Hi again,
This task is still open for a task owner. The job of the task owner is to form a team of volunteers ( or snatch them from another village) and together work on this task. The task owner is responsible to communicate the project with the team and our LR in Zambia.
If this sounds OK with you, please contact me directly.
Cheers:
T.J.

This file is an outline of the plans to establish an Internet cafe.

Hi,
The attached file is from a previous email I received from Mulenga. This may help Teun and others on this task to get started.
Cheers.

budget Internet cafe.pdf

Hi Everyone,

I am sure most of you have read the budget that TJ our facilitator attached in his last mail.As thing are that is precisely how much it will cost us to have a proper functional internet cafe and Business centre.

However,these costs are spread over a period of two years.In the first year our cost are to acquire the required computers and then pay the installation costs which also includes training of our staff.Hence with only four or five computers we are able to go online and from the income that will be generated we will be able to save for re-investment in the internet cafe.

So where are we and what have done on our part? To start with we have a room which we intend to start from and all we need are five computers,so far we already have three,five computer tables,a printer,a photo-copier and Installation costs, which I am happy to advise that we have now raised.Hopefully after the business stablises ,hopefully in the next 5 months,we will start working on renovating a disused structure into a business centre.

At the moment now our greatest challenges are acquiring computers and also finding a solution to power-supply as we do not have it during our anticipated peak.Without maximum use of this peak period we will be having difficulties in raising the monthly fixed costs due to the service providers.

Mulenga LR

Hi Mulenga, in relation to you update... I was wondering where the 3 computers came from?
Were they donations or were you able to purchase them? I note in one of the other Tasks some Neighbours have given us leads on organisations which donate computers. Do you, or anyone else know, which ones have already been contacted? I can't find any evidence on the Garden project site that any computer orgs have been contacted. This info would be helpful in order to avoid duplication of effort.

Also- I was wondering what you meant by not having power supply during your 'anticipated peak'? Is the peak in regards to a period of time - say months- or do you mean there are peak times of use during the day? Do you have nay suggestions on how we can help sort out your power supply problems or is this purely a local issue that needs to be dealt with locally?
Best,Carolyn

Hi Carolyn,

Thank you for your posting.

Two of the computers were donated to us locally while we bought the other one.

To my knowledge we have not yet contacted anyone,as nabuur, with a request for computers,though as Yofoso we have,the contact is however yet to honour the pledge.

The issue of 'power supply " during our peak hour.Well this is the peak period during the day.The must likely solution is either to install a small stand-by generator or even a solar power supply system.The Southern African Region is experiencing problems with it power supply.

Regards,

Mulenga

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I had an opportunity to talk to an IT expert and he was able to advice that in addition to the solutions solutions I had posted as regards to the power challenge we can add a ups system.I am wondering if any of you neighbours can educate us on these three alternatives so that we can decide on which one to us.

Mulenga

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I had an opportunity to talk to an IT expert and he was able to advice that in addition to the solutions solutions I had posted as regards to the power challenge we can add a ups system.I am wondering if any of you neighbours can educate us on these three alternatives so that we can decide on which one to us.

Mulenga

Hi Mulenga,

Based on your data we have made some calculations in the attachment. In order to make the calculation more accurate we need some more information.

In the calculations we reasoned that the internet café should be self sustainable for the future, therefore the depreciations.

Internet :

How much does it cost to use the internet per hour for your customer ?
How much hours do you expect to sell in one day ?
How many days in a month will the internet café be open ?

Other Services:

What other services do you offer ?
What do they cost for the customer ?
What do they cost for Garden ?
How many of them do you expect to sell in one month ?

Service COS ROS Expected sales per month
1. $ $ Number of sales:
2. $ $ Number of sales:
3. $ $ Number of sales:
More……

COS (cost of sales) ROS (revenue of sales)

Rentals

What exactly do you rent ?

Depreciation and Maintenance

How long do you expect to be able to use the computers ?
How long do you expect to be able to use the current furniture ?
How much money is needed in order to maintain the building ?

