A GROUP of students are through to the county finals of a national competition to encourage young entrepreneurs.

The pupils at Lady Lumley’s School in Pickering made it through to the final with their company Aura Amphoara, after successfully competing in the regional heats, as part of the contest organised by the Young Enterprise (YE) charity.

Alice Lishman, 18, Aura Amphoara’s finance director, said: “We competed with eight other teams from York schools and were ecstatic to win awards for our finances and overall company, which has allowed us to go into the North Yorkshire final on May 10.

“This is the first time a sixth form in Ryedale has taken part and our aim as a company is to sell our hand-painted terracotta plant pots and our popular cacti through trade fairs, car boots and other events.

“We aim to make seasonal designs such as Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Valentine’s Day. After two months of starting our business, we gained our own retailer, Busy Liz’s in Kirkbymoorside, who stocks our product.”

“We’ve been to many trade fairs which I personally believe has boosted our confidence meeting other YE groups from over the country.”

Alice said that as part of the York region stage of the competition she and managing director Taylor Asquith had given a speech.

“Our head of sixth form, James Ambrose, came and supported us and we both said standing in front of a 100 people is something we never thought we’d be able to do,” she said.

“We were ecstatic to win Runner Up for Best Company and Best Financial Management which sees us go into the North Yorkshire finals, representing the York region.

“Special thanks go to Busy Liz’s, Kirkbymoorside, Malcolm Jones Accountants, our business advisor, and our teacher Katie Hornby.”

For details, visit auraamphora1.wixsite.com/pots or on Facebook at Aura Amphora.