167 - Two strangers start an award winning community micro pub

Champ Consultants is an award winning independent firm of highly experienced qualified accountants and tax advisors based Inkkraham, providing a fully comprehensive range of accountancy. And tax services. If you would like simple but creative answers to your tax problems, called Champ Consultants your business partner on one double eighty three three four nine three hundred. Good morning and welcome to your business hour with Me Chantale, Me Matthew and today I'm joined in the studio with Ash and Ian from Ow's on the Green.

Good morning, guys, Good morning. So let's find out Ash is a father, husband. This is a long list, by the way, I'm just going to start it. Ash is a father, husband, artist, musician, music obsessive, walling and parish counselor and in his own words, a bit of a useful engine.

His career started with short stints in retail and hospitality while studying fine art at Wimbledon School of but he quickly made the decision to leave university and focus on earning, building a future and starting a family. Ian left school at fifteen and began his work life in Addington Palace Golf Club as an assistant professional before moving into the printing trade in London. He then trained across a full spectrum of traditional printing production. In nineteen seventy one, Ian's father, composer and arranger siddale I Hope I to pronounced that correctly, founded a music publishing company and invited Ian to join for what was intended to be a one year introduction to the business.

More than forty years later, Ian still runs the family company. So I'm not going to say much more about them apart from they are founders joint founders in Ales on the Green in Warlingham, which is I suppose it's a micropub. Is it a micro pub but with a micro pub with a difference. And they're here to talk about the business, how they started it, And which I find amazingly interested, is that you find that most business people, when they start a business together, known each other.

I've got it's massive history of knowing each other. This story is slightly different. So we look forward to this story. So happy for either of us to start.

But let's talk about how did the business actually start? Conversation. Do you want to it's interest? Do you want to talk about it from the landlord's perspective because you own the building.

That's how we met, Yeah, that is how we met. We had I had the shop twenty years ago as a gift shop called Dale's on the Green. We had had that with my wife, had offices upstairs where the music company was running, and we had a traditional gift shops and things for Christmas birthdays. If somebody wanted a gift and went in Dales on the Green, they'd find what they wanted.

That then turned into a charity, Valgras Border Collie Rescue, and it became vacant. And when it became vacant, as somebody that actually lived on the Green and was at heart of the community for twenty years, I wanted it to be something that the community wanted, and I had an idea of a micro pub. I thought it would be a nice community space. And the shop was empty for a while, and so I was getting phone calls from Barber's Chinese takeaway, so thisthing that I thought was not really required on the Green.

And I had a note passed to me from the beauty shop which is next door, with this guy's number on it saying he wants to contact you with regard to using the shop. So I thought, well, it's probably going to be a barber's or a Chinese takeaway, a launderette. But he used the word community in his email to me, and that's really what I liked, the fact that he used that word community. And I said to Jackie Partner, I need to speak to this guy.

Sometimes you have to just rely on your intuition. When you sort of read a note or a word from somebody, something pops up in your head. And so I gave him a ring and said, come on over and have a chat. So he came over and we sat in the garden and I'll hand you over to Ash to give you his next part of the story.

So from my lens on that, it was a couple of years in the making. I was working in wholesale and distribution, publishing and development, and I wanted I knew down the line I wanted to have my own business and sort of change my lifestyle. So I had to just wait for the cogs to line up. And I always kept my eye on the Green because it was close to where I lived, and I thought, if I'm going to quit my career and start my own business, it ought to be pretty convenient.

I want to be able to walk. To work in the morning and you know, be on my doorstep, and also to sort of have something in the community that I was building my own roots for my family. And I went out on my birthday to pick up a paper and and some bread from the green and a shop that wasn't I don't think, maybe I just wasn't looking. A shop that wasn't vacant yesterday was now vacant, and I was just like, oh God, and I am a bit of a dog of a bone.

So I was straight over there and no. I was knocking on the thing and went around the side. There was no answer, and I thought, I'm going to go next door to the beauty spar and sort of hassle them try and get a contact for the guy that owns it. They were very they protected you, Ian.

They didn't they didn't give out They didn't give out his contact details. I didn't give out his name, so I had to just wing it and leave my name and contact details and a very rough pitch on what I wanted the space for. And I wanted to open up a you know, an open studio essentially for artists and be working out of there, and I was going to sort of wheel and deal to make ends meet by selling second hand records and just create a bit of a community hub for artists and people that were curious to find some sort of time to chill and you know, unwined get away from life a bit.

And that was that And then yeah, I got the callback from it in went up there and met him. I think probably both a little bit because it's a new person, both a tiny bit guarded, but also that was the sort of start of us throwing our cards on the table in the way that we are with each other, and we just sort of said everything we wanted and what we what we thought. And I went in. There for a our music space and walked out with a micro pub.

Oh but then I said, our better check with your wife actually before I before I agree. But yeah, it was, it was. It all happened quite quick. But you used a keyword there, which was intuition.

We both rely on that heavily in what we do and how we are. So the micropub is not just a normal it's it's a micro pub. But it's a bit different, isn't it really? Because people have an envisagement of and there are other micropubs that are just micropubs, but yours has got also a bit of a different feel about it, hasn't it.

How did that so tell us a bit about what makes your micropub different and all? So, how did all that differentness come about? Show? Was they?

