My property business, run by Nick, is called Marix (after my favourite film). It employs a mixed bad of people, including old school friends and young offenders from the probation service who we are trying to "re-habilitate". My girlfriend, Louise, works with young offenders and if she sees someone who she believes really wants get out of crime, Nick interviews them for a job. I admit, it does provide cheaper labour, but that's not the reason we do it, scouts honour.
I am hoping Matrix will be able to do as much of the refurbishment as possible, especially as the professional opinion of the re-furb cost is £1.5m and our budget is less than £1m. I think we will need to employ more people to achieve an opening date in 2006.
For people who do not know Nottingham, the building used to be a sports bar/restaurant/pool hall/arcade. It is a detached building painted white set back from a 225+ car park. There is nightclub/lapdancing bar next to it, a Megabowl and Showcase Cinema opposite, and 2 restaurants, Frankie & Bennys and Cinquento on the same complex. Entrance is from a slip road that leads onto the A453 that continues for a few miles before reaching juntion 24 of the M1, the East Midlands airport junction. The complex is about 3-4 miles outiside of Nottingham Ciry Centre where the nearest big hotels are.
I have just finished doing the project plan for the set up of the club. I've used an excel spreadsheet and listed tasks by type and by person and deadline date. I'm handling the key recruitment, finance and legal issues. Nick is handling the re-furbishment, Chubby Nowab the marketing and Pete the technology. Its a pretty long list and is only going to get bigger as we find out all of things that we've forgot to include.
I've been feeling that I should be paying something towards Blondepoker for using their site to promote my club, but Tikay and DC won't take anything off me, so I've emailed them to see if I could maybe sponser the "Blonde Bash", put some money behind the bar or add a few quid to the prize pool. Something anyway, cause there is no doubt that I am benefiting from their site. We're all friends but Blonde's not a charity service. I'm hoping there will be lots of good stuff the club can do with Blondepoker when it opens, live comps, social nights etc.
Chubby emailed me a few promissing logos for the club today, he's been working with my Marketing Director of sf group, Michelle Hill, on the design. Apparently he turned up to my head office all decked out with a suit, briefcase and posh accent and everyone said "what a nice polite young man".
Now I've finished my project plan, I feel a lot more organised and on top of everything. Just gotta get back into the groove after 2 years of bad beats on the poker circuit.
