Beyond The Grape
Great Wine is Yours for the Making
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Wow, what a year!
Posted by Michael Druce, December 18th, 2009 | 0 Comments
Well the end of 2009 is almost here and what a year it has been. They say the older you get the faster the year goes, I don't know if Sandra found it went any faster than I did, but we both sure thought it went fast. The year started out with us still operating two locations and getting the new store ready for our move in March. Then we got the stores moved on the second to last week in March. For those of you that know me, I am extremely organized when it comes to special projects with the business, so we had a fairly efficient move. Still with all my planning we had a few surprises but nothing that we were not able solve fairly quickly.
Then on the first day we reopened after the move, Sandra got a call from her Aunt, letting her know that Sandra's Mom, who lives with her, had fallen at Coquitlam Centre. So off Sandra went leaving me to run the front and the rest of the staff in the back as we still had a lot to catch up on after the move. It turned out Sandra's Mom had broken her hip and shoulder. She had broken the other shoulder a year earlier so this was not going to be an easy recovery. Sandra got into a routine of seeing her Mom daily at the hospital, meanwhile we were planing our Grand Reopening for late April. This took a bit of planning but nowhere near the planning of moving. The big Grand Reopening Sale week came and boy were we surprised. The sale was a huge hit for us and the customers. We had never had such a great response to a sale and we even surprised Winexpert with the response.
After the big sale came and went the next couple months were spent working on finishing all those wines. We had filter runs like we had never seen before. Then came all the customers bottling the finished wines. During this time Sandra's Mom was finally released from the Hospital and sent home. This was very stressful for her as her Mom really can't do everything for herself anymore. Then we had family fly in for Sandra's Niece Stephanie's wedding. Having the family here was a nice change of pace for Sandra & I. The wedding was great and a lot of fun.
Once we had dealt with the wedding Sandra and I had our Customer Appreciation Sale to work on. When the sale was over we started looking at getting an automatic bottle sanitizer. We found the one we wanted fairly quickly it was the waiting for delivery that took a little while. During this time one of our Staff members Bud, experienced problems with his mother's health. This led to a few changes here and there to give him a hand with his schedule.
Then all of a sudden September was here and our busy season starts. The automatic bottle sanitizer finally arrives. It didn't take a long time but it seemed to take forever to us because we were so excited to finally get this piece of equipment and start using it. At the same time we were told we have been nominated for the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce Small business of the year.
October rolls around and the announcement of the Limited Edition wines is made which meant I could finish planning our wine tasting event. In early October Sandra and I attend a Lunch for all the nominees of the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards. At the lunch we found out the we were one of Three Finalists for the Small business category. As I have written before this is a great honour for Sandra, the staff and myself. Through the month of October we got 63 new customers which in our industry is a lot.
In November all the customers that were making their wine for the holidays started to bottle. This goes non-stop until December 24. Then after the holidays we start a new year which will be filled with more excitement and adventure. Two things already in the works are in January we will be attending a Gala to see who wins the Small Business Of the Year and in April I should be seeing my first child arrive (Sandra's third Grandchild).
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