And we take a bit, Well, we make it up as we go along. Down That is true, we make up as we go along. But also I think Ian and I are very We're very I don't say fortunate, because we both worked hard for what we have, but we work from a place where we're very relaxed because we're not prioritizing making money. We're prioritizing having fun and the rest has kind of fallen into place.

It's like, I empathize a lot for people that are in small businesses where you have to you have to meet a certain amount, you have to get things covered, You've got this, you've. Got that run. We run a very simple business, and that gives us a sort of unique position, doesn't it to just be like what do you want to do? We haven't got like a big target to hit, or we're not under any pressure.

We're just quite relaxed people just chipping away, and it's like a couple of weeks ago, do I want to do anything for Valentine's Nah, And Jackie says we should do a beach party. Yeah, all right, only. If we cover the pub in sand and go go all in. Yeah, sure, and.

That's what we did. Ten and a half a sand We brought the beach to warning them. But it's stuff like that, that being absolutely brilliant. But hell, the next day when you had to clear it away.

Well we didn't wait for the next day. Do it that night. I was going to say, do you get everyone a bucket in Spain and go right, come on. Guys, sandbags here everyone free sandbag on your way out.

I don't think any of us wanted to walk back into the office the following morning with it full of sand. So we just pinned ours back and got it done that night. But you also have I mean, Matthew and I have been into the I was on the Green and it's very much like it's got that sort of pub feel at the big at the front of it, but at the back it's very much there's loads of like records where people can play records, and it's very music orientated as well. And then you have like private rooms and things.

So how did the music thing is that? Like, what did one of yous influence that to have all? Because obviously you said that you wanted to sell records, and then obviously you've always had that music industry in the family business and stuff. So how did that record idea come about?

Then I wanted the music shop, but got a micro pub. So if I'm in a micro pub, there's going to be a load of music in it. And we both love music, and we. Did build it knowing that we were going to do the vinyl right when we literally rolled our sleeves up and built the pub ourselves.

And while we're doing that, we put shelves in for the vinyl So that was an integral part of the not the plan, but integral part of the vision, as it were, in the first place, to have the music. So you have this record player which plays the music out through the pub, but then there's a whole bunch of records on the shelves. Do you have punters coming in and donating their records to you. It's all different, a collection that you've come up with your own taste.

Yeah, So when we first started the business, it was basically going through me and Ian's like overstocks in our own collection, you know. Eve and brought down a. Load of stuff from the loft and we went through that. I brought a load of things that I didn't necessarily want any from home, and we built the collection with our music.

And that was like an. Intro into having other people in the pub because it's making them a part of it. They choose the music that goes on. We've got a queue if you want something like imagine like a jukebox, you know, back in the day, like if you want something gone, go through the shelves, stick it in the queue and we'll get it on.

And it was just a part. We never hard sell the vinyl. It's just there. It's their for entertainment as much as it is for sales.

And yeah, I mean it just the collection started growing and then I had people bringing donations, which is a blessing and a curse because sometimes you might get a bag of you know, less desirable records, but sometimes you get some people that have just got in their eyes junk in the loft, and then when they bring it in, oh, just give me, you know, just give me some cash, you know, whatever, and you go through it like this, this is incredible, you know, you go through it and so much nostalgia.

That's a big thing for people as well, isn't it when they go through the vinyl. Yeah, because it was a wide range of diverse albums, you know, ranging from the thirties and faulties right up to modern day. It did give a huge spectrum of different bands and artists and songs. Ash has got an incredible knowledge of a wide range of.

Music as well, so when people are coming in and they're you know, talking about music, then he's the guy to talk to because he knows something about whatever it is somebody's talking about with regard to whatever ear it is, and that makes the conversation. It makes it far more interesting experience rather than just somebody flicking through albums and making a comment and the guy sort of on the other side of the bar, I don't really know what he's talking about, so and they can hear it as well, you know, when they're in the pub, we just sort of put music on depending on the time of day and the vibe in the public.

It changes all the time, so it makes it quite an interactive experience with the music owing the games as well, So it's a fun place to be rather than just in for a quiet pint. It smaller point, yeah, smaller point. And one thing we've noticed as well, like the way the vinyl collection is, you know, going across a wide set of eras and appealing to different age groups, is that the same thing happens with the customers. Everyone's together, you know.

We've got like couples that are in their seventies or eighties that come in and have a chat with people they don't know in their forties or their thirties. And the way that the pub is laid out, it's it's intimate. But if you want a space where you can be on your own, you can have that. But if you want to just turn your chair to the side and get chatting to the people over there, also cool.

So yeah, it's very diverse and it's very entertaining. That's a word we'll go with that. Very entertaining. And when you first opened it you had to build it all yourselves.

I think the stories you didn't get in a bunch of shot fitters and so have any of you got any experience in DII or did you have the love very quickly. We both looked really quickly, and it was a good introduction to our bearing in mind we didn't know each other. There we are, we've we sort of went down to Blancheman's Road and saw a load of palettes and put those in a Carna van and took them all back and broke them up and started screwing them to the wall and literally rolled our sleeves up and built it as we went along.

Fortunately, I've done a bit of sort of DIY with the sons over the years and helping them create a better space where they're living, and I've always enjoyed that sort of thing, and so did ash. So knocking out an old staircase and breaking up palettes and putting them on walls, it was just something We actually spent two months getting to know each other and really enjoying that experience. And it's definitely a quick way of getting to know each other and releasing all stress.

