A little trip to the council offices

For the bookshop I needed to get what they call a permission to function. I guess it's like a license to operate a shop or a public space where people will enter into.

It was something that I was very unaware of when we started the Bookshop so I was a little nervous diving into this process as there are usually fines and delays for a payment that hasn't been made.

There were a number of things that were involved in this process:

1. Our organisation didn't have everything up to date - I needed to get a special letter from tax office (took 2 weeks to obtain)
2. The council didn't have our records up to date (to one 1 week to rectify)
3. I had to go and pay at the fire station for fire services
4. There existed other payments for services provided on other properties in our organisations name that I had to make before I could make my payment (meaning a cost of $1400 instead of the $60 I had in my pocket)
5. I wrote a cheque and went to get it certified (necessary for council) and they said I filled it in wrong (I put 10/100 for the cents sometimes done here instead of .10) GO back and get another cheque.
6. I then went to the council where the lady had to enter in details for each 14cm long receipt. 
7. I then went back to the office where I sat down and said, "We're done". 

All of this took us from early December till now to complete and I can't believe it is done. 

Guess how many payments were necessary by looking at how it measures up to me!