It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for a number of reasons – not just in a personal sense, but more from a perspective of the business.

On Sunday I rocked up to the field at Grenada North to find this lovely sight to greet me.

Someone between 5.30pm on Saturday and 12pm on Sunday had brought this vehicle up to the field, parked it right in front of the gate we need to get through and set it on fire.

The photo doesn’t do it justice – the tyres are melted down to the rims – and there was nothing left inside it at all.

Great when you need to get 15kg (more of less) or stuff to the top of the hill to run games.

And then there was Monday.  I was at Grenada (car since removed by WCC – thanks guys) running a game when I get a call from a Police constable from Lower Hutt.

Someone had torched the shed at the Pomare field.

Awesome, thanks guys. Just what I needed to start my week off.  And coincidence? Well you be the judge.

It’s a trend I see more and more – people using a robust, easily modified CMS to power their online experience. I use WordPress for just about everything I do online – my blog, my companie websites, etc.

The only exception to this is the forums I run at http://www.paintball.net.nz – where we are using vBulletin – but again that is another robust CMS system.

But I noticed something now as an adult that I never noticed as a kid.  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a spy flick – and more importantly it’s a James Bond spy flick.  Here is the proof:

• Written by Ian Fleming
• Produced by Albert Brocoli
• Has an evil German badguy – Baron Bomburst
• Has Desmond Llewelyn in the movie – the original ‘Q’ from the 007 flicks for those who don’t recognise the name.
• Typical ‘Bond Girl’ named heroine – Truly Scrumptious
• Gadgets galore – hell the car flies, floats and does all sorts of things in between.

Now maybe I’m just a bit behind the times – but noticing all those things made me laugh.  It was, however, a bit hard to explain why I was laughing at the credits to the kids.

It’s been a long 12 months to be fair.

For most of that time I’ve been running two fulltime jobs and trying to fix a business that was in a dreadful state when we took it over.  In that time I’ve been made redundant, had some family issues that have had to be dealt with – and generally been moving from one crisis to another.  I understand more fully the rollercoaster of emotions that I have heard people speak of around owning your own business.

The field is in a much stronger place now then it was when we took over.  We’ve upgraded all of the equipment, purchased a new (more efficient) vehicle – and taken major inroads into fixing the damaged relationships that the previous owners had left for us to inherit.

The next 12 months for us are key.  We have the tools, and the systems now to get things moving – we’re planning the marketing push for summer and with any luck we’ll be able to start seeing the fruits of our labour.  Having time to focus on the business since leaving NZ Post has been great – but there are still lots to be done.

I guess that we’ll see how things go from here.  But I know now that (like having children) no matter how much you know it’s going to be hard, that it’s going to take sacrifice to make it work – you really have no idea until you take the plunge and commit to something like this.

Whatever.  I’m still here.

You get all sorts on the field – asking for freebies, discounts – anything that can be asked has been asked.  We’ve got standard responses to most questions that people ask – but they do always get asked.

I’ve started doing the same sort of thing with my suppliers – a couple below for your reference:

Q – Would you like to advertise in our magazine? (Targetting a key demographic at a key time of year for us)

A – Sure, but only if you ensure that we are the only Wellington based paintball field that does.

Result – We’re advertising (with a quarter page ad) and will be the only Wellington paintball field in there.

Q – We’re going to have you pay the advertising bill in one installment (from a large corporate we advertise with)

A – How about we spread those payments out over a year?

Result – We’re spreading the payments over 10 months (or so), but have to move to direct debit (happy with that)

End of the day the message is clear – especially in these trying economic time – try and negiotate with your suppliers for more favourable terms, small discounts.  Be prepared to give a little as well – but it will make things easier in the long run.

I’ve just discovered that the people who took over after I resigned from the committee have allowed it to become deregistered with the Registrar of Incorporated Societies. This happened in 2008 – I’m a little sad.