Business school goal for Lancs couple

A COUPLE who run training courses for small business in Lancashire are striving to open a business school in South Africa.

Joanne and Gavin Allday, managing directors of Lancaster-based Showing Off Academy, said they have been interested in the country since visiting on honeymoon in 2000.

For the past three years they have been supporting the work of Bolton-based charity, Ambassadors in Sport, which uses football to conduct charitable work at its Hope Academies.

Mr and Mrs Allday contribute 10% of company profits to the charity and while visiting an academy last year they met with business owners and researched the possibilities of opening their first international business school. They are now working on a pilot project which should be up and running by 2012.

Mrs Allday said: “It’s a life goal for Gavin and I to build a business school in South Africa and it feels like we can almost touch that goal now. There’s a lot of work to do, but we’re really excited about the difference we can make, especially now we’ve seen the projects for ourselves and we’ve met the people involved with the charity.”