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Plan B Needs Your Help

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Plan B needs your help. Due to the punishing winter we are currently about $5000 behind in rent. As most of you know Plan B itself is a not for profit social enterprise designed to just pay the rent and bills and be broke at the end of the month thus giving the members the cheapest retail space available in HRM. So the Co-op itself doesn't have any cash...ever.

Several months ago we were informed by the city that if we wanted to continue offering our low cost event space to the public we would have to upgrade our space. Since we opened we always envisioned having a community space for everyone to use. It has been utilized for everything from music, theater, readings, classroom, art space, group meetups to a memorial service. So we undertook the renovations. We had to replace the ceiling, add emergency lights, fire extinguishers and install a full commercial fire alarm system. This was, as I'm sure you can imagine, very expensive but we were able to raise the money from within the co-op itself without seeking outside help. What we didn't foresee was the savage brutality of the winter. This is our fourth winter here on Gottingen St. and we have never experienced anything like it. February was the worst month we ever had until march which beat February by a long shot. If we hadn't just upgraded our shop and struggled through February we could've ridden the worst of this out but the severalty of the white apocalypse was unrelenting and has forced us to our knees.... but we don't want to give up.

Plan B quietly contributes allot to the city. Nearly 80 local small businesses currently call Plan B home and in the 3 short years since we opened 5 stand alone businesses have opened in Halifax that started under our roof. Parentheses Gallery, Toxic Blossom, Black Buffalo Records, Abode and Vivacious Vixen. Turns out at a time when big box stores are killing small mom and pop shops Plan B is a vital small business incubator. Culturally we have had over 100 live music performances, act as a stage for the fringe festival, participated in 3 nocturnes and hosted dozens of art shows. Our gallery currently serves as a NSCAD student art gallery. The event space is used by numerous local groups as a meeting place and as a community classroom. We continue to host the Anchor Archive Zine Library and the Peoples Photocopier since the loss of the Robert St. Social Center.

Plan B is worth saving. To that end we are asking the public for help. We set up this croudfunding campaign and will have some sales and fund raising events here at the shop but ultimately just stopping in and doing a little shopping will help us survive this crisis. Hopefully the old adage is correct 'That which does not kill me makes me stronger'.

Bob Chiasson
President Plan B Co-op

A few years ago, while trying to get my small business (Toxic Blossom) off the ground, my business partner and I met a group of wonderful people who were stuck in the same situation as us; How can we make running a small business possible when we don't have the huge start up cost or time. Our idea was to pool our resources and Plan B Merchants Co-op was born.
We were a group of like minded entrepreneurs with a dream. As cheesy as that sounds, it's true! Opening a new business can be scary and daunting but as a group we were able to learn the ropes and do it. From the paperwork (piles of it) to the renovations (and SO MUCH PAINTING), we poured our hearts and souls into that place. Soon we had 30 local businesses selling and operating out of that space, and the number just kept growing.
When Toxic Blossom decided after two year to try to head out own our own, Plan B was more than supportive! We were even able to use the gallery space to host a fund raiser to help with out new spot!

It's been two years since we've had our own shop and the skills and business know how I learned while helping open and volunteering at Plan B is invaluable. There have been many other small businesses in Halifax that have used Plan B as their jumping off point and we can't let this valuable community resource slip through our fingers. For anyone trying to start a new business, market test a product, or learn some entrepreneurial skills, it's one of the best resources around.

Help keep Plan B alive.
-Stacy Lepage


Why Plan B Needs to Stay OPEN

Folks as you may or may not know, Plan B needs some help. Even though if you come into the store and see lots of people, that can be deceiving. While we enjoy seeing everyone who does visit us our sales are down drastically compared to last year this time and we are now behind on our rent. We have started to re-jig the set up of the store and are trying to bring in some large vendors, but we need an injection of cash now. We need to raise $5,000.00 FAST.

We can blame some of it (low sales) on the snow and nasty weather and some on the economy, however that doesn't help us stay open. Plan B already is run by it's own vendors and no one gets paid to man the store.

Why should anyone care if Plan B stays open:

1. Provides a Co-operative business opportunity for many up and coming artists. With rents available for as little as $30/month for a spot to sell your unique creation, to a full room rent for $175/month. So basically once your sales for the month reach the rental amount the rest of the income from your space is yours. We all work together to man the till, sweep the floor and yes even clean the washrooms.

2. Provides a venue spot for local and not so local bands to perform for a very nominal fee.

3. Provides a venue for our cities wonderful artists to showcase their fabulous art for a full month at a time in our art Gallery.

