Licensee Training

If I'm to get anywhere in the licensed trade then I'll have to have some form of qualification. In order to obtain a license to sell alcohol I will need (as a minimum) the National Certificate for Licensees from the BII. This is a one-day course and is offered by many training centres. However, I'm tempted by the 5-day National Certificate in Licensed Retailing which covers all sorts of other things to do with running a pub. A bit of digging around on the BII website reveals that one training centre in London which offers this course is Premier Training. Cost is about £400 plus VAT.

God's Own County

One of the restrictions I've set myself when considering this Grand Dream is that the pub I'd like to own and run must be in Yorkshire, God's Own County. Obviously this has its roots in the fact that I was born and raised in Huddersfield (in the West Riding of Yorkshire) but that's not the whole of it.

I've lived away from the county of my birth for nearly 13 years, which is over a third of my life. While I've always retained a fondness for Yorkshire (and a passion for the mighty Huddersfield Town FC), it wasn't until the last year that this dormant ember was fanned into a burning urge to return. A large part of the credit for this must go to Yorkshire Soul, the blog of a chef in Ilkley. In and amongst the humorous writing, heavy metal album reviews, wine drinking and general larking about are some breathtaking pictures of Yorkshire. This really got me thinking a lot about my roots and re-awakened my desire to return Home.

Since there isn't a lot of IT Project Management work up North (most of the guys I know in the industry who are based up there spend most of their time working in the South anyway), returning to Yorkshire in my current line of work is a bit of a non-starter. This, taken with my disillusionment with the IT industry in general got me started down the path I'm currently tentatively exploring.

So it's all your fault Yorkshire Soul!

Happy New Year

OK, it's 2005. While I'm not really into making resolutions (they're always either too specific to achieve anything or too vague to be meaningful), it is time to think about targets for the year ahead.

So, I plan to:

• investigate (and potentially attend) licensee training, most likely from the British Institute of Innkeeping.
• try and get some idea of the elements of a basic business plan for running a public house. Not sure where to start on this.
  
• monitor the trade press (e.g. Dalton's) to get an idea of the costs of pubs.
• seek out other sources of advice and information. Straight off the top of my head I can think of The Publican newspaper.

This should get me at least part way along the path towards a potentially life-changing switch of career. Of course, I may decide it's all way too risky and stick with what I've got, but there you go.