Whats going to happen to the old railway station house? My idea is turn it into a business start up hub upstairs with internet cafe and classroom downstairs. Simple hey lets see.
This pic of the house is from the 19th century 1899 to be precise and this is known due to the fact the foundry is just fields to the left of the house that we hope will be our 21st century way to the wider world.
After 17 years of campaigns the Mayor Ron Pratt is hoping plans to create a new community hub will finally come to fruition.
The above picture is of a window at the railway station that was designed by young Nathan Flynn who is only 6 years old and already knows that the railways are the past the planes that fly over Burnham from Southend are the present and rockets like Richard Branson is putting up in the air is the future.
These are images of Burnham from above using drones and GoPros by local residents Dan King above and Ed Sawkins below, we're already in the sky above our heads with small drones what is going to be up there when young Nathan leaves school in ten years.
How can the community and the youth of the town put this much underused building to a use that is beneficial for the town and visitors to it.
In the Maldon and Burnham the mayor is asking for ideas and I am offering one up in the form of turning in into a multi purpose space for local business start ups using the up stairs to learn and grow there businesses with other like minded individuals and the down stairs being a internet cafe and classroom for the town and visitors to it.
This would need to have a guaranteed high speed internet for download and upload of files which could be supplied on a dedicated line from BT or a petition could be made on the back of this project to get Virgin to come to the town.
The classroom will be used to teach the community in general how to use the internet, the businesses of Burnham can be taught how to improve there sites and sell there services online and the kids will be taught how to be build the next programs and applications for the internet and what ever else comes in the future.
The building has stood empty for well over 20 years and they have been trying to get to the stage there at now for 17 years so with the cooperation of quite a few different agencies things are moving forward.
I have been thinking of ideas for this building for a lot of that time and the startup hub/internet cafe/classroom is the best option in my opinion as it will be self financing once the building is open and beneficial to the community and anyone arriving to the town.
The internet is not going away and we have an opportunity to make our town at the forefront of what will be going on in the county.
This does seem to be turning into the business plan that mayor Ron Pratt is looking for so I will continue as with the help of all of you who agree we could turn it into a viable plan.
So what would be needed to turn the railway station house into a profitable space that will be useful and beneficial to the community for many years to come.
In all honesty not a lot after the space has been made ready for use.
For the upstairs business startup hub you would need an open space with a few quiet room and access to printers with a 3D printer a must as everyone will have a smart phone or laptop which is all that is needed in this new online world.
The downstairs again wouldn't need much in the way of hardware as everyone has there own smart phone as long as the wifi is strong people will be happy, but 8 super fast gaming computers will be needed for the ones whos batteries are dead and to bring on income from lan parties as well as for using by students to classes.
Without knowing the exact space and area in the building I can only speculate but either way there will be ample room to make a multi purpose space and have a learning area for the use of the community in either adapting the cafe when its closed or having a separate area on the side.
And then stock for a coffee bar.
How this could be used by the town.
If there was anything left in the pot after the work has been completed then every OAP who wants one should be given a tablet so they can communicate with the outside world if there stuck in the house or flat on there own the internet is a god send.
They need not even have to pay for there broadband as there neighbours would reach if only they were to offer.
And if they don't know how to use it then they can come to the centre to learn and meet people.
The young of Burnham can each be given a raspberry Pi a very small computer the size of a credit card with over 100x the computing power of a spectrum and
its graphics capabilities are roughly equivalent to the original Xbox’s level of performance.
Overall real world performance is something like a 300MHz Pentium 2, only with much, much swankier graphics.
We know we don't want children playing around with our laptops and they can't get into the back end of tablets so how are they meant to learn the mechanics of how things work online.
The raspberry Pi is that inexpensive way that is affordable and will get kids learning and be useful in later life.
The applications for the Pi are growing by the day as its not just a mini pc.
If you have a spare Nintendo Wiimote lying around you can use it and the Raspberry Pi to build your very own robot butler—the outer shape of the robot is up to you and whatever materials you have lying around.
Want to know who's been in your home office while you've been out? Looking to capture some footage of squirrels invading your back yard? A Raspberry Pi-powered motion sensor camera could be the answer. You'll need a parallax passive infrared (PIR) sensor and some basic coding chops but the finished gadget is worth the time investment.
Another way to make use of the Pi's picture-taking capabilities is to fix it to a high-altitude balloon and see what kind of images and video you can pick up along the way. Thanks to the magic of GPS you can keep track of your Pi as it returns to earth, although photos can be beamed back remotely in case it's lost.
Get yourself a Raspberry Pi and a bird box and you can use one to monitor the inside of the other—bird watching is much more interesting when you can see what's going on inside the box as well as outside. You can even set up a live Internet stream if you want to. You're also going to need a Raspberry Pi NoIR camera board and infrared LEDs.
And now you can see what fun you can have with them your probably thinking, what fun, I want one myself and what a great present it would make for someone.
The Pi is £25 and the tablet £35 so with bulk buys these numbers will fall in further.
I believe this is all doable with a few pushes in the right direction and would be willing to start straight away by donating 20% of any fee paid to me from residents or businesses in the town for services rendered into a pot.
If you have a business I can handle most aspects of internet marketing and would give a free 30 minute consultation and tell you how I turned less than a grand into more than 10 using Google Adwords and how you can get £100 of advertising for £25 from Google.
And if you make a nice cup of tea, I may even tell you how you can turn that initial £100 into many thousands with the right process.
This is a video I made a few months back that is still very relevant and if you have a business online will help you with local rankings.
I can really help if you have a decent size list and sell a high ticket item or service but will help any local business as I am already.
I can also help if you have a slippery patio or driveway, although I'd rather do work on the laptop in the warm but if its in Burnham I will gladly come and stop someone slipping over for no good reason than they didn't call me earlier. I have hot and cold large diesel pressure washers that will clean anything want some proof check the video below if not just call me on 07920 754 997 or tom@patio-cleaning.com and I will gladly donate 20% of my fee to a fund to get the young and old online.
Thanks for getting to the bottom of this post if you want to see more image of the art that the local kids to cover the empty windows the video is below...
Thanks again I really do mean it Ill put 20% in a pot my work takes me all over Essex and I regularly travel over 100 miles a day so to work in Burnham is a joy means my dog gets longer walks and I'm happier so please if you have a business that needs help online or you have a slippery patio or you have some history on the town you want to share contact me Tom on 07920 754 997 or tom@patio-cleaning.com
