Entertainment Area

Tuesday 12th August 2008
We are hoping to build an Entertainment Area (Shed without walls) at the back of the house before summer comes, today we had a couple of companies come round to give us a quote. One of them wrote the quote there and then, we are assuming that he is going to be the expensive one. The other one is going back to his office to do the quote and will send it on to us, which makes us think that he might price it up for what the job actually is. Saying that, the first one might be very good at his job and not need to think about it, but experience says that instant quotes always have a safety margin built in, in favour of the supplier.
Marisa went to the Dentist again this afternoon and had the chip in her front tooth repaired, she chipped it playing tennis when she hit herself in the mouth with her racquet a couple of years ago. We did get the tooth repaired at the time but she didn’t look after it and the repair broke off, this time she is that little bit older and more conscious of it so hopefully she will take more care this time. She is happy that it has been done anyway.
Another average day today at the Café, Ian met the guy who is supposed to manage the Shopping Centre, he has been trying to speak to him for three months and this is the first time he has introduced himself.

We wanted to speak to him about the refurbishment that we are planning so as not to upset anyone at the Centre, but as we couldn’t get hold of him and as we had been led to believe by others that within our boundary we could do pretty much what we liked, we had to make plans without him. Well today we were told otherwise, Russell the Centre Manager informed us that we would need to contact a Consultant that works for the Owners to get his opinion on the refurbishment, we would also have to pay him for the pleasure.
As luck would have it he was in Busselton this afternoon and came to see us, at first he told us that we would have to engage an Architect to do a drawing of where the Counter is being moved to, to which Ian replied that there was no way that we would pay an Architect to do a drawing of a shop counter and if that is what they wanted we would not bother doing the Refurbishment and just take money out of the business instead of investing in it.
The Consultant relented and said that he would email us copies of the Plans for the Shop and if we marked on them where we intended to make changes, that should be good enough. Now all we have to do is wait for the email, meanwhile we have got people who are desperate for our business just waiting to come in.
This evening we went to a Seminar laid on by one of the local Accountants that we don’t use, it was held in conjunction with a company called 10X who provide a Consultancy and Coaching service to Business. The event took place at Abbey Beach Resort just up the road from where we live, we got Fliss to babysit for the evening. The evening was fairly informative and well structured although most of it we had heard or seen before, either in the same or a different format and a lot of it was common sense, but it did remind us of how we should be doing things to maximise profit.
The Event went on for almost three and a half hours including a break for drinks and nibbles in the middle, it must have cost these Accountants a few bob to put it on, and with no guarantee of picking up custom. The kids had a good time with Fliss and were in bed by the time we got back.