Hello beautiful people, Give me your ideas! :)

Hello everybody, my name is Antonis , I'm 27 and I live in a lovely small city called Limassol , here in Cyprus. The reason I am posting here is because I need some nice new ideas from liberated and alternative people. I am soon opening a place/cafe/bar here in my town and my goal is to create a different, alternative meeting point, bringing people closer and making good to the world. Some of the activities of the place would be:
- Giving away a standard percentage of the profits to charity
- Free lending library / Book crossing zone
- Free training courses (music. theater, photography, dancing, poetry etc)
- live music nights / jamming sessions
- cheap homemade food
- selling fair trade products
- free hugs days

So what I would like from you is your thoughts about this and some more fresh nice ideas as we want to make this place as live and dynamic as possible. Also have in mind that I don't do this for money as I already have a regular job. I am only doing this because I feel that we so much need a place like this in our lives. Thank you in advance for your time. And please forgive my bad English! Love and kisses to all. Cheers

P.S we haven't decided the name of the place yet , so feel free to give it a go!

"Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Gandhi

 

I've been in a few cafes where they allowed local artists and photographers to hang their work on the walls for sale, might be an interesting idea. Or you could allow local musicians to sell their albums at the front counter.

 

Welcome!:sunny:

 

I wish I could be with you in Cyprus Antonis,Sounds blissful,despite the economic downturn.I would love to help.

 

Welcome!

 

Like. :2thumbsup:

No time to talk right now, just a bump

 

Well thank you for your replies and your positive thoughts! Art and photo exhibitions are in our agenda already, and free bicycle ''rentals'' as well. Come on we need more ideas! As many as possible! Cheers to all :rockon:

 

Pipe in some cool music (not too loud).

The hotel Palomar in Phoenix, Az. does that and it's awesome!

They said they get the music from Sirius satellite radio.

It's very relaxing.

 

Hi Antonis.You could have a book exchange cabinet.This is where you have a few shelves of books and people come in and take a book they want to read,and replace it with one they have read.Oh I just saw that you have listed this as a "book crossing zone".Is that the same thing?

 

First thing I can think of in my sleepy mornin' funk coffee you got to have all kinds of

coffee
Sweet coffee
Hard coffee
Mellow Time coffee
and all of those groovy manifestations that coffee is

But anyway welcome to the forums here and hope that you can find more like minded cats than not

 

Ok, what exactly do you mean by ''pipe in'' Justin Hale? Sorry I don't get it, what exactly do they do in this hotel?

Fairlight book crossing (www.bookcrossing.com) is very similar to your idea check the website!

And goodmorning to you Indy Hippy! I promise we 'll be making any version of coffee you can think of!

 

You could have people suggest recipes for you chef.

 

i got nothing...except have specific days for each event you have planned until you find out what works for your area and what creates no interest.

edit; oh and your english is better than many english speaking people i have come across.

 

"pipe in" means playing music from a source like radio all over the place (indoors and out) is the best way I could describe it.

The hotel is an upscale place I'm helping to remodel right now, that's where I'm hearing the music from. The Seattle Seahawks stayed here a couple days ago.

:sunny:

 

Welcome to the site - It's Refreshing to see Your outlook of Youthful exuberance being put into practice in this world where £/$ etc seems to be apriority.
Where I live there is a small shop "On the Corner" (Chorlton, Manchester, UK) where Raw food is championed, Record (vinyl) exchange is promoted, and Music and Poetry and Oration is encouraged upon special event nights, so I see your venture of 'the customer being part of the experience' as something to be commended in its Philosophy - Meeting with people for two-way education, and Love; in the simplest of ways - with mutual respect, consideration and appreciation should always be encouraged
- May Fortune in Health, Wealth and Happiness be your companion upon the road which you travel

 

floyded,

welcome to hf! this forum is intended primarily just for introductions, so the thread may get moved or something.

Your idea sounds really fun, and I hope it works out.

Thinking about all of the cool things you could do is fun, but to really make it work, it may be necessary to think about practical things.

How much will it cost to operate this place? Will you have enough income to keep it going? If you don't have a practical plan to balance income and expenses, you'll go out of business pretty soon.

Getting a mentor who has done something similar would be a big help. You may find someone in person or online.

You might want to talk to the people in the commune forum. They may not know the particulars of your business, but they will have some experience with not-for-profit business

 

Thank you all people! Your feedback is really helpful. Justin ok I got it! Music is definately piping in man.And Billy thank you for your nice thoughts.

e7m8 , I couldn't agree with you more! Firstly, I posted here because I didn't know where else I should do it. Let's hope it wont be removed. I know it's not easy and we have already been thinking ways for income since there is no voluntary work. Courses can be funded by the EU through some programs, and the main income would be the cafe/bar, and homemade (vegetarian) food. We are trying to gather as much ideas as possible in order to put them all down and choose the most realistic and practical ones. And as you can see most of the ideas cost almost nothing and have no running expenses. So yes, why not think of as much as possible? Surely not everything is going to take life! As for finding a mentor, I agree and already tried it but unfortunately I didn't find ANYTHING similar in Cyprus. It's all about money dude.. Thank you again everybody. Cheers

 

Welcome to the site Floyd

 

The US SBA site has some information that you should be able to access. Things about writing a business plan, market research, etc. There may be a similar organization in Crete. The SBA site is mostly oriented toward for-profit businesses, but most of the information is still relevant to non-profits.

Whether in Crete or on-line, a mentor is important. There's likely things that you haven't thought of. In the US, about 80% of new businesses fail within 5 years. Communes fail at a rate of 90%.

It's important to figure out how you will avoid ending up like the majority of new ventures.

Gathering together people who believe in the project and who can donate labor and some resources could help a lot.

How will you get the word out about your place? How many people will be interested? Where should you be located? Can you find someone to donate rent-free space? How long will you be able to wait for business to pick up?

 

well, I 'm definately checking up that site. Running the place on a voluntary basis was the initial thought but unfortunately here with all this economic downturn most people are busy trying to make it up for a living, so we didn't manage to gather enough volunteers in order to run the place without significant income. Therefore, we decided to make it a profit business, although profit not our priority. So all these questions you 've been putting down are indeed very useful but I reassure that we have already discussed them and we definately don't ignore them! The point in this thread is different though It's not about making this work, is about new different ideas from people around the world! Oh, and it's Cyprus, not Crete. Cheers