Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Going into business?

It would be nice. Maybe someone reading this can offer me some help.



That's an over head view of the Kingston Memorial Center.

The Memorial Center is located near downtown and is within walking
distance to bus stops. It isn't really being used for much since the new arena is almost built.

The Memorial Center is on 23 acres of land, not quite a 50/50 split of
buildings/parking and field area, but close enough.



On the left are the buildings, on the right is open field circled by a
running track. The entire property is fenced in with an obvious entrance
at the Hockey building and parking between it and the livestock
buildings. The rink has a seating capacity of just over 3000 people.
There's room for roughly 200 cars in the main parking and another 50 or
so in the lower parking area. Parking "behind" the rink would be for
staff and can be accessed from the other road.

The rink obviously has change rooms, washrooms, snack bars and a meeting
room.

The yellow circle indicates an man door in the fencing that would be
permanently locked.

The area circled in purple is where the fall fair takes place including
parking for their vehicles. Since the city has a contract the fair would
still need to be accommodated.

Now using NPPL field dimensions as a base I'm figuring there could
easily be 15 speedball fields. Re-arrange the netting and you can have
bigger fields.

Modifications: Exterior- Fencing would need to have it's height
increased. I think it's 10' now but would prefer 12-14'. Multiple holes
would need to be sunk around the interior of the track to accommodate
removable safety netting posts, 18' tall for 16' tall netting. This
would allow the track to be used for safety vehicles and foot traffic to
reach various fields. Additional flood lights added for increased play
time/safety. I'm not sure where the fill stations would be set up though.

Interior- Retractable safety netting suspended from the ceiling to
allow for occasional ice usage.

Pool - None. Pool would remain open to the public during the summer
season with and paintballers would get a free swim with a game booking.

Aside from the fact that I have no business experience I think the
biggest huddle would be proper zoning to allow air guns to be used.

So... Do you think something like this would work? We have a university
and 2 or 3 colleges in town and were centrally located too.

Now some of my research has yielded some information.

For example: for the year of 2007 operation costs of the Memorial Center, as is, is $300,000.00.

Now there's no way I'm going to put 15 fields there right off the bat but it's nice to know what kind of expansion is possible.

I checked out Money Paintball for start up equipment and insurance. Insurance will be near the $2000.00 mark/year. They have a great "starter package" that would have enough stuff to put up 4 outdoor fields, all the rental gear and a compressor for $140,000.00. There's a Reball package that I could use indoors, so that paint doesn't cover everything, for $50,000.00. So $200,000.00 gets everything.

I'm still trying to find out the costs for bulk paint, but if I can get mid grade paint for $63.00/case and a skid has 48 cases I'm looking at $3024.00/skid. At one skid/month that's $36,288.00/ year.

That means monthly expenses would be about $45,000.00/month not including staff...
That means if I sell paint at a 15% markup ($73.00/case) and charged $20.00 field fee I'd need 2100 people to play a month.

I may have to just use a portion of the field only to reduce costs and run a store out of the Memorial Center.....

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

MY BRAIN HURTS!



Now that my inner Gumby has been released.....


It hasn't been very long but I've been working on a potential business project for the last 5 days. I'm not going to give any details until I have more information and a better grasp on the big picture. As of right now it's a HUGE picture.

Just for equipment for the start up I'm looking at at least $400,000.00. I still have to consider some other things yet but am waiting for more info to come in so that number could go up or down. Most likely up.

I knew it would be expensive. I know I won't make it rich, at least right away. I have some fantastic plans in mind that could prove to be massive money makers too.

What's pissing me off about this right now is several of the supply companies "only deal with businesses". What the fuck is that about? How is someone supposed to ensure he has the capital to start a business if he can't find out what shit will cost? See why my brain hurts?

Other than that not much else is really going on.

Carrie is doing well. Her back is still not that great but she is starting to do more walking.

Logan is having fun at school. He's enjoying the running and reading club again this years. He's also starting to enjoy reading at home. He's been reading his book every day, 10 minutes or more at a time. He's currently reading The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat by Thornton W. Burgess. He's a little more than half way through the 120 pages. There's 20 books in the series and I think we have 5 or 6 of them.

In the 80's (I think)the Burgess books were adapted for television in a cartoon called the Green Forest. I remember watching that on a daily basis because my youngest sister Paula loved the show. I didn't mind it too much, the stories were pretty good and the animation was OK but it just wasn't Transformers or G.I. Joe.