# The Broon Wellie Stop

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# Barr Hub, Operational Plan

## Purpose

The purpose of this plan is to provide that space where folks starting a business or project speak of the real things that matter. Usually this is done in person over a few beers or coffees and continually develops right up until the doors open, and then some.

We should have an image of the end goal, but the detail will never be fixed in stone as we navigate through the hoops we will have to jump through. With high inflation, pandemics and wars there will always be unknowns and these are more frequent today than in previous decades. Some agility will be required in any form of forward planning.

This is a live document that also represents a form of brainstorming on the opportunities we may have.

Please jump in an comment on anything that missing, wrong or badly worded. You can do that by selecting the text you wish to comment on.

## What this is not!

**This is not a business plan** and makes no attempt at boredom. The business plan is well underway and serves a separate and distinct purpose. That is to raise the funds for capital costs, including refurbishment, upgrades and fit out. Much of that will be driven from the thinking in this document as we move on, but **the business plan is more a slow moving heavily detailed piece of work** that explains Barr etc. and we already know Barr :-) This operational plan is a lighter, more dynamic view on the realities of a changing proposition. It should encompass as many ideas as possible and tailor these over time to give us the best chance of success in our project.

This is also not something somebody creates for us, **we** must create this for us, all of us need to own this document and feel part of the project. We should welcome criticism only **iff** that critique offers viable alternatives.

## Why save the hall, why save the village?

We are all Custodians of the Barr legacy for generations to come and we should all try to make Barr better because we want:

- to ensure we can continue to enjoy what Barr and it's people have to offer;
- to preserve the history and fabric of Barr;
- to make sure Barr prospers in an appropriate way for us and just as importantly for future generations of Barr to enjoy;
- to make Barr an attractive, safe and welcoming place to visit and live;
- to set an example for other communities to aspire to

To this end I think a key part of our targets should be to highlight the unique selling points of Barr and grow the visitors who come to Barr by utilising both the natural assets that the parish has and combine this with new experiences that we could provide from the hub. By doing this we would:

- help to achieve some of our commercial targets by increased footfall and expenditure
- help to grow the positive reputation of Barr and the esteem of the local population;
- increase our potential success in financial funding and other support to the village

## Space

Barr hub as planned will host a multifunction social center that includes
- Shop
- Cafe
- Bar
- Large function room
- several smaller flexible rooms

In addition it hosts a public toilet block (possibly no showers)

## Costs to run the hall (excl salaries)

Current running costs, prior to works is around £20K. This includes an £8.5K rates bill that likely will reduce to zero or near zero. On completion of the works it is anticipated there will be more efficient heating and lighting in a highly insulated building. Also on a successful start the utilities will be much better used, increasing the utility costs somewhat. So an increased use of utilities in a better insulated modern building. The savings on rates and insulation may be offset by increased usage of the facilities.

If we assume the running costs will remain around £20K and add in a £5k min annual maintenance charge then it's likely not too far away.

Running costs = £25K

## Salaries

This is a large and important area that will require a lot of thought and playing around. However let's assume some basics
- Salary of £12K per annum per permanent member of staff
- Hourly pay of £8 per hour for those under 23 (we need to check figures)

## Hall opening times and staffing

This is more discrete than appears as we will need to staff the shop/cafe and bar while they are open. However if we assume that 1 person with a 2 hour crossover of shifts to cover busy periods will initially cover us then we have a start. Later we can debate summer staff verses winter staff etc. as this is likely to have a degree of seasonality for sure. We will hammer this out over the next few weeks though.

If we aim to open the hub from 8am to 9pm and 11pm on weekends then we have a start. This would indicate at least a shift pattern would work.

Early shift - 08:00 -> 14:00 (6 hours)
Afternoon shift 12:00 -> 19:00 (7 hours)
Evening shift 17:00 -> 21:00 (23:00 at weekends) (4 or 6 hours)

We can be flexible here in terms of total staff, but as a start it would appear we are looking at 5-6 staff with some working only weekends or perhaps some on 4 day weeks and some on 3. For the sake of a start place to further investigate functions running and likely footfall, we can start here.

In addition we will require a cleaner and possibly a hall manager.

Weekday staff -> £36K
weekend staff -> £15K
Manager -> £12K
Cleaner -> £6K (part time)

As a ball park we can consider a salary bill of just shy of £100K (to include NI, pension, insurances etc.) as a start point. We will spreadsheet all these later to get more accuracy. These salaries are mentioned here as a guide to potentially obtaining funding for salaries for 2 years (a goal we should have to give us more of a chance). The salaries and associated expenses are covered in the cafe net profit goals.

