The Venue Cancelled, They Refunded Everyone, and Won Anyway

They marketed to Jog Scotland groups, sold out the early-bird tickets, got sponsorship including Costa Coffee and partnered with a local venue. Thousands in sales. They were, she wrote this March, convinced they “had it in the bag”.

A week before the event, the venue cancelled.

They could not see a way to find another one in time, so they refunded every ticket. McGowan remembers crying, embarrassed, because she had been telling everyone how well it was going. She wanted to drop out. Instead the team went to the final, told the judges what they had planned, what went well and what went wrong, and won best interview, best presentation and company of the year. They did it with £0 in the bank and not a single customer served.

I read this at 7.40 on the morning of our daughter’s Year 6 enterprise afternoon, and felt that it did not apply to us. Her team of four were selling friendship bracelets at 50p each. I had bought £38 of embroidery thread, a cash tin and a float. I had made a spreadsheet nobody asked for. I had told the class WhatsApp group how well it was going, twice.

At 9.15 the school texted. A ceiling tile had come down in the hall and the afternoon was postponed for a week. Nobody had paid for anything, so there was nothing to refund. I pivoted anyway. At 3.15 I set up a folding table at the school gate with the cash tin, the bracelets and a laminated price list. Sales: eleven. Customers: three. Two of them were my sister.

Our daughter, crossing the playground, saw the table, turned round and went back inside to wait for her father.

The enterprise afternoon happened the following Thursday. The four of them gave a presentation to the Year 6 teachers, and like the team in Scotland they told the truth: what they planned, what went well, what went wrong. They won best presentation. Under “what went wrong” there was a single bullet point, in Comic Sans, and it was me.