Grow your own Forest
 So you're intereseted in our "alternative space", maybe you'd like to do something similair, different, better or worse? Well here's some ideas based on how we got the Forest going...
We wanted a place where we could show films, play and listen to music, hang out, dance, discuss stuff, think, hold amateur boxing contests, learn spanish, play chess, encourage sarcasm, look at art, make things etc... and anybody could get involved and make things happen. Basically we wanted a cool place to go when there was none.
To make this happen, the 4 basic requirements are (in order):
PEOPLE - you need people who share a vision of what they want to create.
TIME - at least a handfull of the people need a lot of free time
A PLACE - you need to find a place
SOME MONEY - when we started, everyone chipped in what they could to make it happen. The idea was that you'd never see your money again.
more detail:
PEOPLE - how many you need depends on the scale of your project. Once it's up and going, if it's cool and in a good location it will attract people, and more people will want to become involved (hooray). You need people for building, staffing, painting walls, making furniture, throwing things out, preparing food, djing, jokes; there is always stuff that needs doing and everyone nearly always has something good to contribute.
TIME - setting something up like this requires an enormous amount of time and effort. Not just when you're running, but to find a location, to deal with the letting agent (or whoever) to sort out the damp on the walls, to collect sofas from skips, to paint the walls - it will involve a load of work.
A PLACE - what you are trying to do determines what an acceptable place is going to be like: size, cost, location. If you find cool, empty shops with no letting signs, ask in neighbouring shops who owns it. Also, city libraries typically have a register of who owns all property - also worth checking. Remember, if you want to make lots of noise, you will need a noise-proof room or no neighbours! And bear in mind legal public access to all points of the building. In our first space, we had a basement that we wanted to use as a cinema, but we had to abandon this cos the stairs were too steep. Without knowing exactly what the rules are on this, the best way to think about it is if there is a fire starting at that exit will everybody/anybody burn to death, or can they get out easily somehow? If the answer is that they cannot get out, it is probably a bad idea.
MONEY - when we started we had about 5 or 6 people each put in 200 pounds and a further 10 or so people put in what they could - from 20 to 150. So we had around 2 grand in all. This was spent primarily on rent, fittings (paint, nails, wood etc) and stock (in our case food and drink, not alcohol (which can be very profitable). No-one was bothered about getting their money back so if it all turned into a disaster we didn't care. However, it is worth agreeing in advance what to do if you make some money, like whether to: split it, give to charity, or save it for future projects (this is what we did). To make money you can sell stuff, ask for donations, have raffles etc. To look at money in a little more detail, consider these 4 biggest costs in opening a space (in order):
PEOPLE - if everyone works for free this is not a cost! But if people are being paid this is probably the biggest expense.
RENT - probably your biggest cost. We started in a much smaller space (although we could cram around 100 people in) in an almost as cool location, and one month's rent was 600 pounds. We were initially open just for one month (we didnt know if it would work and we didnt know that we wanted it to exist for longer) and were lucky enough to get a month by month lease, so we could stay as long or as little as we wanted (we couldn't have done it without this requirement). This kind of lease is not that common, but you may be able to squat a place (check squatting law) or find a friendly landlord who's up for negotiations.
FITTINGS AND STUFF - this adds up pretty quickly. A surprisingly large amount of stuff can be got from mates or freecycle. For nice things to put in your space (stereo etc) go to car boot sales and raid your homes.
STOCK - hopefully you will sell it and it will pay for everything. Food is quite a good one, which is why we picked it. We try to more or less double our money on everything we sell (ie. the mark-up is twice the cost price -- we buy for 1 pound and sell for 3 pounds).
OTHER STUFF TO CONSIDER
(in order of importance):
IDEOLOGY - well you ought to be able to figure out ours, whats yours? This is also important in how a place is run. We try to be an ethical and open organisation, encouraging the flow of important information about the Forest and the rest of the world through our mouthpeice CIA NIGHTS, which admittedly has now eclipsed us.
RESPONSIBILITIES - there are quite a few things people will have to take responsiblilty for:
signing the lease
health and safety
running the kitchen (if you are going to have one)
accounting - get a business bank account with an ethical bank
building - do it yourselves, libraries have books on plumbing
wiring, interior design etc
entertainment
liasing with council/police/health & safety people/public/neighbours
It is not possible or desireable for one person to do all this. Split up the responsibilities, but be sure to tell each other what's going on; email groups or web noticeboards can be useful for this. Also, long committee meetings where you discuss trivial useless shit are excellent to keep each other happy. Try to bear in mind that some of these responsibliites are quite serious -- if you sign the lease and forget to give notice maybe you are legally bound to pay another month's rent! So be clear on these things and stand together in times of trouble!
IF YOU WANT A KITCHEN - try to keep things simple, and maybe grow with experience.
the general rules are:
keep things clean
have "three" sinks - handwashing, dishwashing, food preperation
toilet for staff must have two doors before kitchen area and wash basin
fridges should work ok
don't serve meat - most food poisoning is because of meat, and there are additional rules for having meat in kitchens
rotate stock
washdownable worksurfaces
decent lino flooring in kitchen
On the whole, the council people won't want to close you down. Essentially they want you to succeed cos you are a business and business is good. However, if you take the piss, they wont like it.
further helpful things:
LEGALITIES - Alcohol. You can't legally sell alcohol without a license, but you can do BYOB (bring your own booze) and charge corkage (a fee for opening bottle/can). You need an entertainment license if you want to charge an admission fee.
THAT'S IT! THERE ISN'T ANYTHING MORE TO KNOW! GO AND OPEN A SHOP!
......of course you can always contact us, we offer various consultation programmes to help you, all at attractive rates......
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