## Total running costs inc salaries

As an approximating for a basic level of cover to open all day with minimal levels of customer we have an overhead cost of circa £110-125K (to include a community licence to allow up to 20 license holders. These are created for SCIO like orgs).

# Income Generation

## Cafe

The most likely profit generator for us is the cafe. It's a high profit margin trade and can satisfy locals and visitors alike. The cafe should have a high quality coffee/tea bar and offer a breakfast menu, light snacks and maybe an afternoon and evening menu. A coffee shop can make 12% net profit (i.e. after it's paid salaries and associated costs) and a cafe / eatery can be less at approx 7%, but a lot depends on location. This is where we benefit from not a cafe alone, but a hub. If we encourage folk to the hub then we hopefully encourage them to the cafe and shop. Our advantage here will be having this all in one location.

Aiming at a 10% net margin here seems sensible and achievable. With a really nice fit out and a welcoming frontage then we can certainly encourage those fair weather walkers and cyclists to come in and enjoy our wares. However we want locals to also make most use of this facility. We can consider single menu item meal nights, several times per week at a heavily discounted rate. Again bums on seats and folk get into a warm social space.

If we were to look at achieving £20k here we need to be looking at selling £200K of cafe goods, but that **buys us most of, or all of, our staffing costs too**. It's easy to consider this pays staff and mostly pays for the running costs of the hall, leaving £5K to find.

This is a fairly ambitious goal, but achievable, our current cafe with it's tiny space does relatively well, but imagine a larger, warmer space with toilets and 1.5m2 per seat. It's a goal worth aiming for.

Now we need to work on that amount of custom and the staffing levels we are looking at here. We may need more staff if this is busy, but that is covered by the net profit margin, so this problem fixes itself. If we get busy and staff overrun, we are heading for more profit and can employ more staff, but staying focussed on that net profit margin.

## Shop

A convienence store (which is what we have but trying to be a general store) can make the owner a wage of £20K odd to £40K odd. The £40K salary is for stores like Navid's in "still game". This is a owner working early in the morning in their van at the cash and carry and working many many hours to get that wage. (way below minimum wage per hour)

Then the £20K odd wage gaining shop is more like the wee shop in Crosshill, these folk work hard with more footfall than us, but for a pitance of a wage. So more hard work, shorter working day, but less onerous than poor Navid :-)

That's the modern convenience store, they are expensive as goods are slow moving and only purchased for convinience, that convinience is a tax on our products that we need to make clear to people. Coinvenience is good, if we can upsell on the convenience requirement, and we can in a hub.

Our shop fit's more the Crosshill model but looks for the wage of Navids shop and shorter working hours (not impossible, but ....). It's unlikely to do so without some change to it's business model. The shop cannot compete with Asda and should not try to. It also cannot try to cut costs and services like the old folks Tuesday morning coffee and cake days, which put bums on seats. We really need to focus on offerings we can have that Asda cannot, such as those coffee mornings in the **cafe**, but also **look for product lines in the shop that Asda and the likes don't** (an important point).

The great news is that integrating the convenience component in an integrated hub and offering something different we can improve the business performance of the shop part and increase local services at the same time. This is a great opportunity for us in Barr.

### The shop in the hub can do better

Isobel Kaye spoke of our USP, many times and she is right. What is the magic that will bring folk to eat, drink and shop here in our center? If our hub is super insulated and eco friendly then our shop should jump on that.

As we have seen, a convenience store in a smallish busy town can make between £25-40K for it's owner. Not a lot at all. It's not a high profit in cigs, beer, milk and bread. This is not new, we all know that. Home deliveries etc. really make the small shop a tough job. Therefore we need to pick a different turf to fight that battle.

We can move to a place supermarkets cannot compete and that is the "local to you" angle. Progressing the eco-friendly angle, we can have bulk buys of cereals, washing soaps etc. that people use to fill up their existing container. Much like the coo-shed and milk. People don't want to take containers to Asda to fill them and folk don't want new containers each time, filling up their bins and killing our planet.

This is where we realise our wee local store is mainly for locals, folk maybe don't want to drive too far to fill containers for the environment, but surely locals would love it?

We can hopefully work on this angle to have the tiny % of net profit (4-6 if we are lucky) on a healthy turnover of say £60K.

