[Cafe] minutes from meeting at gareths house in March

[hartney at burngreave.net]

Quoting Gareth Coleman <gareth at sublime.org>:

> Drew suggested that we could get a feasibility study grant (ie 5k) to
> develop a model - seemed like a good idea to me at the time.
> 
> On reflection now I'm not so sure - the work to get a modest grant of 5k is
> quite a bit - perhaps if two or three of us can commit to a few evenings
> work we can bash out a buisness plan sort of thing that includes market
> research, financial forecasts etc enough to catapult us straight into the
> big league? ie get a 50k grant to employ a worker at 25k for a year? Then
> that year is the springboard to sustainability?
> I think we should look at being a community interest company, or a co-op.
 
> Can we find someone to guide us to various sources of grant - is there a vas
> service that can help us?

Irshad Akhbar, old friend of BITPart etc, now works at the community business
support place at Upperthorpe (I can't remember the name of the organisation; it
might be SCEDU?). He's recently reiterated his willingness to help with the
development of the old community wi-fi idea, which Irshad's organisation had
previously (before Irshad started work there) earmarked for a £5K grant to
finish the business plan and explore Community Interest Company / Co-operative
status. I attended a meeting at the Upperthorpe office ages ago with Richard
Belbin (when he was still employed by BCAT) and the outcome was promising...
but times moved on and the idea was effectively shelved.
I suggest we contact Irshad and involve Richard (copied-in to this), with a view
to resurrecting the contacts made in Upperthorpe and modifying the
sustainability-plans to better suit the Café rather than the community wi-fi
initiative.

Richard: are you still interested in getting involved? 
Your skills and experience are just what we need.

=k=