(E) OPERATIONAL DETAILS OF PROPOSAL

Please see the Appendices for a comprehensive description of all rooms and facilities at our proposed business location (73 Beech Avenue, Forest Fields, Nottingham, NG7 7LR).

Equipment also included in the purchasing price consists of : a till, 2 fridges, a dishwasher, 18 tables, 48 chairs, 2 sofas, and a CHUBB alarm system.

E.1. Basic processes and personnel requirements

Housing

On the upper floor there will be a housing collective, consisting of the tenants of the four upstairs rooms. This collective will, in the longer term, be registered as a Housing Co-operative. These tenants will be responsible for ensuring that rent is paid on time, and for the routine cleaning of the upper floor. Two designated members of the centre's management committee, who are not tenants themselves, will have responsibility for collecting the rents and liaising with tenants. Four people who are closely involved with the Rainbow Centre have applied to be tenants.

Veggies

The basement area will house Veggies, the vegan catering collective. This business has been running successfully for 15 years and is widely known throughout the U.K. Veggies will continue to run in the manner which it is run at the moment, with two full time staff and a team of part-time staff who work on the burger stall in Nottingham and at events.

Cafe / Bar Committee

On the lower floor there will be a cafe, bar and function room. There will also be space for the library, an information exchange area, a public office area with phone, fax, internet and computer access, and a photocopier machine. The cafe and bar will be under the management of the cafe/bar committee. We have a group of ten people who will comprise the cafe/bar committee. They will take responsibility for running the cafe five days per week, and the bar for events and weekend evenings. This group will take responsibility for the opening of the cafe and bar for the normal opening hours and for special events such as meetings, social occasions etc. The responsibilities of the committee will include : ordering and rotating stock, cellar-keeping, preparing food and serving customers, handling money and book-keeping, and cleaning and maintenance of the cafe and bar areas. The committee will be over-seen and administered by a convenor.

Care-takers Committee

This committee, again with a nominated convenor, will co-ordinate bookings for the function room and will be responsible for working with the bar/cafe committee, to ensure that the building is open for bookings and the appropriate services provided. The committee will also be responsible for maintenance and repairs of the building, and will administer the maintenance budget. Five people have undertaken this role. When the out-buildings have been renovated and are ready for use as workshops and offices, the committee will also take on the responsibility of managing these. The committee will also handle bookings of the yard area for events such as bicycle workshops, children's play events, and permaculture workshops.

These committees will meet fortnightly to discuss matters relevant to their work. As members of both will be working as volunteers, we anticipate that the running of the bar and cafe and other events will prove profitable, whilst being presented at an affordable rate. The committees which are being formed consist mostly of people currently involved in the running of the Rainbow Centre and also of some people who have been drawn in by this new venture.

Cleaning Group

There will be three cleaners who will take on the job of cleaning the cafe, bar and the two downstairs toilets, and making sure that the office area and library are in good up-keep.

Fund-raising committee

This group, consisting of three people, has been established. It will continue to be involved in procuring all necessary grants and loans.

E.2. Management and Organisation

Representatives from all committees (including convenors), and other groups, will form the centre's management committee. This committee will meet once a month. User groups and other interested parties will also be invited to attend the management committee meetings when appropriate.

The management committee will be subject to periodic elections in accordance with the rules of the Rainbow Centre, contact us for a copy.

Therefore, management and organisation of the premises will be undertaken by a strong group of people, organised into committees as detailed above. This broad group of people have been working together at the premises on Mansfield Road for some time, and are well practised at working co-operatively and efficiently as an effective team. Together we have a diverse collection of skills, qualifications and experience, as described in the appended CV details. The personel CV's have not been listed in these appendices for reasons of personel security, but can be obtained along with a hard copy of this buisiness plan, by written application to The Rainbow Centre.