Isn't it a good bit of breaking things. Up, smashing and banging. Yeah, And we didn't. There was no drawings, there were no plans.

There was like probably a couple of times we might have stood near the front windows and looked back at the place and said, probably the bar there. Let's do something high over there with some stools, and this is probably where the tables will go. And then we just just cracked on wells and grummet and that's where you know. So many little like our mantras came up during that sort of building phase.

I laughed, because you do see some companies that went I shouldn't say laugh, I don't mean love. I mean, like, you know, ha ha, but people go through all this rigorous. Like planning and like they get all like maybe an architect to come in and design it for them, and shop fitters to come and do it. We started as we mean to go on.

We rolled ours leaves up, we got stuck in. We did everything, you know, as efficiently as possible. We we didn't spend that much money doing it, really, I mean a lot of stuff was either donated or we found or you know, Ian loves a charity shop and a bargain so you know, everything was just so I don't know, organic, but brought together in a you know, people won't know this, but the sink we've got now is lovely. It's a nice sink.

But before that we had some shocker we picked up from a charity shop for a tenor and we were that was going to be our sinkcause there was only when we offered it up to the counter space we were like, oh no, no, no, this doesn't this isn't right. But yeah again I look back and laugh. We were literally just making up as we're going along. But it worked out, and we have said since if we were to start again with the blank canvas as it were for the shop, what would we change?

And I don't think there's anything that we would change having made it up. Even the size of the bar, the height of the bar. Everything was like we sat on a stool and said, right, what height do you think it should be? Do or it did a little bit of googling, but the majority of it was pure intuition and got instinct.

The whereabouts does your elbow sit? It's going to say, and just like practicality, isn't it. It's like sometimes you go to places and you go somewhere to sweet and you've got to sit on a stool on a really low table or whatever else, and you're like, this is so impractical. You obviously didn't sit here and try it out before you actually did it nobody can actually do this, and then it's just a bit of common sense as well, wasn't it.

Really we just. Worked in the middle of our heights because if we thought we'd just go in the middle and then we'll probably appeal to most people. That's true. Actually it's a little and larger.

So the micropub I know I was on the green, I'm gonna call it that I was on the green. I know from you were in the Tangent Business Awards and one Hospitality Award, I believe it was. But it also I think you won that award very much for your community work that you do. And both of you's have sort of brought that out right at the beginning when you've sort of said that Ash's main thing was you wanted somewhere that you could walk to work and someway like that, and Ian wanted somewhere in his building that would be community orientated, not just another potentially barber, not that there's anything wrong with barbers.

But. What other what made you decide that that was the Because you do a lot for the community, So let's talk about some of the things you do do, But what made you feel so passionate about that. For me, the last sort of eighteen eighteen nineteen years had been in focusing on profits and hitting targets, and I was sort of done with that, and I'd hit my targets and I'd done what I needed to do. But I never really felt like I was of service or doing something kind in the world.

I was just connecting products to people and making profit for shareholders, which was fine, and I did love my career, but I had this big change in change in outlook in life, and I wanted to do a little bit more service and I was fortunate enough to have the headspace to do that some savings and I just, yeah, just wanted to prioritize feeling and happiness and doing something for nothing, you know, like volunteering, you know, getting involved in however I could, and I'm sure Ian will talk about it, but you know, Ian's been a part of the community in Wallingham for over two decades, so that foundation was already there.

There was an opportunity to join the parish council fairly early on in the business starting, so I put myself up for that and went through the interview process and was co opted onto the parish council. Which for me. Then that branched out into loads of little committees that I could get involved in, but also connected the pub even deeper into the community because people know that there's a parish councilor in the property that they can speak to. But and then they will come to you and they've got a problem.

They're like, I know that's going to be there that night. I've got a problem with Parker and I'm going to go that the right. Way about the pothole, and you'll send them on to Surry Council. Yeah, I mean the amount of times you have to explain what's in your duties and responsibilities.

But again that's all that's all good because it's educational for people. People think. You don't know what people think until they't open their mouth really. But yeah, on the community side.

Yeah, I was quite lucky really that Warlingham has got a lovely community and Wallingham Green is known as heart of the community. So having lived and worked on the Green for twenty years, I was a big part of that. You know, whether it. Be Blanche Shman's farm or the Christmas lights, the make we in, there's so many wonderful community projects that go on in Warningham that keeps that sort of community presence alive.

And there's a lot of people that do give up their time freely to help with all the events that go on, totally free of charge, just for the love of Warningham and the community. So I really I was sort of I felt that in my own heart and I wanted to keep that was important for me for who was going to go into the shop, that we really were part of the community and were something that could add to Wallingham Green as a value, not financially value, but just as something that would keep that community spirit going, because I think it's very important.

We've lost our identity as communities these days, with more people staying at home and shopping online. So to have people and nothing's better than you know, physical people joining together for a common cause. And we're very lucky in that sense. And one thing that we both do as a basic sort of cornerstone for being in the community and serving our community is that when you come to Ales, you're not just having a pint being served and then turned away from We know your name.

