard and they’ve learnt a lot. They've learnt about the operations of a company and the problems a company faces.

"It has been very exciting and very instructive for the pupils and for the teacher and myself." says Mr Errington. who has been at all but one of (he board meetings. Mr Lynn the teacher, considers the scheme very successful. though he plans to modify it next year, as he

feels the amount of manufac 4 turing by the school team needs to be restricted. ''r The young directors have proved to be real selfstarters: they are so keen that one Saturday at 9 p.m. Mr Lynn found them hard at. work in their school workshop (he stayed to lend a hand with sta'ining egg cups, then took everyone to his home for coffee). The advice of shopkeepers, parents, acquaintances and authorities is freely sought — and freely given. All the directors take economic studies apart from lan Laurenson. a science student. But with the help of the booklet that all directors of the various schemes receive from the Chambers of Commerce, and with the help of businessmen-fathers and secretary-mothers, and

of Mr Lynn and Mr Errington. a tolerable set of accounts is tabled for -board members. As in the "real world” things j do not always go according to plan: in one climactic meeting earlier in the year there was an exchange of views that led to a change in the way directors are paid (they now get a lower fixed income but are paid for hours worked), and the resignation of two direc-' tors with an overload of other activities and schoolwork. and perhaps special problems in being the only sixth-form directors. Rakau Products rents two rooms from the school for a total of $5 a week and has an electric drill and an electric saw on hire for $1 a week each. It owns sundry tools, including a portable’ workbench. a plane, and sundry items: the assets a total of $230 (the fact that they have already been depreciated to a value of $lOO is likely to be revised). Mr Lynn is a key figure in the success of Rakau Products. “Most schools’ firms seem to have bought a product and sold it." he says. “I’ve tried to make it that the main aim is to supply shops: that is closer to real life.” The idea has not been to make a big profit, but to give the school pupils experience, he says. He uses his teacher's voting rights only in an emergency. The scheme has given a

new interest to the school's economic studies, both he and the directors feel. It gives a practical aspect to an abstract study. Mr'Lynn has tried to bring “real lite" to his economic students for some time. He has been running a scheme in which shares are bought for sixth and seventh formers in March and sold in October. Last year, the shares of 10 companies yielded the pupils a 24 per cent profit. This year the Rangiora High School pupils are watching these shares from their portfolio: UEB. Odlins. Fletcher Challenge, and N.Z. Oil and Gas. “The best year we had was when we bought Canterbury Timber Products at $1.27 and sold at $2.75.” Mr Lynn recalls. “The worst was when we bought Atlas at 60c and sold at 30c. 'Atlas' was a dirty name around the school for a while.” The final results of Rakau Products will be known when the company is wound up in the third term. But the real profits will be a new awareness among Rangiora seventh formers of the concrete effects of such concepts as fixed and variable costs, depreciation, marketing. new product development and rent. And perhaps, a new awareness of business life. One director according to his friends, has already changed an ambition to become a veterinary surgeon to one of a career in business.