I have a weakness for gardening, I just love seeing my well kept garden but of late i have been frustrated with the City Council who send me a huge water bill which does not tally with the usage of water at my home. The bill shot up by 400% and it is not making sense at all. Visits to Rowan Martin Building have not yielded positive results as they insist that the bill is legit and that perhaps my water tap could be faulty.

Perhaps they could have seen my green lawn and by default estimated that i could be using a lot of water? But i do have a borehole and therefore something should be grossly wrong with the billing system of the City Council, i wonder how many people have been affected?

Anyway this week we have a free business idea for our members and it has a garden connection! No need to worry about gardeners, no need to worry about high water bills. A good way to cut on gardening costs and it looks fabulous too-dear readers, allow me to introduce to you artificial lawns!

It is currently available in China and costs $5-8 per square metre. You just install it in your garden and not have to worry about any maintenance costs for a couple of years.

If you can demonstrate that this works, if you can highlight the benefits to potential customers, then you may have hit a jackpot! Your customers to be individuals, the corporate sector and sports clubs.

Official description

Artificial turf or artificial lawn is a surface of synthetic fibers made to look like natural grass. It is most often used for sports that are normally played on grass. However, it is now being used on residential lawns and commercial applications as well. The main reason is maintenance. Artificial turf stands up to heavy use, such as in sports, and requires no irrigation or trimming. Covered stadiums or shaded residential and commercial areas may require artificial turf because of the difficulty of getting enough sunlight for natural grass to stay healthy.

Advantages

• Maintenance free : Artificial lawn is nearly maintenance free (no watering, no mowing, no fertlising). Ideal for locations when maintenance of lawns is difficult or not practical. Artificial turf can be vacuumed, broom cleaned or hosed over.
• Rugged usage: Artificial turf can withstand significantly more use than natural grass and can therefore be used much more frequently.
• Lush green all round the year: Artificial turf can be a better solution when the environment is particularly hostile to natural grass (example, low light, extremely dry seasons, etc) Artifical lawns stay green all through the year. These are also fade resistant.
• No standing water: As the turf base is porous, it allows water to drain off and water does not stagnate in the lawn.

Below we show you some photos of the artificial lawn.

So i was watching CNN today and there was  a programme of training the memory so that it can remember a lot of things. Interesting programme that shows that most people rarely use the power of their minds! Through the programme, i watched many people doing the unthinkable….verdict? The verdict was through practice, we can achieve more. Through mind training, students improved academic records-even those previously classified as dull.

Iam not an educationist an therefore may not be aware of how our local educators are doing it but believe that this is a must watch documentary. Yes we have quiz championships at high school an i remember representing my former school well during the 90s. I feel schools should launch competitions that train the minds of youngsters and watch the results!

Iam not advocating for students who ‘cram’ but students with an improved mindset and training the mind is one of them. ZBIN will therefore be making a lot of work on the awareness on the power of the mind! It can be a lot of fun and can help many students to improve grades.

History made
As mentioned last week, we have a team in Malawi that arrived yesterday. Our first ever foray onto the region. We have previously hosted regional participants but not gone to regional countries. So we are in Lilongwe and then Blantyre before coming back to Harare. From Harare we are gonna be on a whirlwind tour of the region meaning a temporary relocation of the ZBIN headquarters for the coming weeks.

The good thing coming from this is the establishment of a strong regional entrepreneurship community. Through the community developed we are hoping to distribute more products and services efficiently. You want to launch or distribute products or services in the region then there is one platform that can do it for you-ZBIN! You want to study business in Southern Africa then there is one forum of choice for you-ZBIN. We will be pilot testing a number of initiatives and Kilombero Rice is going to be one of them-creating expanded markets for the rice across Southern Africa and help to improve the livelihoods of Malawian farmers and also creating jobs in Maun, Durban, East London, Beitbridge, Phikwe, Maseru or Windhoek! It will not be a tough task to do because we already have 5,000 nationals on our Whatsapp platforms, we are meeting some of them during our tours and establishing linkages and networks. So ZBIN is nolonger a forum that talks of business opportunities in South Africa-now we are walking the talk!

Wa Reng: So what else is up this week?

1.Mining: We have partnered with one of the forum members and we are working on hosting a national conference on mining issues. Should be a unique conference that looks at the other side of mining, what happens after mining companies have finished mining and left? A great conference with a lot of researches and will challenge the way mining is done in the country especially the environmental damage.

2. More Live Updates: We are encouraging more members to participate, 3 South African citizens will be participating giving us business updates. If we are fortunate, we may feature a Zimbo sister based in India so that she can update us on what it is like to live in India-she will cover business opportunities and other general stuff

3. Moz Opportunities: We continue tracking developments in our ‘adopted country’-Moz because this is a country which rarely gets positive business story coverage.

4. Mainstream Media: So we have close to 400 business articles on our website which have been read 180,000 times since the formation of the www.zbinworld.com site. Everyday has a new article coming up and we are proud to have assisted a lot of people with business ideas. From next week do expect to read some of ZBIN articles in your local newspapers as we expand our reach beyond Social Media.

5. Volunteer Action: One of our volunteers, a company based in South Africa that deals in IT products and services has sponsored a quiz which will result in winners getting free Anti Virus software. Expect more products and offers from your favourite forum as we promote local entrepreneurs within the forum.

Stay Blessed.

Re tlaa bonana