You know we both got We've both got pretty good memories and come from a you know, a background of like having, you know, loads of clients and lots of people that you need to remember little things about them. And that's one thing that I've carried over from my last career into this is that having a really good good memory people to products, products to people. Taking that and reframing it as a way of serving rather than trying to sell, is that I can remember your name, I can remember your drink, and I can remember the last thing you told me the last time you was in.

So you pick up on that. How did that go? How's the thing? Don't even have to ask for the drink.

I know it's a pint of lager. I know it's a stout for this guy. I know it's a you know, and that must be so nice. Shame for us in it.

We'll never be able to experience that coming into ales and having someone behind the bar that's like welcoming. Do you know what I mean? These are I think these are basic things that aren't really there in the trade anymore. Just one little caveat to their memory.

Though we interviewed them for the. Awards for the Tandridge Awards. I know it was on the computer, small screen, it was on a small well. It depends how big your.

I don't know how big your computer screen is. But we then walked in to try out the product, served me at the bar and asked you handed a record over from us to the record player, and neither of you recognized us. And it was only two days later, wasn't it? So you got an authentic experience.

We did get We did get the authentic experience, and it helped you to win. Actually, yeah, I might not be so good with names as Ash, but at least I remembered you like cider, and that's what. I was asking about cider. Wasn't that the guy that from from?

So most people who might go into business together already know each other, and when they go into business, they go right, okay, one one of them might be more of like the finance person, one of them might be more like the marketing advertised person, and they sort of make the realize what their strengths are, decide they're going to start business together and do that. Yours is very very different. Obviously, we met each other, we decided we weren't going to start a business.

How did you then decide who's going to do what? Or the delegation of the roles and the duties in running the microp up, running oils on the green. Like I said earlier on, we made it up as. I think we're really lucky because Ash's he can have put his hand to anything, really, and I'm a similar milk, So both of us are very capable, and a lot of the things that we do just fell into place.

We never really sat down and said, oh, well, you can do the accounts and I'll do the sales. And you know, Ash does most of the buying for the beers. I might buy the wine, and then we both see that something needs doing, one of us will do it and the other one might pop on and say, oh, that's been done, great, he's we've we sort of we dovetail really nicely when it comes to a working space. And then if one of us doesn't like doing something or doesn't want to do something, then we'll say to the other person, I'll let you do that, and the other person will say right, Okayne.

Sometimes we don't even need to say it though, because I feel like when we started the business we both did everything. We were both involved in everything, or at least talking about everything, and I think if one of us naturally got the hump or disliked something, we'd slowly stop doing it, and because we were both already doing everything, you just didn't notice. And it was like, oh, I naturally do more of this. You naturally do more of that, and it just so happens that most of it is complimentary.

Yeah, and then there are times, you know, both I'm sure Ian will joke about it as well, but we're both quite competitive people, so there will be times in the morning I might jump on zero to reconcile and it's all been done, and I think, oh, because we're both I don't know, maybe both a bit weird, but we both like doing administrative stuff, and you know, I don't find I like, that's one of the thing I like doing about, you know, having my own businesses, reconciliation and just checking everything over and understanding what's happening and you know what's coming in, what's going out.

And yeah, there are times I've made myself a coffee, you sat down right, this crack on opened the other shope's done it. It's a good thing. But then there's also a bit of your like, ah, you got there first. You know.

There was actually one time we were both working on on the same spreadsheet at the same time. It became a racist so you could fill in the columns. It sounds a bit sad, but you know, he's house, I'm at mine, and we're both working, and I realize that we were doing the same thing at the same time. And what about family life because people assume that running a hospitality business reality business.

Yeah, it's not like it's a service or or a service or a retailer that might finish at five six o'clock. You are finishing late nearly every single night of the week. Shall we say, how does that work with family life? Is it just?

Oh? I mean obviously to be able to go ahead, she probably knew what you were going into. I think one thing I again, we talk about laying our cards on the table. One thing that I laid down to em when we first met was that I was coming from a career where I was doing sort of seventy hour weeks, leaving the house at you know, five o'clock in the morning, not getting back to eight.

And I got two young children and I had become aware that I wasn't getting as much of them as I ought. To me and my wife, I always found a way to make it work because you know she can stay up later. But it's quite depressing as a father to like go out and work and basically never see your kids because you're up before they wake up and you're back when they've gone to bed. And that was getting to me.

So I'd always sort of said, you know, from the off, I don't work Sundays, and you know, I wanted to do the days because I'm an early bird. My body clock's sort of wired from getting up so early all these times. And that worked because Ian's a night out and goes to bed at horrendous times in the morning. Normally by the time I'm getting up, he's going to bed again.

It just Dovetash said he'd do the days. I said, I'll do most of the nights and some of the weekend we share, so it just it worked. What about your partners, Are they involved in the business much? My partner, Jackie is, she's she's She came in and started doing a few sessions and now pretty much the three of us I can say as of equally working the different sessions, and she's really enjoying it because she can also use the space for her community projects.

She does Singing Mamas on a Wednesday morning and a Saturday morning. She's got foraging groups that go out from the pub, so she's very much involved in the pub on the sort of on the side that she's very interested in, which is mainly women's groups and nature and creation. So do you have many community groups using the pub during the day. Ash's got his art groups that he's onto group number three now, so we've got art groups, got fish and Chips on a Tuesday for the scene, although anybody can come along.