That gives the wee shop a local USP and a potential for raising £3K which may not sound much, unless those going to the shop also realise they need coffee and a blether.

## Howff

Our wee howff, the snug bar in Barr. Most likely a weekend use, but we never know, the hub's open during the week, so the bar is too. The bowlers and quilters can invite guests, sit back and relax here too and we should encourage that. Visiting bowling clubs can eat here now and grab a few beers to discuss the Jack and such like :-) Never mind those pesky locals who just want a beer and a laugh.

I would hope that bar can turn over a net profit of £5K but it's a hard one to accuratly guess at.

## The grand hall

With the bar also serving the hall we have a great opportunity for parties and I have seen that Barr likes parties and they are well attended. If we plan for 8-10 events per year (currently 6) and no more BYOB then it's an easy jump to look at £750-1000 profit per event.

Pop up weddings are an option to help encourage hall use and tie in the Church if possible. We have newly ordained minister :-) and I believe at least one more in the parish. This may represent a great opportunity all round and best of all a good laugh.

We could be looking at an income here of around £6K with some ease.

## Local groups

The 2 main groups who use the hall are the quilters and bowlers. There is also a parent teacher association, BCA, BCC etc. that make infrequent use of the hall.

Occasional use should likely be free of charge to locals and local groups.

Frequent users, such as the bowlers and quilters have to be actively encouraged and helped. We don't want these members having to dig deep at all. In fact in my opinion we should aim for these users to make free use of the hall. **However** these groups can apply for grant funding to pay for facilities and while that grant funding is available then it makes sense that these groups do apply and pay for the hall.

As an example these groups could perhaps apply for £500 every 6 months and that covers their rental.

As these grants wither away or fall by the wayside, as they may, then these groups should have free use of the space, as should any other groups we can encourage (and we need to encourage more groups).

This income should also be treated as gravy, i.e. not something we can rely on. At the moment that could net us £2K though.

### Why free?

Basically bums on seats, a space with people is a safe and welcoming place whereas who wants to sit in a huge empty building (especially our staff).

## Additional services

1. We also have a PO counter for banking. It's likely no real profit or cost, but adds an important service to the village in these times.
2. We could use Amazon Smile funding as Ochiltree have done, also a local lottery? (why fund the national lotto)and much more.
3. Reciprocal folk nights may be an option, perhaps tie in with Ballantrae and Girvan folk scene for a start. That could give us a night or 2 per month of live music and banter, **and more income**.
4. Bringing back the afternoon teas - hugely popular and still fondly talked about by people who visited Barr. Great for the cafe revenue
5. Barr Tours (monthly)> This could be for walkers where the tour would include a ticket to tea and cake at the cafe with a variety of walks to points of interest in Barr (Kirsty's cairn, Devils Footprint, etc Again good for cafe revenue
6. Bike hire - We have a shed load of bikes next to the hall including helmets. Again, we could offer guided bike rides or simply bike hire. We could maybe get some electric bikes as well. Money from bike hire and potential footfall to cafe.

## Hub governance

This will be a large area to continually explore. The focus though **must be to enable all events and refuse none as much as humanly possible**. i.e. no gatekeepers here, but enablers who are as excited as proposers in using our hub.

As a start we can have; the Hub Manager would report to the Hub Management Team (weekly) and the HMT would report to the SCIO (monthly or quarterly) but otherwise the SCIO doesn't interfere with how the HMT operates and similarly the Hub Manager is given a brief and left to get on with it on a day to day basis.

## War chest

With recent years and events the future of all business is less stable. For this reason we should look to build up at least 6 months running costs and preferably 2 years. This plan tries to be conservative, but I think anyone can see the opportunities for improvements and increased profit are quite significant (volunteers, selling crafts, long shelf life high profit luxury goods, walking / fishing tackle and so on). When we are on our feet and cleaning our own face here we should work hard on increasing profit to cover this war chest.

## Social value

The thing we cannot measure here, is the single most important thing we can offer. That is a community, a place where folk can be warm and safe, where we can get meals for many and cheaper than we can make at home, a place that offers the weary, comfort and raises the spirits of us all. A place where loneliness vanishes and good spirits prevail. This is our ultimate goal here IMO and we will never measure it, but we should always appreciate that this is what we are working for. The kids don't need to wonder alone in dark streets now, they have a home in the hub, all of us have that place too and we must encourage use of it.