Paying for help, home tutor.

[AndrewA]

DO you think there would be a demand for someone, say myself, to go around someones house or meet at library, to teach and show someone how to get started with family history and general help in how to go about reasearch? How much would pay, how long for, time flies, so maybe 1 hour tuition for £40? Only need 10 hours a week for a decent wage.

[Antie Em]

I teach at a local library Andrew - have done for a few years now, just one morning a week. It has to be voluntary, the local authority won't pay. Most libraries around here have volunteers go in to teach family history and show people around Ancestry. From the feedback I've had, I don't think people would want to pay either.

[SRD]

You might try local history societies, the WI, village societies etc. they often have talks on a variety of subjects.

[AndrewA]

In short I am desperate for employment and I was thinking the only way I am going to earn some money is going self employed, but as what. I see how much money people rake in from private tuition so that was the lines I was thinking of.

I volunteer as an IT tutor, but well I wont go into the politics, but I have a vision of how things could go, but numerous reasons including being ignored as I am a man means these do not take off. I had hoped that there could be a regular family history club as a separate thing from the IT but that has not emerged either, there is a demand for it as well. I could run it all, do tons of stuff community related stuff around IT etc, could then get tons of funding being an established charity which would pay my wages.

Back to the drawing board then.

[SRD]

My wife likes to paint. On occasions local government sponsors art classes in one of our village halls, normal duration about 8 weeks which cost about £60 per head regardless of whether the student shows up or not. Each session of classes covers the same stuff as the previous group so those who attended earlier sessions found themselves paying £60 just to do their own work. So my wife had a chat with others in a similar position, looked around at the local halls, hired one (it costs less than £20 for two hours), stuck posters in the local shops and adverts in the Parish magazine and ended up running a non-profit making art group of around 24 people who pay £3 a session only if they attend. Sometimes she'll only have 3 or 4 members other times 15 to 20 but they make enough money to not only pay for the hall, tea, coffee, biscuits etc. but also to spend £100 a couple of times a year on a tutor to give a lesson on a single subject. At the same hall are several other groups who do a similar thing, some of them, for instance the lip-reading class and the Zumba exercise class, are run by people who set up groups in several local halls and charge a lot more than £3 a session in order to provide themselves with an income of sorts. You could do the same thing; investigate the local halls, see what groups use them and what they charge, do a bit of advertising and try it out.

[AndrewA]

A Family research club was something I suggested to the Community Association at beginning of year, but as for making a living, maybe people would be willing to pay for a begineers course on lines of the material I prepared months ago, which I am in middle of trying to sort out a shorter concise version for video.

That would also be a cheaper option for people, but then I would also be competing with the libraries as they run regular courses as well.

Anyway its just an option that could be open to me, depends how long I can sustain it. Not being able to drive is also a problem. Maybe a tour of the region. I think I would need some test subjects to hone my skills on first.

If its going to be commerically viable and demand is there, which I think it is, then yes, rake in the £££.