Exeter Deaf students focus on future creative careers

Exeter business owner and director of The Prop Factory, Carmen Croxall, is visiting Exeter Deaf Academy to speak to students about how she built a million-pound business that began in her parents’ garage just 6 years earlier.

Carmen’s talk will explore the challenges of running a business as well as the mental and emotional resources needed to make it thrive. Students will hear about some of the practical as well as personal challenges Carmen as business owner has had to face, including dyslexia and bi-polar disorder. The talk will help to inspire students to engage with future creative possibilities as well as to learn about the steps they can take to one day build a business themselves.

The Prop Factory is an Exeter-based prop hire company, which designs and makes its props in-house, renting them to a variety of private and corporate contexts, from weddings to film sets. The team fabricates props according to original briefs from clients as well as designing items inspired by members of the team.

Over the past five years, Carmen’s business has grown from just herself upcycling vintage crockery into cake stands, to a company of 10 full-time members of staff turning around hundreds of inspired props for some of the most imaginative business locally, regionally and nationally.  

Students can expect to get hands-on too, as Carmen will bring some of the oversized, magical and inventive props with her from the Marsh-Barton-based warehouse for them to explore.

Occupational Therapist, Sarah Ankers, says, “Having a successful business owner, who has challenged stereotypical barriers, visit the Academy is a great opportunity for our students. The talk will encourage them to draw on their ideas and creativity and support them in taking on new challenges to realise their full potential.”

The talk will take place on 7th February.

Carmen is keen to engage young people in schools in Exeter and the surrounding area to help them get a sense of what it’s like to run and build a business. She is also offering schools the chance to design new props for her team to make and hire out to real customers.