Open Coffee Club “roadshow”…

I have been toying with the idea of an Open Coffee Club “roadshow” for some time. The principle would be to bring the idea of the Open Coffee Club to the people rather than the get the people to travel to the Open Coffee Club. We would have a mobile location (train or bus) where people can meet and network. There would be a number of stops along the way where people can get on or off. It could be promoted thorugh the Open Coffee Club network but alos through the local Enterprise Boards and Enterprise Ireland.

After a bit of gentle prodding Irish Rail yesterday contacted me and made a very generous offer; they will give me the use of a carriage on the Limerick – Dublin route free of charge for a day. It’s a great offer and it gives me a good scope to work with. Over the next few weeks I will fine tune the planning but what I intend to do apart from running a “regular” Open Coffee is to do a repeat of the “Start-up panel” contest that we ran at the Open Coffee BBQ last July. I want to put a panel of experienced entrepreneurs on the train and at each stop people can come on board and give an elevator-pitch to the panel. At the end of the day the panel will decide who had best pitch & idea and the winner will receive a bundle of prizes that will assist them in developing their business idea.

Obviously these type of events stand or fall by two things: the people attending it and the sponsors/supporters. So keep an eye out for further news but alos let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions!

Lastly if you, your business or your employer would like to sponsor the event and receive top-notch publicity & kudos in return please contact me directly via email.

Oh, and you, yes *you*, don’t keep this a secret! Go tell somebody about it, blog it or call you local TD or councillor!