4. Provides a huge window area where we provide the space for local artists to set up a month long window art creation.

5. Provides a space for young business minded people to try their hand at running a Cafe out of our facility.

6. Provides a place where all are welcome to come and explore everything from a Whale bone to a vintage Atari system.

7. Provides a store that is actually open 7 days a week from 11:00 am to 7:00pm on Gottingen Street.

8. Provides a place for Art Students to find unique materials for use in Class projects such as vintage 1950s magazines to teeth from an unfortunate meeting of a car and a raccoon.

9. Provides income back into the community through the sale of goods.

10. Provides a store that sells just about 99.9% vintage, up-cycled, gently used, found, re-cycled, antique, on of a kind artwork, original jewelry crafted here and so much more. We are NOT a mall.

11. Provides a place to learn something new every time you enter the store, such as the difference between a taxidermy Bobcat and a Lynx.

12. Provides a place that has a space to offer the community access to Life Drawing Classes, Poem readings, Magic Shows and much more.

13. Provides a place to see and meet people that like people and like sharing their knowledge with others.

14. Provides a place to hold your own theme party, movie party or even Birthday party.

15. Provides some life to the Gottingen Street area - more walking traffic and people coming to see what's happening with the revitalization of our little part of the city.

16. Provides a place where you will come in and find that one thing you never knew you wanted or needed.

So right now we really want and need your help. Please Chip In any amount you can afford. As Gottingen Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and the World can NOT afford the loss of PLAN B.

Huggies Mama Massey AKA Joan Massey AKA 1958ViNTAGE


Plan B and why it's good for me.

I've been struggling to eek out a self employed living for close to the last 18 years and to this point I have yet found an enviorment that fits me and my needs like Plan B. I will explain why it works so well for me but first let me tell you how I got here.

It all started while I was still in school I played a collectible game and wanted a better collection than I could afford so I decided to try selling my extras etc at the Forum Flea market. I did OK for myself but I was far from being able to support myself with it until one weekend when because the Forum was closed I booked a table at the Penhorn Market in Dartmouth. I made more in a few hours that weekend than I had ever made in an entire week at any job I had ever held.

I continued at the Penhorn Market for the next few years growing my stock and knowledge all the while until after I had graduated but after a few months of being out of school I yearned for more to durring the week so I looked into opening my own store and a few months more after that Third Eye Blind Games & Collectibles was born.

Right off the bat it was obvious there were some things I was really good at in my business and others I wasn't. On one hand I excelled at managing my stock but on the other I was poor at managing the business as a whole. Despite that I was still somehow able to keep my doors open for almost 7 years but when I finally had to close my doors I was fortunate that a new market was opening up so I downsized and moved my operation into the Harbourview Weekend Market.

Unfortunately the heydays of when I could make a weeks wages in a few hours at the flea market was over we for whatever reason were unable to draw anywhere near the crowds that use to frequent the old flea markets before the days of Sunday shopping in Nova Scotia. That said I enjoyed selling at the Market and did alright although not great and while at the Market I would reconnect with old friends like Bob Chassion and meet some new friends like Stacy LePage.

Conversations swirled between our revolutionary entrepreneurial lips and before long the fledgling concepts of Plan B began to form. Bob kinda took the reigns and before too long we had found a location done the necessary renos and we were actually open, Plan B was a reality!

The Co-Op definately had some growing pains which actually led to me leaving the place for a while before I became totally aware this was the place I needed to be. The fact is was Plan B was and is a perfect fit for both me and my customers in just about every way possible. Weekend markets while they are OK and do provide me a small outlet to sell in a relatively low risk enviornment but it has some great disadvantages especially for a business like mine and what if it is a holiday weekend or the weather is is making the city untraversable?

Being Part of Plan B Co-Op allows me to have a reletaively low risk, low cost business where I have the advantage of being able to be open 7 days a week, am in a quirky enviroment that better fits the products I sell, and it gives me the opertunity to work with like minded people whom I both like and respect. All this is available in no other retail space that I know of in this city.

So I can almost hear the voices already saying "So yeah Plan B is good for you but dude what does it do for me, I don't sell there". First off would be Diversity, tell me what store have you ever been in anywhere that has the diversity of products for sale that you can find at Plan B. Second is Weirdness, really there are retail enviornments all over the place for your average joe to shop like malls and business parks but what about those who don't like these enviornments. Third and most important would be Community Involvement. Over the short time Plan B has actually been in existance the number of different and diverse community groups that have used it as a gathering place is almost uncountable.

Richard Silvert
Third Eye Blind Games & Collectibles
Proud Plan B vendor
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Donations 

  • Jenn Kang
    • $25 
    • 9 yrs
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Organizer

RevBob Chiasson
Organizer
Halifax, NS

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