October 2009

A Feastival For All!

Face painting, engine flooding, Bison burgers and Alpacas- all in a normal weekend for the Mozzo Masters. We had an AWESOME time at the Feastival down in Somerset at Kilver Court! A very foody event aimed at promoting a sustainable lifestyle and organic production. The TukTuk was on full steam with the wind turbine flying and coffees pouring from dawn ‘till dusk.
Here’s a little photo diary of what we got up to…

Tractor, Trailor and a TukTuk
		Can we call Gavin an officially trained Mozzo Master now?
Getting steamy. The boys doing what they know best- COFFEE!
		I’m sure there was a 10th piglet Jules?

Frisky Feel Good Food

So we’re reaching that time of year when everybody needs a little pick me up. Fear not! Some feel good food is at hand from our cool new partners at Friska Food. Set up by graduates, Ed Brown and Griff Holland, they’ve just launched their first venue in Bristol. Keen on food that’s local, delicious, fresh, fun and cultural they’ll be showing the fast food industry a thing or two about quality and ethics. Good luck guys!

Follow their tweets at Friska or even better, drop in and see them at The Paragon in Bristol.

Grant says…There’s never a better time.

Making use of the easiest loan you will ever get from the UK government.

Student life, what does it mean? If you asked me in my first year of being a student I would have said it means I have no time to do anything and I certainly did not have the money to do anything. Who was I kidding?

Upon reflection, being a student is a period in one’s life when, if like me, your student days require a student loan on top of a part time job to support a ‘ripped jeans, worn out trainers’ lifestyle. You will never again (or at least for a few years of bloody hard work, and luck) be so time or cash rich.

It might sound bonkers, especially given this year’s mess up when it came to the actual administration and provision of loans, but a student loan is without doubt the simplest, most straightforward (and more importantly) cheapest business loan available in the UK today.

During year 1 of university life this was not something I recognised. However, during year 2 when I started to (albeit somewhat unsuccessfully) put my business ideas to the test in the real world (rather than the classroom) I soon discovered that my student loan provided a source of funds that was cheaper or more convenient than any loan I could get from the bank- or any other organisation that gives a little to gain a lot.

Take for example the student that wants to open a cafe to become the community hub of coffee and art and asked by the local business bank manager,; “what security can you give me for this £25k loan? Do you own a house?”

Now some of my student friends did own a house, indeed a couple were smart enough to buy a house with their student loans; however, I didn’t and so was promptly refused the loan I needed to open my café.

It is worth bearing in mind that this was back in 2003/2004 when apparently for some, loan giving organisations grew money on trees, and still I could not get a loan.

Not once did the government ask such a question when it came to a student loan. I think the only questions are name, address, university number and other details that if you can’t remember, Mum or Dad certainly will.

Not only is the money relatively easy to get, the repayment terms are in a word, generous. Try asking the bank for a loan, then saying that you don’t want to begin repaying it for a minimum period of 3 years. Impossible. Or if not impossible please call and you are welcome to join Team Mozzo instantly.

While this may seem a long way from coffee, Rachael, our Marketing Master at Mozzo, asked me to put pen to paper this month in regard to student loans, due to the fact that I used a little of my loans in order to start Mozzo.

Looking back, university life was rich in time, ideas, inspiration and cash. Relatively speaking, as a student, one has a lot of cash free for a disposable income. This is not a political debate on the rights or wrongs of student loans; I will leave that to the people who write the cheques to decide. It is more of an observation that as a student, an opportunity in terms of free time and accessible/cheap money doesn’t presents itself very often. Especially in regard to giving starting a business a real good crack! I certainly discovered that you learn more through trying ideas out in the real world than it is possible to ever learn in the classroom…

Wrap your ears around this…

Getting a little funky this month with the Funk Junkies. No longer shall you sit still in your seats but wriggle and wiggle to some groovy sounds. They’ve got a huge line up of gigs so what are you waiting for???

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 3:44 pm and is filed under BeanBulletin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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