UNDERGRADUATE Jody Poulton won an award after carrying out a market research project for Bolton Hospital Saturday Council.

She was one of 11 who were placed with local companies under STEP 97 to undertake projects for an eight-week period during their summer vacation.

Her work will enable the Council to open up new areas of business resulting in increased turnover and improved profitability in the next three years. The finals of STEP 97 were held at Bolton Business Centre last month.

Bolton Business Ventures has managed the Bolton and district STEP programme on behalf of Shell UK for the last eight years.

Students gain experience of working to deadlines in real life and companies gain from employing fresh ideas in tackling projects which would probably be put aside due to lack of resources. BBV takes responsibility for the administration of the programme so there is no extra burden on company management.

Jody won the Most Enterprising Student Award and other prizes went to Mark Pomfret for the best report and presentation and to Janine Priest and Christopher Stainthorpe, who were highly commended for their projects.

The companies taking part were Chemical Research Services (Christopher Stainthorpe), Hospital Saturday Council (Jody Poulton), Blackshaw Sykes & Morris (Paul Yates), EEF Lancashire (Philippa Ainsworth), Golden Days Garden Centre (Duncan Hart). PLUSS (Janine Priest), Johnson Security Service (Seamus Killian), Kalton Video Facilities (Mark Pomfret), Bolton Safer Cities (Carol Barnes), Arvin Exhaust (Basit Ahmed) and Knight Inns (Jennifer Stubbs).

The programme receives central funding from Shell UK and for the last two years there has also been generous sponsorship from Bolton Bury Training and Enterprise Council.

The sponsorship allows BBV to meet half the cost of the placements and each company contributes a sum which covers the remainder of the placement cost and administration.

Anybody intered in STEP 98 can contact Dennis Vint on 01204 391400. Jody Poulton receives her certificate from Peter Green, Chief Executive of Bolton Hospital Saturday Council

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