Battison's Blog

The idea is to have a place where people can meet to relax, share ideas, customs, values, traditions and culture. It would be a business run on the cheap, designed to give people opportunities to showcase their abilities as well as at the same time be a relaxed place for people to meet, have a drink and a bite to eat.

So imagine a circular hall. In the centre of that hall there is a small shop and a kitchen, and around them there are tables and chairs, with international displays in the windows containing facts of the day, artwork from schools and universities around the world etc. There’d be blackboards and corkboards dotted along the walls so that everyone and anyone could write/pin up interesting ideas and pieces of trivia about anything from around the world. And of course children could draw while their parents relax a bit. The shop houses unique local gifts and items from around the world, as well as the sort of things you’d find in a Tourist Info Centre like free leaflets about holidays etc. But the unique thing would be that there wouldn’t be any paid chefs, and thus it would only take one person to run, as well as some good advertising – it’s an idea that work better in a recession, and near students.

People would come in and cook themselves, which would mean that for example of group of students could come in with frozen pizzas they’ve bought from the supermarket next door and wack them in the oven while they sit and chat and enjoy the atmosphere of actually being in a proper venue. There would be a chart on the wall and if anyone wanted to really cook properly, taking up table space etc they would write their names next to a certain time, and come in to show off their skills, and hopefully international cuisine. That way student chefs could come in to practice, and invite donations from people who want to pay for their food. The owner/manager would collect the recipes of these dishes and have them on display around the central kitchen part, so that others could copy them and add their own.

And there would be a place sealed off at the back of the building where business meetings could be held in a unique, international and open-minded environment. Non-profit organisations and passionate individuals could also book the room for free when not in use by businesses, to spread their own ideas, and they could put leaflets about the event in the shop.

It’s more of a hobby kind of suggestion than anything else, as money would have to come from the meeting room, and donations – there’d be donation boxes in-built into the walls or at every table. Ideally you would situate it with the main window looking out onto the countryside, and perhaps down onto an arena used for horse riding or something like that. That way people could watch from the comfort of the Culture House. And of course there really are a million and one ideas to add to this or tailor it in some way. For example you could have a television at one section tuned into international channels, shows about the day of the week that it is at any one time e.g. today (March 6th) there would be something about Christian Feast Day for various saints, something about Ghana seen as it’s its Independence Day, or something about a famous event like the birth of Michelangelo; and on August 5th it’s International Beer Day so the tv would be tuned into something, perhaps recorded, about beer.

What do you think?