We've had the Women's Institute come in, poetry groups come in, different artists use the backspace for a studio, suppose to do workshops. We've had clay, watercolors, charcoal, you know, you name it. There's all sorts going on out there. It's sort of ergonomically growing, isn't it.

We're getting more and more as people come up with other ideas and might pop in and say, hey, I've got an idea for this in the back room, and we always say to them, yeah, well, if you want to use the backroom as a community project and try it out, then come in and come in and give it a go. Champ Consultants is an award winning independent firm of highly experienced, qualified accountants and tax advisors based in Cage, providing a fully comprehensive range of accountancy and tax services.

If you would like simple but creative answers to your tax problems, called Champ Consultants your business partner on one double eighty three three four nine three hundred and. Welcome back to your business hour with me Chantale and ash and Ian from Ours on the Green. So just in case you want to check them out, they are on Instagram and on Facebook and it's Ours on the Green and you can find them there. So while we're on the topic of social media, that's one of the things that people find a bit more interesting, shall we say, is running the social media.

How much to post, what to do, get websites going and stuff like that. How do you to manage that? Again, I think that's one thing that sort of naturally dovetailed. I mean, I'm quite into social media from my musician background and running social media pages for bands that I've been in and record labels that I've run, and I was quite keen to do it because I had quite a clear vision, you know, about how that was going to be and to not sort of spam people and go ott just keep it quite quite relaxed, like the pub, you know, quite relaxed and sort of what you need to know is what you'll get told.

We won't just be I don't feel like every day I've got a claw and say something and be seen. I just got a post. When it's time to post, I naturally do a lot of the Instagram, which then cross posts to Facebook and on occasions and we'll make reels and things and stick those up on Facebook. But there's always a conversation, or if not a conversation, it's an understanding.

I know that if we've got an event, it's going to be a day or two and in we'll have a reel for the event and that will go. Yeah. I think the social media side of it worked out pretty straightforward. If I'm worring to actually slap the mine, I have to admit, which is fine by me.

And is that the way that you promote most of your events? No, really, I think the social media is more about the pub life and after the fact. So if we've had a party, we'll then post about the party. The main way that people can can find out about what's coming up, and what we're doing is on our newsletter, which is on our website.

It's ales on Thegreen dot com and it's a very simple website. You just bang your email in and subscribe and you'll get an email. Again. I don't battle out.

I do it maybe once every four to six weeks, just with the key things that are coming up or changes in the business. And yeah, it's sort of like if you know, you know, situation and our events are really there for our community, the community anyone that wants to come in, but you find out about it because it's written on the mirror, not because we're banging online on social media. And you could say that, you know, one school of thought would think, well, you're not promoting it.

I mean, with the space we've got, we don't really need to. We put it on a mirror and the event sells out or it's oversubscribed and we've got to do two and you know, so it's like we don't need to. It's a small capacity venue. Basically, we don't need to smash thing on social media to try and get you know, forty people to come to an event when we sort of know that night there would be forty people there anyway?

So is that your capacity about forty people comfort? Well, you know from a fire safety REGs it's sixty odd in the front space, but that would that involves taking out tables, you know, and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, sitting probably thirty five forty. Yeah, and we had we did are we here capacity?

Didn't we for the beach party? And it's really just people coming in and saying, when's your next party? And we are still clearing up the sand? How big is the space out the back?

Out of the back's about three and a half meters by two and a half three meters do you think. Yeah, it's comfortable for about eight or ten people. Yeah, if there's more than that in there, it's cozy. Workshops that go on out there are sort of six and eight, six to eight people, nothing more than that.

But again that's part of what we what we like is that they're intimate workshops. You know. And you've got another event coming up, haven't you? So obviously we did.

We didn't do Valentine's with hearts and roses and whatever else. We decided to throw a beach party with a ton and a half a cent So what's our next event then, and what we're not going to do or what are we going to do them where we. Looked at Saint Patrick's Day, which falls on a Tuesday, Yeah, the best night of the week to have a party, and we thought, right, well, we're going to do Green Day, not Saint Patrick's Day, the following Saturday, which is the twenty first. March.

So we're going to make the pub green in some way. It'll be very very green. But we haven't spoken about it yet really just the idea. And then as the dates get closer, things will.

Start thinking about He'll start going. There is a band called Green Day, so I hope you've got their record thing we had we had Dookie on the shelf but it's sold. But yeah, well this again, this is how we do This is how we do it. Maybe three days before, maybe on Saint Patrick's Day, we'll have a chat and then something will happen.

Something green will show up, and somewhere something will happen. So and then. Obviously people can find out more about that by subscribing to your website and that's your newsletter. I was on the Green dot com yep, brilliant, So I also know that you said right at the beginning that you ash you've been you're a musician.

Well both of you have got music backgrounds, but you the music part of it, where you wanted to own a record shop was very much yours. And that's slightly drifting. Now that's slightly not drifting, but it's like it's changing slightly with growing things. Explain, like, tell us what's planned for that then?

Now, so the records, Yeah, so that's been like a lifelong thing, you know, wanting to have a record store. Off, it's obviously one of them things that's quite a delic and extremely hard to probably make ends meet in these in these climates. But having the pub there as a foundation gave me then like the space to you know, yeah, the headspace to start buying records. And I've been buying either secondhand collections or new records for some time, but just stowing them away, and the back room ended up getting something like seven hundred records out there, where I was slowly building up this catalog of you know, classic titles and what have you.

