Visit any caf or pub in Brighton and Hove and the chances are you will see flyers advertising everything from yoga to aromatherapy, Tai Kwon Do to guitar tuition.

This scattergun approach to advertising is one of the few ways people working on tiny budgets can promote their weird and wonderful talents - but is it effective?

After all, when your focus is on a bacon sandwich or a pint of London Pride, the well-meaning nutritionist or pilates instructor already has an uphill battle on their hands.

What if there was one place where jugglers and piano teachers, herbalists and magicians could advertise their services and indulge in a bit of networking?

Melanie Rees, a former headteacher, has launched a web site called World of Workshops (Wow), which she hopes will help the city's creative types get their message across.

She says: "There are so many creative people in this city and tons of flyers advertising everything you can imagine. But when you're actually looking for something - can you find what you want?"

The logic behind Wow is simple. Visitors to the site enter key words about the skill they want to learn and will be directed to people who run workshops in that subject.

They can then get in touch directly with the person and organise a tailor-made workshop or find out about a group meeting.

Melanie hopes to make a living through registration fees, which range from £5 to £10 a year depending on how many keywords businesses want to put into the search engine.

Melanie, who set up Cornerstones School, which helps children who have been excluded from other schools, is primarily targeting the site at teachers who want to liven up their lessons.

It was her time as headteacher at Cornerstones which inspired her to launch the site which runs under the banner: "You can learn some things at school. For everything else? There's World of Workshops!"

She said: "I was at the school five years and throughout that time I was always looking for people other than teachers who would support the basic curriculum.

"So we did a lot of music and dance, we had people in teaching the children yoga and once we had somebody in to show them henna tattooing.

"But sometimes it was frustrating because often there was no way to find these people. I thought it would be really good to have just one place you can go to look."

Over the past year she has roped in Tony Nesbitt, from e-venture company Helmestone Communications, based at the Sussex Innovation Centre in Brighton, to help her bring her idea to fruition.

Now she faces the task of letting people know about the site, www.worldofworkshops.co.uk

She is keen to get as many celebrities on board as possible to maximise publicity and has already approached the likes of Jo Brand, Richard Branson and Norman Cook.

She says: "Celebrities are usually talented people and have a lot to offer so that is one avenue I am concentrating on at the moment. They are great for getting messages across.

"A lot of the time I am absolutely sworn to secrecy and I think that is one aspect of business I am just going to have to get used to.

"I am a firm believer in honesty being the best policy but I suppose people do not want to be seen to commit themselves to something if they have to back out at a later date.

"I am also talking with the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, who are interested in the project and may help me promote the site."

Throughout her 20-year career in teaching, Melanie has always sought to buck the trend and experiment with new ideas.

Two years into her teaching career she had an idea which would help thousands of disadvantaged children across the world exposed to poverty and child labour.

She was the architect of National Non-Uniform day which, since its launch in 1988, has raised £4 million for the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef). After its initial success - it raised £15,000 in the first year - Unicef took over the reins.

Melanie said: "I have always enjoyed working on projects.

"The non-uniform day took about a year to organise and research but I like planting the seeds and then letting things grow.

"That's how I see World of Workshops. It might take a while but I want it to become the marketplace for people who run workshops - I want it to be their Yellow Pages."

Friday August 20, 2004