Well here goes. This is the dream coming to life for me in many ways. I have always wanted to run my own business one day, and it looks to me like I've arrived at that point. Visible Recovery Pty Ltd was founded in concept at a meeting I was at in the UK where I was working at a Drug and alcohol rehab as an Admissions Manager. I heard the words "Visible Recovery" in a speech that was being delivered at a conference I was at, Googled those words, as I liked the sound of them so much, and found all the URL's were available. I bought all of them on the spot on my iPhone and with a credit card as the meeting ran on, knowing that one day soon something was going to happen with them. That was in 2010.
A couple of years later, I am back in Australia to live after 21 years in the UK. I was raised here in Adelaide, although of British stock, but I still called it home the whole time I lived in England. I came back to help look after and be available to my parents, who are both quite ill. I walked straight into a position as Operations Manager for Workskil Incorporated, who wanted someone to set up a residential drug and alcohol rehab service for their client base with such issues. Perfect. I set up and ran their "Beyond Addiction" 12 week program, which was a 12 step residential based in a house and some flats in Magill for 10 people. After 12 months, Workskil sacked their then CEO, Ken Lodge, without any notice, and with that, the visionary for this project went as well. They closed down everything that Ken had worked so tirelessly over 8 years in his tenure to set up, and Beyond Addiction was unceremoniously folded literally overnight, and I was made redundant.
It was this that made me realise that I had it in me to set up and run my own company. I had been made redundant a few too many times for my liking on other people's whims, but it had affected me a lot every time it happened and I needed to future proof my life. I also felt the need to help others, as I am an addict in recovery for over 9 years now, and wanted to do something about the lack of treatment beds in Adelaide.
Well, to be honest, everything has fallen into my lap with this project. It has all come to me with minimal effort on my part. I was offered a premises by Joe Sylvestri of the Aboriginal Sobriety group on South Terrace, Adelaide, at their old and now boarded up Cyril Lyndsay House project of years gone by. The building was not in use, and had been subject to many squatters, alcoholics and junkies living in abject squalid conditions over the years. But it had character, and enough space for a 12 bed rehab to be run out of for the sake of some investment and hard work. A business could be born there.
Then Ken, my previous line manager and CEO at Workskil, got in touch with me after many months of not hearing exactly what happened to him. He was under a cloud from Workskil owing to legal wrangles with the company, but had just settled with them for the biggest ever out of court settlement in South Australian history for wrongful dismissal. Surprise, surprise. He did nothing wrong. Another major corporate f**k up that has cost them a whole lot of money in compensation. Heads would roll if I had to pay out that much because someone was wrong in their decision making. Muppets. And well done Ken. After what they did to you, you deserve every penny of that. Beautiful, I always knew this man had integrity, and was never told what was going on behind the scenes with his removal.
We met, and talked about my idea, and he immediately told me that he wanted to invest with me, and run the company as a Director. I was over the moon to have someone with Ken's wealth of business acumen and integrity, skill and focus at the helm with me. Having worked with him for 12 months at Workskil proved to me his value as an entrepreneur and a visionary, as well as being an outstanding businessman with a wealth of contacts and experience. Ken also has an MBA, and comes from an accounting background.
Little did I realise that thinking of the name Visible Recovery as a business name, and buying the URL's whilst in the UK that day could ever manifest to this. I registered Visible Recovery as a Pty Ltd company in November 2012.
But wait...I was unemployed and on benefits. I had run my petty redundancy money down to nothing over a 5 month period, and had no capital to invest. All I had was a burning passion for this to work, and the knowledge and experience required to get it all of the ground. How was the business going to start with no capital, or even a way of supporting myself?
I had to ask a couple of friends for a loan. I wasn't going to be able to borrow that from a bank as I was unemployed. I had to trust that this would all come off. I wrote to two people I knew, and one wrote back and backed me with $20,000 immediately. Then my mum told me of a friend of hers that knew of the project, and had offered me the other $5,000 that I required. $50,0000 was all we needed to start the ball rolling, get the pace finished and up and running.
I had to somehow support myself whilst the rehab was going to have to be refit. I wouldn't let my dog sleep there in all of the squalor that presented itself in this building in its current state. How could that happen? Well, it can, and has. There is a scheme here available for unemployed called the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme (NEIS). It allows for people like me with a business idea to get dole payments for up to a year whilst you are earning an income from a new start business. You have to sit a Certificate IV course in Small Business Management first with a registered provider. This course has been brilliant for me, and has culminated in a full business plan for the next two years. The business plan then has to be accepted by DEEWR (The Department of Education, Employment and Work Relations), and then they take you off benefits, provide you with a fortnightly income equivalent to your unemployment benefits and rent assistance for up to 12 months, and you can earn that again with it affecting the payment at all. Brilliant scheme, and I have just been accepted onto NEIS, have my sign up this Thursday, and start on the 14th March officially.
After protracted and extremely helpful negotiations with the Aboriginal Sobriety Group and Joe Sylvestri, we now have an offer of contract with them to lease the premises for three years, and a further two years after that, at more than reasonable rent. We have managed a reciprocal agreement for a significant rent reduction to have two Aboriginal people in treatment full time and free of charge year round whilst we are there. They will only have to pay for their own food whilst in treatment with us.
So, this week, with earnest, the fun has begun. The buildings interior was not a pretty sight. There was human defecation in most rooms, and in cupboards as well, old mattresses, syringes everywhere, the full gamut of what this illness can do to people, with the despair and desperation of homelessness thrown in. The place had been boarded up for three years, and needed urgent attention, and a massive clean up. It is very fitting that this premises is turned into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre.
So it was on with the rubber gloves, face masks and true grit and determination. Between my partner and I, we have managed to strip out all of the human waste, the altro floors, cupboards, mattresses, old sinks and general waste left there ruined by homeless vagrants over the years. We have a skip coming on Friday to get rid of it all, and I am certain we will need two. Then we need plasterers to do repairs, plumbers to reinstate water, hot and cold (all the copper has been removed by thieves, so it all needs reinstating), a ton of steam cleaning, disinfecting, painting, carpeting etc etc, and we shall turn this place around.
We have uncovered four beautiful fireplaces that were previously boarded up, so we will be using them as features, and also discovered that under all that crap on the floor, there are beautiful Baltic pine floor boards to be revealed for the corridors. I wish we had the time and the money to do every room, but having the main corridors restored to original will certainly set it all off nicely.
That fireplace will look great when its reconditioned. I will photograph it when it is done. So, there you go. The first blog, and the first of many as the building and the business takes shape. We have a lot of work in front of us to realise this dream, but my God has got me this far, so all will be revealed. If you are looking at this blog for the first time, please keep your eye on it, as I will be posting new stuff as it happens right through to the opening day. More to follow.....