And then recently we close the pub for a day, done some major renovations, you know, we sorted out something in the cellar really had a floor relayed in there and we built a new section for the records, and it was sort of time, I feel like, not that the secondhand records had petered, but there was. The feedback from people that were looking through the records is that they wanted mint, They wanted mint sealed copies, and were less hung up about like original pressings or specific editions.

It was more about the quality and the integrity of the record. So we took the leap there and I yeah, got out like what one hundred and seventy brand new titles, all sealed stock, and that went down really good. And the idea there was like, right, Okay, having a bricks and mortar record store is probably quite demanding and probably quite hard. So if I can take this with my experience, take this online, then have an online store, but have a physical offering in the pub, then that'll be sort of covered from both angles.

So that's what's happening at the moment. The new records are now out on the shelf. I pride myself on beating Amazon on the price because it can be done. It just you just need to get people out.

People need to change the habit, which is the hardest thing, which is that it's so convenient to go on your phone and just buy something from Amazon. And then it's delivered that day or the next day. And it would be there the next day. But my mind just thinks, come and have a beer and buy a record, mate, just come out, you know it's it's there, And I think it's so strange, isn't it convenience shopping because that's changed obviously digital age and all that, and people I also, you know, I embraced that, I use that, but I think a lot of people will be really sad if the Green just turned into restaurants and there was no places to buy anything or experience anything, and if and then this isn't a plug for the business.

This is for all business. If you don't go out and take part, they're not they're not going to be there, you know what I mean. And it's really really quite sad. You know.

There was something we were doing for the parish council, which is where you do like a settlement survey and you go through what the village has and what it offers, and how many pubs it has and how many and then it got to an interesting part in the former is comparison stores, and like my brain I had to look what that meant, you know, like what does that mean? Comparison store? And like it's probably such an oldie worldy form that it needs updating a little bit. But it's like, imagine having a high street so rich with businesses that you could compare pricing on physical products.

You know, Let's say there's two hardware stores and I can go over to this one and go, that's ten pounds. Let's see what he does it for. Go over there, you know, looking at that. But now I think what a lot of people would do is if they look at something physically in a shop, they'll get their phone out and see how much it is on Amazon.

Oh it's cheaper on Amazon. Won't get it, No, we do. You're there, the shop keeper needs it. But yeah, anyway, I think that has has become aware of the world for all of us.

You know, we're all guilty of looking at a physical product and then going home and buying online. But the wonderful thing about vinyl is and it's making a comeback. You know. I was involved in the music business when we were.

First excuse me, creating vinyl, and then we had to then take on CDs and then it went to just online only. But I see people coming to the shop and they're going back to actually enjoying the physical picking up the album, looking at the artwork, sleeve notes that you know, the actual sort of tangible, tangible part of the product is still quite exciting for for the purveyors of music. And ignoring the fact that when people listen to the music in the pub because it's being played on the on the you know, the turntable, I say to them, you know, you can hear the difference between vinyl and CDs.

You know that it is warmer, there is a warmth in it. You've got a much wider bandwidth, so it makes that buying experience a lot more enjoyable. And they've got a pint in their hand as well, So you know, how hard can it be looking rummaging through vinyl and actually listening to it at the same time. And we've had people that drink at the pub that have now brought record players since drinking at the pub, you know, so it's like and one of the beautiful things that happened pretty quickly when the new.

Records went out. Was that we had a couple of people cut the customers bringing in their kids, you know, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen year old kids and their experience. They're just starting their music journey and buying their first records. And we had a girl in that brought her first vinyl record.

I was on the grid and I just you know, I was obviously serving them and being my usual self, but inside I was like, oh God, that's amazing. That's wicked. That wouldn't have happened if we weren't well, it might have happened somewhere else, but it happened because. It was then they remember that for the rest of their lives as well.

Where most people remember the first album they bought. And sometimes if we're having a muck about in the pub, I'll say to people, what was your first album that you ever bought? And you can get some wonderful tracks and memories and then people sort of saying, oh, yeah, I remember this band, and he creates conversation just by playing somebody's first first record. Such a shame that people do do that online comparison, and it might be hound cheaper to buy online whatever the item is, but those big online retailers, they're not the one sponsoring your kids local football team or you know.

So it's it's the small businesses around the Green or in other small towns. They're the ones that do that stuff in the community and sponsor and if they're not there, that's not going to happen anymore. We've got a darts shop now open on the Green. I'm not sure whether any of your listener or your listener.

Where the west was. There's like a higher shop to get tools and it's in there. Is that one of the guys and there's really into his darts, our son who's not local anymore, but he's really into duce. Next time he's down and going to take him there.

People are coming into us. It's funny they go into the darts shop and then they'll come in to us and have a pint, and we've got a dart board out the back, so we tell them and they try out their new dance. But it's we're seeing people coming from quite a distance just to come to Warningham Green, you know, for that, and then then they find us. So it's as Esh was saying earlier, you know, with regard to what we've got going on in Warningham Green, we're very fortunate and very lucky that we're people are coming in from different areas just to experience to what we've got on offer.

