Grant Thornton, my accountants, were a little shocked at my latest business venture, but even they are aware of the growth in poker. Apparently they had a "poker night" for some of their clients in Birmingham last month and it went down a storm. I told them that it would be in ther interests to puchase "corporate VIP" membership to the club if they valued my business!
Grant Thornton have gone away to set up the club Ltd company and the "financial loan facility" between the club and my recruitment business, sf group. Basically, the club will be able to loan money from my recruitment business of up to £4m (hopefully we will only need £2m but no halm in having a bit of spare capacity is there, I changed it to £4m at the last minute!) at a 'commerical' interest rate, 1.5% above base rate.
It needs to be structured as a loan or the Inland Revenue will add PAYE and NI to all of the money I use for the club. For example, if it would cost £1.12m to draw out £0.6m, if we did not set up the loan facility correctly, where as this way I just pay the interest on the money we use, and its very flexible, payback whenever (or never!).
I had another meeting afterwards, with my Finance Director and Managing Director of sf group. After we signed off the sf group budget (took 10 minutes), we discussed who we would manage the club's adminsitration (2hours), including payroll, accounting, suppliers,banking, VAT etc. It was decided that we would employ an additional administrator in the accounts department and that the club would be set up on our CODA accounting system as a new company.
In most businesses the MD and FD would be a bit concerned that the owner was going to blow the company's money on some hair brained sheme, bleeding" the main business of cash, but these 2 people have known me for 25 years between them, so they are used to expecting odd things and have always supported me. Tony , my sf group MD, plays online and live poker himself, and can't wait for the club to open. Also, I can't help thinking they want me to be busy so I won't come back and interfere in their jobs or sf group.
Unforunately, Action Jack had to look after his son so we were unable to hook up, so I drove down to Oxford to meet a potential card room manager. We had a good chat and got on well, he is very enthusiastic about the club and we arranged for him to come and look round the premises in the new year. He also agreed to do a report on what he believed the poker activities in the club should be. Really nice chap.
When I got back to my house Chubby and Shrew were playing heads-up and Womble was sleeping on the sofa. We all spend a good few hours going through the re-furbishment of the premises. Womble is so knowledgable on this, he had managed set-ups for Mecca Bingo, Millers Barn and TGI Fridays, and his comments highlighted my lack of knowledege and expertise. I hope he will find the time to help us on this project.
Its 7am in the morning and I've just woke up on the sofa, not sure why I never made it to bed. I have meeting with our IT Manager later today. After last nights Womble conversation, I can't help feeling a bit apprehensive about the re-furb of the club, Womble has highlighted stuff that I had never thought of, more expense and logistical problems. The Shrew had also told me that our currrent "property project" has fell behind schedule due to the roof, which doesn't help either with the timing. I need his team to start ripping out the club in April.......more complications.
Okay, where are we, I know I have achieved some stuff but I feel there is just so much to sort out, we................
........have a Club name
........have secured the premises..........
........have got positive news from the Gaming Board.........
........are well underway with the recruitment of my Committee, General Manager, Card Room Managers, Bar Manager etc............
........have a Marketing Manager and IT Manager working full time already.............
........have a draft Membership Sheme,
........sorted out the money to finance the Club
What else? I need a shower to clear my head.....this is a full time job. Am I out of practice after spending the last 2 years playing poker, or this really such a diffiult job?