Question cashflow.doc

Dear Teun,

Thank you very much for your posting and below are estimates to your questions.

Cost to the customer per is K6,000.00 ie about $1.75
Expected hours to be sold. for a start we are assured of at least selling for 4 hours per day.
We will open 7 days a week.

Other services.

We hope to offer secretrial services,photo copying and Scanning and this will depend on us acquiring equipment.
These services can at least bring in not less than K25,000/day when fully operational.
We are currently selling Mobile talk-time,though on a small scale.It is our intension to expand this service and the income potential is great as we may also not make less then K20,000/day.

Coming to rentals we will be using permises for Yofoso,hence the Cafe will be paying 60% of the rentals which are currently K200,000/month.

Depreciation.

we intend to use the computer as long as possible hence a period of 3-4 years is what we have in mind though of course this will depend on the source of the computer.
At the moment we do not have any furniture perse and as I stated we will start using a small room while we are renovating the structure to serve as our Business centre at a cost of about $3,000.00 inclusive of furnture.

I hope the above information will be of great help.

Regards

Mulenga

Hi to all!

Thank you for your answers Mulenga. Teun and I are doing some work for the cash flow analysis.

Next week we will post again how we are doing, so that you can all have a look at our draft and we can discuss it! :-)

Regards,

Teun & Esther & the other company neighbours from Essent

Hi all,
Hope you all noticed the pretty face on the Garden Admin section, welcome Beatriz and thank you for helping us with the project. Beatriz will start contacting our Essent neighbors and help them get on track.

We're aiming to have our 3rd newsletter ready next week, please contact us now if there are any items you'd like to see.

Cheers for now,

Hi Mulenga,

Did you already have time to have a look at the first draft of the cash flow?

Teun & I have some questions before we can update it:

1. Are the service provider costs (which are estimated on $40 per month) realistic or is it more expensive?

2. Can we say that furniture and the building have a longer period to depreciate than computers?
For example:
- depreciation of computers 3 years
- building 6 years
- furniture 10 years

3. Over the amount of dollars you put aside on a bank accont for the reservation of new computers and furniture will receive some interest. What are the average interest rates at the moment on regular bank accounts?

4. You mentioned that there will be besides the internet usages, some income from phone services and other services. Could you be more specific about the other services?
And when do you think you will start getting income out these activities?
Finally, what are the costs of these phone and other services?

5. At the moment we calculated the income using 4 hours internet usage sold a day. Do you think this will increase after you have started? If yes, do you have any idea how much?

6. Did we missed some expenses or sources of income?

Thank you in advance for answering these questions!

Do you have time to chat on Friday 25 July? At 11 o'clock?

Kind regards,

Esther & Teun & the other Essent Neighbours! :lol:

Hi All,

I added the excel with the data so far.

Best regards,

Teun and the other Essent neighbours

cashflow versie 1.xls

Dear Ester,

Thank you very much for your posting.

Firstly I have been unable to open Teun Cashflow.I will however try to use a different cafe so that I can have a look at it before our Friday's Chat.

1)The service chargers is actually $150 and not $40 per month.

2)Yes you are correct in saying the computers have a shorter life span and infact i am agreeable to your figures.

3)I am unable to answer this question as I do not seem to understand it.I will, however,be able to give you the current bank interest rates on Friday.

4)Currently we are running a pay-phone service and selling of mobile phone talk-time,on part-time,as a fundraiser to how us meet most of our daily expenses.Since we are already doing this we only need to start doing it on full-time and also increase our investment in the talk-time by say $500.
the other services we want to start providing are Photo-copying,scanning,Secretarial,Laminating of documents making of cards such as Identity,Wedding cards etc.The commencement of these services depends on us acquiring the right equipment which may cost us not more than $3000.

5)I am positive that the time of usage of the cafe will surely increase especially that we will be the only internet service provider in our area.

6)Because i have failed to open the spread sheet Teun has posted,I can only be able to answer this one on Friday.

Regards to the Essent Team and all the other neighbours