And it's a very commutable bear area, is it because you can get the train line in from Victoria to Upper Warning them or from London Bridge whatever else to White Leaf and it's what is it like? Probably about fifteen minute walk up the hill. But the four three bus service is wonderful, you know, it's every fifteen to twenty minutes during the day. An next all the way from Croydon.

You've got four O nine four one one, so you can get to us from Red Hill. He's Ginstead. Yeah, it's all there. If you want to sit on sit on a bus for two hours base you can get it.

Now. There are some more shall we say, traditional pubs in Warningham. A couple of them have now gone, you know, ones now restaurant. I think they're restaurants now, but they're very different to the type of offering you have.

And I know you change your beers regularly. You're not tied into I guess you're not into a particular brewery. Correct. Do you find there's.

A crossover the people who like to go to the pub for and even go there and come to you, or do you have a different clientele to them real mixture. I don't think there's a prescriptive answer for that, but. There's a there's certainly there's certainly a lot of people that wanted a pub, and I and I iron Ean empathize with the modern pub game and how that's changed. There's such high rates and high costs that they have to have the food offering to make in meat and you often find what a lot of quality old boozers have turned into sort of gastro pubs now where the focus is on food.

But with that comes the cost of having a kitchen and staff and perishable food, you know. So I think a lot. Of pubs change into eateries and that's cool for a certain demographic, but there is a huge demographic they just want a pub to be a pub, And I think that's the fortunate sort of gap in the market the micro pub steps into is where is where the pub has stopped being a pub, so it needs some it needs something else, and I think that's part of the success of what we've done.

So there might be people, you know, we I know customers that go on a night out. They might start off at the one of the other ones and have a bite to eat and a cup of pints and then have a little crawl, you know, they work their way down and then they and then they come over to us. There are some people that won't go anywhere near the other pubs because they're done and they you know, they needed something new. So it was brought out a community of people that had stopped going to the pub.

They were back out. So yeah, it's there isn't a one. There's no there's no sort of one thing about that. It's where people go where they want to and we blend in very nicely.

We're completely different. We're kind of as astaid. It's like we're like pubs used to be and people come in and say that, they say this is wonderful. It feels like, well, I can talk to anybody in here.

And that's what it's like, which is what the eateries haven't got that, And that's not a criticism, it's just it's same. And being small, you don't have those overheads which are causing all those pubs to close nowadays. And let's talk about Forest School because I know you're heavily involved in Forest School, which is a local school in Wallingham. So tell us how you are very much involved in it.

I think the Forest School came about because Sarah, who's one of the co founders of Forest School, and it came out from COVID where they were getting food parcels together and realized that they were sort of being a big part of the community. And they they've started running groups from the different schools that go there and children can literally get their hands dirty. They can go and see what happens in the outside world rather than on a screen or a gaming console, and it's very ergonomic in that sense.

And they I just found from my heart the work that they were doing was bringing something else to the community, but at a very early age. So whenever we had a charity evening where somebody came down and played the piano and we raised money for charity, and we just said, well, let's do it for the Forest School. And by them coming in and talking to the people in the pub about what they do and how they're encouraging children to get involved in the outside world and into nature, it struck a chord with me in particular, and I thought it's something that does need help because everybody that works at the Forest School as a volunteer, nobody gets paid, and they do charge for the schools to go in there and do the different sessions, and they're mainly in the nursery sessions and they've got center thing going on.

They're just starting now to do an allotment so that children can actually see how a character grows rather than just coming out of a plastic bag in the supermarket. So they're bringing so many things to the community in that sense, which is what we don't do. You know, we're not catering for the the younger generation, and they're sort of filling the gap from that sense as far as we're concerned. And it just seemed to fit in to be a nice part of Wallingham that we can support.

And so you sort of generally just raise and that's your sort of is it that your like designated charity or it just happens to be that you just hadden to do that one event for that night sort of thing. I think it has become our designated charity. It just seems to us. It felt it felt right saying right, if we're going to earn, you know, if people are coming in and they're saying, oh, can you give this somebody else say, or put this in the charity thing.

Rather than have a major charity, then we just chose a local one to keep it part of the community. And also people feel like they give into it. And like you say, as most people are volunteers. It's not going into some CEO's pocket, is it.

Really? It is going directly to the source that somebody needs it. And it's raising awareness for other people. Some people say, what is for a school?

They don't know anything about it. I've never heard of it before. So it's it's raising an awareness rather than raising money. It's a double edged sword.

Really is that the wrong phrase? But it's you know, it's it's it's coming from two different angles. It's not just about the money. It's it's more of an awareness thing, I think, definitely.

And they've got stargazing nights that they do there, and yeah, we've we've had some really generous you know donations, like from people on the nights that we've done and that again they're customers of the pub that are building into into us. So if we if we are confident about a charity or we find it meaningful. It's our customers will follow our our sort of lead, won't. Yeah, it's heartwarming to see that people.

There's a lot of people in warning them that are also wanting to contribute in whatever way they can to warning them, you know, whether it's it's it's donating money or coming up. We've we've got two people now that two guys that came to the charity night and they're both now working for the Forest School. You know, if something needs doing, maintaining, building, creating, then the guys that can help, because up until that point it was only really the girls that were running the Forest School and running the actual events.