(F) COSTING AND PRICING OF PROPOSAL

F.1. Start Up Costs

F.1.1. Goods and services to be secured

  • Conversion of box-room into shower room and installation of electric shower
  • £800
  • Conversion of bar area to accommodate cafe servery and food preparation area
  • £900
  • Printing and postage of publicity materials
  • £250
  • Survey
  • £400
  • Change of use registration with Council Planning Dept
  • £117
  • Legal fees to obtain licencing certificates
  • £300
  • Fee for amendment of address with Register of Friendly & Provident Societies
  • £40
  • Administration fee for Ecology Building Society
  • £250
  • Solicitors fees
  • £2117.50

    (Local Authority Search fee - £80, Drainage Search fee - £35.25, Land Registry Search fee - £4, Land Charge Search fee - £2, Company Search - £30, Stamp Duty - £1,100, Land Registration fee - £200, Bank Charges - £20)

    F.1.2. Items already owned

  • Furnishings for upper floor accommodation
  • Furnishings for function room and cafe/bar, including TVs and audio-visual equipment
  • Office equipment, including four computers, two printers, colour scanner, fax machine, photocopier, and public payphone.
  • Aluminium can recycling bank
  • Library of 2,000+ books and journals
  • Small stock of speciality books for sale
  • Cafe/bar kitchen equipment and fittings
  • Some non-perishable cafe stock
  • Stock for sale at outside events, including T-shirts, greetings cards, fair-trade and cruelty-free products, books and journals

    F.2. Explanation of Assumptions made when compiling financial charts

    Please refer to the financial charts included in the Appendices.

    F.2.1. Inflows

    Tenants : We assume that the rent for each of the four rooms will be equivalent to that charged for the existing rooms above our Mansfield Road premises, i.e. £41.68 per week. It may be that because of the superior size, facilities and state of repair of the rooms in the new premises, we are able fairly to charge a higher rent. This will of course depend upon discussion with the tenants, who may in any case be eligible for housing benefit.

    Cafe : We have assumed the cafe will be open five days per week, and make weekly sales of £200, i.e. £800 per month. Stock purchases are assumed to be £500 per month. These amounts are based on the 1999 figures from our current premises, with a projected increase in sales of 5%. The new premises will offer many resources that we are not currently able to provide, one of which is a function room / meeting space. As more groups will be able to make use of the centre we predict that we will be able to make at least £75 profit per week from the new cafe. At present our cafe on Mansfield Road relies on a microwave, and is situated in an inadequate building in an unappealing location. The new property offers improved facilities, and scope for an attractive, sheltered outdoors eating area, which would improve custom, especially in the summer.

    Events, room hire and meetings : In our current premises we do not have the facilities to provide any of these services. At present we hold one educational video night per month, which makes on average £50, despite the limited numbers that can be accommodated. In our new premises we expect to be able to hold several similar fundraising events each month, with higher attendance possible. The majority of our user groups are currently forced to book other venues for their meetings and social events; all have pledged to use the new centre when it becomes available, at the rates described in Section D.1.2. We are therefore confident that we will make £50 per week (i.e. £200 per month) from room hire and events. This is listed under "Sales: Function Room" in the financial charts.

    Resource Hire: We assume that fees collected for use of facilities such as computer, internet, fax, photocopier and library will total £40 per month.

    Bar : By opening the bar at weekends and for these events and meetings, we anticipate that the bar will be profitable. Because we will operate as a private members club, we expect to build up a loyal clientele, boosted by guests for larger events or hired functions. We are assuming that we will spend £600 each month on bar stock, including purchasing ten 9-gallon firkins of beers at £50 each. We assume that we will sell 150 pints of beer each week, at £1.50 per pint, thus raising sales of £900 per month, and that we will make an additional £150 per month in sales of snacks and mixers. We are also assuming that the brewer with which we enter into a supply agreement will provide us with beer pumps, lines and cellar equipment as part of the agreement, and will service that equipment free of charge when necessary. This is standard industry practice.

    Veggies : The company have undertaken to pay rent for workspace in the cellars of the new premises at the same rate as at present.

    F.2.2. Outflows

    Mortgage : We have calculated mortgage repayments on the basis of borrowing £88,000, with a repayment rate of 8.89% over 25 years.

