Chemist-My original idea was to set up a chemist but after I looked in my area I realised that there were already two prescription pharmacists in the local area.
Corner Shop-I then came up with a second idea which was to open a corner shop like the 7 Eleven’s in America, but all the stores in this country have been taken over by Budgens who renamed them Bls. Also in the categories in shop market were too large for me to specify. For example it could have been a newsagents, off licence, connivance store, or even a groceries store etc.
So those ideas were no good, in order for my business to succeed I knew I would have to design a business or service that would benefit the community.
In order for me to design a youth center firstly I would have to gather information about other youth clubs and organisations. A former youth community center I used to attend was Ponders End youth club, which was the most useful source of information. I interviewed the manager of the club over the telephone. I asked him many questions on different aspects of setting up a youth center.
My questionnaire has produced the following results;
(Graph1) Was based on whether people thought that it was a good idea to set up a youth club and why they thought so. 100% of people agreed that Enfield Island needed a youth club. People had different responses such as, it will give juvenile delinquent youths something to do instead of vandalising the streets, and it will be a good opportunity for kids to meet and to do constructive things in their spare time. Also from my questionnaire the result of which I received gave me a rouge idea of things I would have to take into count if I were to set up a successful youth club. Some of these things where specific age groups, opening hours, how much they would be prepared to pay and activities to offer.
The results showed that the public thought that the youth club should be open to all ages (graph2). Also with age group I would need to know what the opening hours would suite them best (Graph3). Obviously depending on the age group the opening hours would vary. E.g. under 10 year olds parents would prefer the open hours to be during mid-day so their children could return home before it gets dark. But if I were to open the youth club to all ages I would have to consider the age differences so it would be more convenient for the youth club to have different open hours for age groups. If the youth club were to be a success I would have to know what facility of activities to offer (Graph4). The most popular of activities were football, which would be easy to offer due to there being a lot of grass in the area and athletics which would be harder to offer due to there not being a stadium near by. Most people who answered my questionnaire said that they would be prepared to pay a maximum fee of £1. The fixed fee would cover cost of facilities and contribute to transportation costs (Graph5).
I wanted an idea of how my youth club would compare to other youth clubs so in my questionnaire I asked questions about previous youth clubs people had attended. The most popular youth club people had attended was Ponders End Youth Centre (Graph6&7), I also visited this youth centre so I knew what facilities they offered the most popular being football (Graph8) because we were given a chose of indoor or outdoor football. If I were to cater for indoor football the venue of which the youth club is based would have to reasonably big in size. 100% of people asked how often they would attend the youth club said more than three times a month (Graph9)
The third part of my questionnaire was to find out if there were any extra things that the club should offer, which was should food be provided? Most people said yes, but personally I would disagree because in the local area we already have shops that provide food items e.g. Londis. And the last question was should the youth club offer any trips during school terms or holidays? The suggestions were as follows, theme parks, educational trips and cinema visits.
Another useful source of information was the manager of the Ponders End Youth club of whom I conducted an interview with. He explained the financial aspects of setting up a youth club, the most important issue being funding. Local youth clubs like the one I am setting up are usually funded by the local council in my case it would be Enfield Council. This would involve receiving grants yearly. The council pay youth club workers wages. If extra funds were required then I would look for companies to sponsor the youth club.