But you know, if they needed a bit of muscle and a better hands on then these guys are there. In fact, they're all. There today building something. And these are just a couple of guys that came in the pub and said, yeah, i'll help.

I'm happy to spend a bit of spare time helping the Fort School. And people that are so generous in the community that want to give, like you know, for example, some crazy fellow that wanted to give us a ton and a half a sand big big shout out to keV Orderton, Thank you for that. Yeah, so again just a loving, caring people that you know, they see the effort that we're putting in and you know they want to help. Did you just give him the sound back?

Afterwards? He said he didn't run it. I'm having it. Someone that's coming to my garden.

And someone's going to actual's garden, and some of it is actually going to the forest school, some sand pits somewhere. I've got a sampit now apparently to be. Fine this summer, just like let's stop raining when it stops raining. And I know finally that obviously Ian, you've got like this golf background as well, and you've sort of incorporated a bit of sporting activities within ours on the green, haven't you.

Yeah. The well, one thing we haven't mentioned is the Warningham Sports Club. We've got sort of an affinity with them, a bit of competition. A lot of the people that come into us also use that.

But it's what it's done is we had a golf day last year, so it was you know, a was on the green vy Warningham Sports Club golf day that was so popular. More and more people then heard about it and say, oh, why didn't you ask me so next year we're going to have double the group. I think might even take the course over for the day. But they also want to do a cricket match and then we've got a sort of we did say about the dark board out of the back.

I think they want to do that. So we actually got some sort of sporting events lined up this year to increase on the couple that we had last year. So we're looking forward to that because there's a bit of there's a bit of banter and there's a bit of competition. As I said earlier on his competitive it's a bit healthy competition.

And we haven't mentioned our Tuger War victory from last summer either. Tiger War as well. We did the tug of War at. The War and Unfair and yeah it was hilarious, really win absolutely.

So we've got we've got to make our mind up if we're defending that title this year or if we're going to leave on the top. But who knows, we might just sponsor it. I was aching quite a bit the next day. It wasn't good.

I think we do have to have a team. We can't not have a team having won it last year. Only the sports club do it. And if you can win it.

As well. Yes, yeah, it's a brilliant facility. Again there for the community, you've got a great you've got a great greenery there, there's tennis courts, you know, squash courts, racquetball, tank pitch. There, good car park, lovely dably.

So finally, if you had to do it well, not finally, pre final question, if you had to do it again, would you do it again? And would you do anything differently? I'll take again. Yeah, it's it's it's it's very it is hard work.

I'm not gonna lie. It's hard work, but it's great fun. Are you not answering? Ian's answered it wonderfully.

Yeah, No, I do it again. I would do it again. I think that's one thing I won't. I know we're getting closer to the end.

I won't. But we get so many people asking us if we're going to do another one, if we're going to franchise it, or if we're going to because this is what and this is enough. That was one of the words as well from when we met about understanding what enough is and having one very successful small business is enough, and having now experienced this lifestyle, I can assure you one pub is enough. That's fine.

So final question, then, what would your recommendation be to somebody who is in your position a few years ago thinking of doing exactly the same as what you're doing today. Don't do it. I'm joking. It's got I think the secret.

From my point of view, the secret is that we've done it from the heart. We joke that we make it up as we go along, but it's actually really following our intuition that we've completely believe in. If one of us has an idea, the other one says, right, if you've got a good idea, then go for it. And I think my advice to anybody wanting to do it is they've got to want to do it from the heart and not really come at it from a financial aspect, and do it for creating a business to make money.

And then I think it works both ways. Sort of energetically, people that come in know that we've put love into it. They can feel that energy and they feel part of it. Someone has to do it, so why can't you?

If you've got the idea, just have a bit of self confidence, in a bit of belief, and a lot of people that make the jump to having their own business, have got a good career background in whatever sector they're in, and know that the fail safe is always going to be that you could just go and get a job again, but you'll always regret not taking the leap and starting your own business because literally, the worst thing that can happen is you'll just go back to where you came from, which is fine, you know, but the best thing that could happen is that it works.

Who knows? Brilliant. Thank you very much, so thank you to both of you for coming and just finally again, you can catch Ours on the Green on Facebook and on Instagram, on their socials and to watch any parties that you might have not gone to. But if you do want to go to one of their events, then remember you can subscribe to their newsletter which is on their website, Oursonthegreen dot com and you can find out about those parties.

You can go to so yes and find out much more as well. And if you just happen to be walking around walling Them on the Green and going, oh, don't really know where this is, then just walk around walling them on the Green, you'll find it and it's there as well, so you can just see them there. So that's it from Matthew and myself this week. Indeed, we'll be back at the same time next week.

We'll be back again. You can catch us on social media. We are on Facebook and on Instagram Your Business Hour and if you want to listen to us live, we are on Ridge Radio. That's Ridgradio dot co dot uk.

And if you want to listen to us on any of our podcasts, it's Your Business Hour wherever you get your podcasts from. So that's it from us this week. We'd look up to catching up with you soon and enjoy your week. Speak to you soon.

Champ Consultants is an award winning independent firm of highly experienced, qualifying accountants and tax advisors based in Cateram, providing a fully comprehensive range of accountancy and tax services. If you would like simple but creative answers to your tax problems, called Champ Consultants your business partner on No.