Radio, Rugby and Dying Chickens

If someone had told me earlier this year that I would have spoken on the radio in front of millions, I would have suggested they take a trip to the nearest witch doctor for some treatment. Alas, it has happened! Yesterday saw me interviewed by Rebecca Pike, aka Foxy on the Chris Evans show on BBC Radio 2. Its weird how for the few hours beforehand, you are gripped with nerves and the imminent on air time produces that hideous stomach lurching and a dryness in the mouth that no amount of water seems to quench! Anyway, it went well I think! Looking at the increased website stats and listings, it was a job worth doing. We have a number of new listings on the site now covering all aspects of space and it’s great to see people using their creative thinking and adding stuff that probably wouldn’t have been in the realm of Spareground in its earlier days. Spareground will always be an iterative website and we will move in accordance with how people are perceived to be using it.

On other matters, where have all the fish gone? Spent last Sunday fishing for mackerel on the Norfolk coast and didn’t catch anything at all. All I got was wet feet and an empty freezer bag to take home! Don’t think one person caught anything so I will just have to put it down to one of those years where my catch tally is zero. I did have some lovely fish and chips in Sheringham though so that did make up for it to a certain point.
I also spent a day this week nursing a dying chicken. My lovely friends managed to get two rescue chickens which have had the life of Riley this last eighteen months, full run of the garden, lots of corn and a great coop. Alas they are now down to one chicken after some horrible virus snuffed one of them out. So it’s half an egg quota and less fertiliser for the allotment now…nevermind.
I see we have listings on the site for people who wish to keep chickens and I can now report that we have had a successful match up with one Spareground user. So a chicken coop is currently under construction with the aim of getting four chickens so I have been told.

Anyway, time to walk the dogs. They are feeling a bit neglected with me having been sat near this computer all morning.
Rugby season kicks off tonight; the worse thing of the summer months is the wait for the rugby to start again!

Until next time

www.spareground.co.uk

BBC Radio at last!

It’s been a busy few weeks both on the Spareground front and with my other business commitments so no blog posts for a while! …and after all my earlier promises!Well, this week saw my first ever radio interviews about Spareground on BBC Radio5 and also on BBC Radio Ulster (Northern Ireland). I must admit I was shocked with how nervous I felt beforehand but once we were ‘live’, things went well and I am pretty happy with the final outcomes.
Both features came about from recent polls showing that a lot of older people are now considering renting out rooms to lodgers to make cash to bolster their current financial shortfalls. With low interest rates, savings accounts are not bringing in the interest levels they once were and this coupled with increased living costs means that options such as renting out rooms are now being considered.

In the UK, the Government's Rent a Room scheme allows people to receive up to £4,250 a year tax free through renting out a room in their main home; quite a significant sum of money to add onto their regular income. There are restrictions to this for example, you cannot modify your property to create a separate space or create a private access for the lodger so it is wise to check the government websites to check for further details.What Spareground have tried to get across is that for a lot of people renting out a room in their house may not be a favourable choice. However, it’s always an idea to look at what spare space you do have and see if you can rent that out, hence our promotion to rent out driveways, parking facilities, storage facilities and garden space. You would not be able to create a huge amount of money from something like an attic space or garden space for example but it all helps!

Spareground was also featured on this week’s Enterprise Nation website http://www.enterprisenation.com/ and we have seen an increased in the hits on the site related to this. I have also signed up to attend the Enterprise Nation conference in November this year so I will make sure that I will report on this with all the news and stories of what happened. Busy times ahead!
Great news that the UK gets the Rugby League World Cup and the Rugby Union World Cup! Hopefully we can be of some use to help cater for peoples parking and accommodation requirements!

http://www.spareground.co.uk/