Question mark smashes Guinness record
THE AIB Build a Bank Challenge sees a team of six students selected to set up and manage a bank in their school with the help of a dedicated AIB student officer.
The students get involved in everything from developing a Business Plan, branding their Bank and engaging with the community to sourcing new customers through creative marketing campaigns.
This year saw the AIB Build a Bank Challenge enter its 16th year and since its launch in 2002, thousands of students have participated in the programme with 199 schools registered to compete in 2017.
St Peter’s College entered for the second time in 2017, having reached the National Final in 2016 and being one of the first schools to ever reach the finals as newcomers.
Daniel McCarthy, Jack Hayden, David McDonnell, Jack Finucane, Adam Mullins and Seán Brennan were selected in an intense interview process with AIB Wexford, and teamed up to form ‘The Model Bank’.
We launched the Model Bank in November with a huge event in the school complex. Local musician and song writer Wolff created an electric atmosphere with his live music. The Cut-Throat Club barbers came along to cut students’ hair and generously contributed to a raffle. Businesses up and down the town kindly sponsored our event by donating gifts for the raffle which raised over €400. South East Radio interviewed team members from the bank at the launch and the Wexford People featured an article on the event.
We joined Mayor of Wexford Frank Staples in his attempt to make Wexford a better place for people with mental health problems and we played a big part in the ASK campaign.
Originally, the campaign set out to be just a poster campaign but we in The Model Bank wanted to bring it to a wider and younger audience. We decided to raise awareness by hosting a Guinness World Record attempt at the most people gathering to create a punctation mark.
The event in Wexford Park was a huge success with more than 450 people from St Peters College and Presentation Secondary School turning up.
We smashed the previous record and delivered the message of the ASK campaign to the young people in our county. There was an electric atmosphere in the Park with Alan Corcoran of South East Radio presenting live from the event and county stars Lee Chin and Mark Fanning in attendance.
During Easter we teamed up with Wexford GAA and Diarmuid Lyng, who is on the board of Soar for an experiential workshop in Clayton Whites Hotel aimed at promoting positive mental well-being and building awareness of coaches’ interactions with young people. Almost 100 coaches from GAA clubs around Wexford attended the workshop which was a major success.
The Build a Bank national finals in the RDS in Dublin was an amazing experience for all six of us. The place was filled with lots of activities like Yoga, Life Coaching and Career Guidance and there were talks by amazing business and sports people from all around the world along with demonstrations of of new technologies by companies such as Microsoft.
We were very nervous when judging commenced but our presentation went well. The judges were very impressed and we were all well able to answer their questions and sell what we had done. We didn’t win on the day but we were still delighted with what we’d achieved.
We’d like to thank everyone who supported us, especially our school, Wexford GAA, Wexford County Council, Wexford Chamber of Commerce and most importantly our mentors from AIB, Emer Coleman and Nycola Hillis and our TY co-ordinator Seán Rossiter.