Becoming your own boss is a dream for many people, but starting up a new business from scratch is not the only option.

When Lorraine Stansbie approached BiG – Make it Your Business for help, she got a master class in winning the tender to take over her dream business.

Being a part of the community has always been important to Lorraine.

Last June she was made redundant from her job as a development worker and decided to take the opportunity to set up her own business and continue contributing to her neighborhood.

Lorraine had worked all her life for someone else and was very worried about going it alone and starting up her own business. A friend mentioned a business start up event being run by BiG and she decided to go along.

Lorraine said: "I couldn’t make my mind up between opening a florist or a café, so the team at BiG gave me some tasks to do to help me find what was best for me. When I finally set my heart on running a café I was put on a course to get my health and hygiene certificates."

‘BiG also identified a tender opportunity for the High Green Developmental Trust Café at Paces Campus. I decided that winning the contract to run this established business might be a better option for me than starting up a new café from scratch."

Lorraine then received support from BiG to prepare a tender for the café, train for the interview process, put together a business plan and source start up finance.

Lorraine was successful in her bid for the tender and is now running Paces Café.

Lorraine added: "Paces Café is an ideal opportunity for me. It’s in a large community building with plenty of projects going on so I can be involved in all of that as well as running my own business."

"I’m a confident person but I’d had no idea about setting up a business and going for tender opportunities. BiG gave me the confidence to succeed and I couldn’t have done it without them."