The Business Plan

[robin]

Document Heading: Extending Utopia: Alternative Business Plan
Document Sub-Heading: A plan to replace a creative space that happens to be a building for: a cinema, other film
related arts, and an alternative social-centre in Ouseburn, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

We are writing a Business Plan, with the title above, the document (version 2) can be found at the following link:

dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81686501/Extending%20Utopia%20(version2).pdf

If you want to contribute to this process please follow the guidance notes below:

GUIDANCE NOTES

These notes are not laws or strict rules, they are just here to provide some inclusion points that will speed up the process of editing the final version(s) of the documents.

Some small parts of this document have been written, mainly the headings and Part 2, which sets out the reasons for writing this plan.

It is intended as a collective exercise, and definitely not an exercise in writing-out creativity, but ultimately it is a plan for some very specific purposes. These are set out in Part 2 of the document.

If you have the skills and knowledge to contribute either as an individual or as part of a small task collective do the following:

• Look at the list of headings, each part is numbered with a sub-heading, use these as your headings.
  
• This does not mean that you cannot alter the sequence of parts, add or subtract and play around with the sub-heading, but for ease of editing fill in a front sheet and say why you think the order of the document needs to change. We are all friends and your point of view is important and you should be heard!
• The business plan is not a static document it will evolve and there will be different versions for different purposes, and each will be "tweaked" by task collectives undertaking a specific task (e.g. writing a funding application to a particular body). Don't become obsessed with its detail, go with the flow! The task here is to collect universal information for editing.
  
• Either save your document in PDF format, or a standard word processor (e.g. if you use word save in a lower version 97/2000, or use OpenOffice or LibraOffice, which are free and downloadable from the WWW).
• You cannot save the document in the forum unless it is less than 1M, or you insert the text within a thread. If its large save it in a host somewhere. Setting up a personal drop-box to leave public documents is easy go to www.dropbox.com. Then leave a link here in the Forum - Business Plan folder.
• If you make reference to any other document or a quote, please provide a full reference as a foot-note or end-note, you do not have to use any style here the editors will do this in due course.
• Complete the front page form, this makes clear to the editors where your contribution fits into the whole document, your name, names if you are writing with other members to be added to the list of authors on the front page of the plan, and how the editors get back in touch with you if they need clarity.
• Write in your own style, but do a spelling check and grammar check, though this will be repeated in the editing.
• Try to write using the terms we have developed for our new constitution: refer to the cinema as cooperative if you need to describe it as a legal entity, but otherwise do not worry, the editing process will standardise the terminology, and the Governance Task Collective is writing a glossary of terms for inclusion in their “Rough Guide to the Star and Shadow Cinema Cooperative”, which will smooth this process.
• This is a collectively written document drawing upon the many skills and talents in the Star and Shadow Cinema Cooperative, it is in practical terms being written by what our emerging constitution describes as a Task Collective, and because it is currently being compiled on-line in this forum a “Virtual Task Collective”. A task collective is a temporary group formed to carry out a specific task, the task here is writing a business plan.
  

Post this form on the forum with a link, unless your contribution is less than 1M in size:

FRONT PAGE FORM: [ Include the following information on the front page before your contribution ]

Part Number: [ See Contents List in the document here: ]

Sub-Heading for part: [ See Contents List in the document here: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81686501/Extending%20Utopia%20(version2).pdf]

Your name(s):

How we contact you: [ E.g. your email ]

Any proposed change or addition to the order in the Contents List, and how you think it should be numbered.

Date you sent it to the Forum Folder, as either Text or a Document stored in a host.

Link: [ Most important ]

[Rachael]

Trevor and I met with Karen Wood from North East Social Enterprise Partnership today -- she's offering to help us develop our business model by building a fee for this into our pre-feasibility application. I think that this is something we should think about carefully before taking up -- though time is ticking to get the application in. I'm not able to come to the Sunday or Monday meetings this week, but happy to discuss and to let Trevor report.