Name of your website?Creative Cafe
Your name?
Jill Goble
Your Location (city, etc)
Brighton , Uk
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Creative Cafe is set up and run by disabled volunteers for members to express and promote their creativity. Each member has their own webpage where they can put up their art, photos, videos,music write blogs and so on. Members can join in groups and discussions and chat with other members. Members can buy and sell their art and handmade goods, equipment and supplies in our linked Salesrooms. Membership is open to everyone and as disabled people we hope to hold our own when it comes to creavity in this world. We say Don't let Disability mean Inequality
What inspired you to launch your own website?
As disabled people we were fed up with big charities saying they are 'helping' us without giving us any say in running things ourselves. We were fed up with the big charities websites which are not interactive and so do not allow members to speak for themselves. We have been inspired to create a website where all members can express themselves and are not being told in a top down way from anonymous officals what they can and cannot do.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
Creative Cafe and our linked site Creative Cafe Salesrooms were both launched in November 2007 and this is our first project although we have connections with Mad Planet ( at http://madplanet.ning.com) and other members blog sites.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
The name Creative Cafe came to me when I was on the Mad Planet site and put up some pictures of a fairytale castle in which I live on the planet. Part of the picture looked to me like a cafe in the sky and the name Creative Cafe came from this. Our logo has the name surrounded in sky with hands reaching up to it. This is to indicate that everyone has a lot of creativity in them and Creative Cafe is a place where that creativity can be expressed.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
Creative Cafe is not similar to other offerings it is unique!
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other eal?)
Creative Cafe is set up as a charitable concern. Our goal is to establish a network of real life Creative Cafes where members can go to be creative and have coffee!
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Creative Cafe has been set up and is run by volunteers so our running costs are low. The costs of development have also been kept to a minimum and funded by donations. Our costs have been in some technical help and the Salesrooms site software and in hosting fees. We have only been open for 3 weeks at the time of writing this so it is too early to report on any financial success in the future.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
We did get rather envious of custom built sites when developing Creative Cafe with either free or as cheap as possible software. Even then the cheapest was not necessarily suitable and we had to test out a lot of Salesrooms site software before agreeing on the package we have now. With an unlimited budget a much more custom made look and feel would be possible. If the unlimited development budget includes funding for real life Creative Cafe's then we would ask for creative design ideas from the members and would agree plans together in a cooperative way. We would also have marketing budget for the site and for attracting new members.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes of course.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Costs with technical things. One plan to have vertical running slideshows displaying members work running beside the logo in the header had to be abandoned because the costs of putting these in were too high and it was taking too long to implement.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Getting the project going ourselves without any help from funders or any of the big charities who say they help disabled people like us or any established agencies.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
We don't know yet we have only been open 3 weeks!
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
There are a lot more 'little' things to do that take up time than we imagined there would be.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site has been in development since August 2007 and opened in November 2007. We have no plans to stop yet!
Where can people join Creative Cafe?
New members can join Creative Cafe at
http://www.creativecafe.org.uk
and our linked Salesrooms site is at
http://www.creativecafesalesrooms.com
What is your website address?
Creative Cafe
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