The Portland Rocks tuck shop is now well and truly established and making a tidy little profit for the young people involved. They believe most people and staff who attend each week buy something and it helps to create a more sociable atmosphere at our workshops. Tonight we spent some time sorting out the weekly finances so they can track their profit and loss each week. They also need to consider what they want to do with the profit.

Saw some good ideas from the social enterprise art strand tonight. Some really simple broaches made from recycled materials that could be made simply by the young people and sold.

Update. 8th May 2014

For a whole host of reasons things have gone quiet recently, mainly to do with the machinations of Mr Gove and his view of arts subjects in the curriculum but we are still battling away. The young people are now firmly in charge of the tuck shop and it is a weekly feature of our workshops. Our volunteer book keeper and myself have been trying to get the financial processes in place using Google docs as all our young people have chrome books given to them by IPACA the local academy they attend and where I teach.

We have helped them set up an on-line spreadsheet where they can monitor their expenditure and profit, and profit though small there certainly is. They were given a £20 float to start and gave it back to us a long time ago.

They are very keen but essentially come to Portland Rocks to make music and socialise so pinning them down on financial management has been a challenge but we are getting there. The group of five who started this enterprise is now basically down to three although others do help with serving.