Photos from the Snow Ball

This year, in addition to the traditional end-of-year ball, saw the introduction of a similar event at the end of the Winter term – entitled the Snow Ball. Here's a slideshow of photos from the evening, featuring students and the band South Parade.



View the photos on Flickr

Videos from the Winter Concert 2009

Here are the first pair of videos (more to come) from last week's Winter Concert.

First up, the d'Overbroeck's Vocal Group, performing an arrangement by upper sixth student Gidon Fineman. The song is a traditional Zambian melody which was taught to Gidon and others during the College trip to Zambia this summer.



... and second, a cover version of 'Hey Julie' by Fountains of Wayne – performed by Zanni Cohen and Dulith Wanigasekera.



Alternatively, view the videos on Vimeo or YouTube

d'Overbroeck's business students Make Their Mark

On Monday 16th November, L6th Business Studies students at d'Overbroeck's joined 73,000 students across the UK taking part in the Make Your Mark Challenge as part of this year's Global Enterprise Week involving 88 countries. The theme of the day is only released the morning of the competition and then time is tight for the team's of four to get their idea ready to pitch to our Dragons at 3pm. This year the title was 'Don't Be A Carbon Copy' and the teams had to come up with an idea that had a low carbon credential as well as a local link.

The students had just over an hour to complete sections such as competition research, full costings analysis and developing the products USP – unique selling point. Ideas based around the needs of Oxford included Saddle Saw for ricksaw tours and taxis, Cycle repair stations at the station and to your door and electric Mini-car GPS tours. The runners up decided one of the main theme's in Oxford is the rain and so they designed bio-degradeable phonchos and umbrellas for vending machines to help visitors caught out with the weather. This year's winners chosen by the Dragons based their idea on Nicola Creamer's ureka moment whilst travelling in dreadful weather recently – CLEAR WINDSCREEN WIPERS. The team consisting of Nicola, Charlie Noble, Emily Leach and Samuel Unwin used recycled plastic for the wipers and had some excellent ideas for their production and future development with BMW Mini.

Infact the idea was so good that the team made it through to the final ten in the whole of the South East Region. Only a week after their initial idea the team headed into the Picture Gallery at Royal Holloway University to pitch their idea and face new Dragons from the British Council, Royal Holloway Univeristy and a successful local entrepreneur. The other teams came from areas including Kent, London and Southampton but d'Overbroeck's were the only selected Oxfordshire team. It was a daunting experience for all the students but everyone did exceptionally well and the Royal Holloway professor was clearly very impressed with Clear View's concept.

The winners were 19 year old Foundation Year students from a London Art and Design College with their fun concept of fashion accessories that turn into shopping bags and therefore continue to reduce the problem of plastic bags. With experience in this area, they had their prototypes already made so it was easy for the judges to see how the concept could be moved onto the next step and become viable in the near future. For the rest of the teams it was a great insight into the next stage of design development.

(Writeup by Clare Cameron)