    Loans : We assume the remaining £22,000 of the £110,000 purchase price will be provided by loans. We have calculated on the basis of two loans : (i) £6,000 borrowed from Veggies Catering Campaign, to be repaid over 10 years at an interest rate of 2.5%; and (ii) £16,000 borrowed from various lenders, to be repaid over 5 years at interest of 5%. In practice, we expect to receIve a proportion of this £16,000 on the basis of a lower interest rate, or even with interest waived; indeed, we have already obtained pledges from supporters on this basis.

    Other Charges : We have assumed that utility bills are in the first instance the same as those already paid at our current premises. However, we incorporate a 5% increase in these charges in every subsequent year. We have assumed that insurance will be £300 a year more that it is at present as we have to procure public liability insurance. We are assuming that the council tax for the property will be equivalent to that for our current premises, except that an increase of 5% every year has been accounted for. The council are not able to provide us with a banding rating for the new property so we have calculated using the same band rates as our current property. The rateable value of the premises has been quoted by the City Council as £10,750, multiplied by a Rate in the Pound of 0.416. We assume we retain our existing 45% discount for charitable status, and so total payment for business rates will be £2,460.

    F.3. Financial Requirements

    Our total financial requirements are £115,000. This includes £110,000 for the purchase of the building, and £5,000 start-up costs. The start-up costs are described in detail in section F.1.

    The sum of £110,000 is required by 22 December 2000, which is the completion date for purchase of the new property. The £5,000 start-up costs will be required within the first month of our occupancy, i.e. January 2001.

    We hope to obtain a mortgage from the Ecology Building Society for 80% of the purchase price, i.e. £88,000. The remainder of the price, i.e. £22,000, must be obtained by loans. We have already secured a total of £15,500 in pledged loans. This includes £6,000 from Veggies, two loans of £1,000 and one loan of £5,000 from various supporters of the Rainbow Centre, £1,000 from a housing co-operative, and £1,500 from a volunteer. Therefore we must attract a further £6,500 in loans from the many long-term supporters of the Rainbow Centre.

    We intend to raise the £5,000 start-up costs through donations. We have already secured £4,300 of this sum. We are currently undertaking a major fundraising drive, with benefit events already organised, mailouts and advertisements in magazines and journals, and stalls at local and national events. We are very confident that we will raise more than the £700 shortfall, and will therefore in fact require less than £6,500 in loans.

    As our cash-flow forecast illustrates, the months of January, February and April show a deficit (although all other months produce a surplus, and over a year we anticipate a profit). This is because of large payments which become due in those three months. To cover this cash-flow problem, we have arranged an interest-free bridging loan of £1,000 from Veggies, to be paid on 1st January 2000 and repaid on 1st May 2000. We expect to be able to renew this arrangement in subsequent years as required.

    We are also investigating various sources of grant funding. We believe that there are enormous opportunities to access funding, in particular funds relating to education and training facilities, and funds relating to Nottinghamshire's Health Authority. Possible grant-funders include the Co-operative Community Fund, Nottingham Green Guardians, Community Champions Fund, Council grants (community development, voluntary sector and environment), Awards for All / National Lottery Charities Board, FARM - Sabina Fund, and the Phoenix Fund.

    F.4. Sources of financial advice

    Accountant:Chris Cobb
     Cobb, Burgin and Co.
     129a Middleton Boulevard
     Wollaton Park
     Nottingham
     NG8 1FW
     Tel: (0115) 928 3900
      
    Bankers:
    Yorkshire Bank PLC
     11 Smithy Row,
     Nottingham,
     NG1 3EJ.
     Tel: (0115) 9415400
      
    Solicitor:Duncan Maclaren
     Maclaren Britton
     Grosvenor Chambers,
     23 Kings Street,
     Nottingham.
     Tel: (0115) 941 1469
      
    Business Advisers:Jo Irons
     Nottingham Business Venture
     (Registered with the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies)
     309 Haydn Road
     Nottingham
     NG5 1DG
     Tel: (0115) 969 1151

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