Tuesday News

Today was an odd day- not unexpected since it is a personally significant day. I was in Worcester today dropping off our donation of toys, coloring books, crayons and books for the childrens party that the school department runs for an elementary school that has some very disadvantaged children. I want to have our own Christmas party for children. It would be great to have an event on the same scale as our Halloween/Child Safety event or even bigger. There is such a need in so many communities. I don't think we will be able to do it next year though- I would have to start working on it now and it needs a lot of corporate sponsors, which are in short supply these days.

There is no news on the Valentines event and I'm getting worried. The event planner left me a message yesterday saying the hadn't heard back from the venue manager to resolve that issue. Valentines is less than 2 months away- there is a lot to be done in a very short period of time. I'm going to start working on the date auction and our 6th Anniversary Celebration in early January. I'm not saying that we need nine months to plan an event- its only a fundraiser not a mission to the moon, but I am concerned about where we are 7 weeks away.

I had a frustrating experience at the local office supply store which I usually love. I stopped in tonight to pick up the posters for our new PS tri-fold display board that Lisa designed. She did an awesome job and I was really looking forward to seeing them printed. The sales associate found my order, then started rolling it to put in a bag, which was unusual since they usually bring it over to show you first. I asked to see the posters, so he unrolled it and showed them- it was the worst print job I have ever seen in my life. I had asked for color, they printed black/white on lousy paper and it had huge streaks running through the entire thing- the signs looked like a joke. Even worse than the print quality was the fact that the associate was ready to have me walk out of the store with that horrendous mess. He told me that I had it printed on the wrong machine. Now, I don't know anything about their machines. All I do is send a job over, specify what I want, pick it up and pay for it. I have no interest in what machines they use, all I want is my order done right with a reasonable price. Needless to say, it has to be redone.

Calendar sales are still going badly- the window is closing on them. It's been the worst year for calendar sales since our first one. It was still a fundraiser- I don't want to give the impression we lost money on them, but it hasn't raised the amount of funds it was intended to- at all. I need to rethink things for next year. We will still do a calendar of course, but I need a better sales plan or a special event in Boston for the calendar- they're just ideas right now. I do need to take a couple of days and work on our 2009 plan.

I did see two things of interest today- they aren't related to PS, but still want to share. I was driving on Rt. 140 in Grafton today and was following an old man driving a Buick with a Kennedy/Johnson bumper sticker on it. Now, the only Kennedy/Johnson that I can think of is President Kennedy. Could that bumper sticker actually be that old? Or is there another Kennedy/Johnson that I don't know about? The Buick was about 15 years old or so. The other amusing thing that I saw was in Walmart tonight- they had sweatshirts for sale that actually had "sweatshirt" delicately printed across the chest. What's next? Pants that have the word "pants" down the leg or skirts that say "skirt" across the bum?

Well friends, that's it for tonight. Tomorrow, I am working on calendar sales, end of the year donations and more outreach and grant research. It is 12:31- I'm failing miserably at the bed earlier routine, but still trying to make it work. I think I went to bed at 2:15 last night- it was very hard to wake up this morning, but I made sure to exercise and that really helped. Until tomorrow..