Hello everyone, how are you all? Did you enjoy all that lovely sunshine? I did and got my zebra stripes tan lines to prove it (I feel affronted that animals get to be stripy and spotty and we don’t so make my own) and while I’m not less keen to cycle about in the rain, my garden certainly needs it.
So, it’s been an age, as ever, since I wrote last – a month I think. I’m not sure how much I’ll write as my head is buzzing – it’s been what we call A Day, and we know that means a certain sort of aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh all day – but I want to say hi and catch you all up on where we’re at. I know what’s happened today but will have to wind my mind back to anything else. Let’s start with today and see where we end up.
So, today, I had a nicely planned diary. Three funding reports to work on, two funding bids, and a few hours of sales calls. This is a fraction of my to do list but represents the most important and the most urgent things. By 10.30 it was clear that it had been blown out of the water. Yesterday, woman arrived for a chat about what we do – she’d emailed our ‘comesee’ email address, and said she wanted to make a documentary about us. She happened to mention that she had a good camera… and we need photos. She left when the office closed and was back at nine this morning, with a friend, baskets of props and a whole lot of good ideas. They’ve spent the day shooting Christmas (crazy lead times as magazines prep stuff really early) and I was called in a few times to check progress and make sure they styling and feel was what we wanted. This was not in the diary, and nor was the one hour delay for my hospital appointment.
Back to the office, lunch. Click on a link in a google alert set to our name to find a student film. I tweeted it before watching it with sound (boo hiss I can’t make the sound work on my computer). Then suddenly realised it was NOT the student project film I thought it was. It was, in fact, the student project film we’d refused to authorise, featuring someone else’s products, a burlesque theme, a man in drag and our logo. So a few hours of not in the diary fear and panic and hammering the phone til I got the right person to sort this out. The film has been removed from the internet but I am still livid. Who to blame? The student? The tutor? The idea that people thought they could bypass our consent and represent us in a way that might have serious implications for the women we work with. You all know me a bit, yes? Can you imagine how cross I was? The emergency chocolate cupboard was popular today.
Anyway, let’s think about other stuff. Masses has happened. The production team are way ahead of schedule, I’ve done number crunching and can report that we’re 334% up on sales in the first quarter of 2010, and we’re 117% up on target. We’re launching our very fist gift sets imminently (sneak news scoop there for you luck blog readers!) We’ve entered some awards. Oh, we’ve extended our premises! We’ve taken on the offices next door so Della has her own office, hooray, and we have a reception area! Our accounts are being prepared, I’m reporting on a number of grants, we’ve gathered some lovely quotes from supporters and volunteers. We’ve a stock room now, and lots of new shelves in he cutting room, plus plans to move the sewing room into one with better light. Our brilliant designer has been to see us and is back again tomorrow, and we’re planning future designs and fabrics – exciting!
It really is an exciting time. My perpetual feeling for the last few years has been that, ‘if we could only get x, we’d be ok’. Right now, x is an office manager, a production manager, a finance manager and an events person. We’re growing so fast we need people to do the work but we’re not bringing in the cash as until there are other people doing the work, I’m doing too much of it and not generating the cash. If we had the cash we could pay people, if we had people, I could do and generate the cash. We’ve had the lovely Bernie running our office for the last wee while but she’s moving on soon – we’ll miss her and her abilities loads.
I’m out of steam. Thanks to everyone who reads, buys, supports, volunteers, works, evangelises…
Until the next time pants fans
Becky
Filed under: Uncategorized, emergency chocolate cupboard, gift sets
Who Made Your Pants? 