May 2007
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Wow! If
you want to know how many friends you have, open a store for them (it
doesn’t hurt to offer some food and drinks either!). After a few
months of hard work, a few weeks of harder work, and a few days of really
really intense work, Coachman’s Delight, the store opened on schedule,
April 7th 2007.
At 11am nearly everything was ready to receive our first
customers. We all stood around, looking for things to put the final
touches on, and exchanging nervous glances. Around 11:30 a man came in and
looked around our little shop for about 10 minutes, picked up some free
magazines, (which he offered to pay for) and left. At 10 minutes of 12 a
student came in and mentioned she thought she saw a couple drivers waiting
in their cars for 12:00 to come. A trickle of customers began, then became
a flow, and turned into a torrent. By 1:00 it was hard to walk through the
store!
The turnout of local, and not so local drivers was
fantastic.
I am very fortunate to have so much support. It seemed that every time I turned around there was another delivery of flowers, food or wine. Thank you to all who made those deliveries! I hope I get to thank each of you personally, but if I don’t I hope you understand that it was kind of hard to keep track of. I owe a great deal of thanks the many who made this day a success. I could never have pulled this off with tireless efforts from so many. Margo Farnsworth has been working for me for over a year, and I think it must be a tougher job as each month goes by. She’s been rocking away at getting the website up to speed while bringing together all of the moving parts that make up the retail components of Coachman's Delight. Allie Dingman came home from Africa, and went right to work for Coachman's Delight. She was in there doing everything from painting to framing and hanging pictures. She put in a lot of hard hours and maintained a remarkable level of patience and understanding through out. Aimee Bartlett has been a close supporter and confidant to me for years. Through the building process she used her extensive business experience to help guide us through the myriad of decisions leading up to the opening. If that wasn’t enough, Aimee cleared out her weekend to be the hostess for the Grand Opening. She made the arrangements for all the wonderful wine, cheese and other goodies we munched on throughout the day. Jan Hopmans gets the award for coming the farthest (all the way from the Netherlands) to lend a hand. As owner of Ideal Equestrian, he’s seen more than one opening day. He was a huge help getting things together, not to mention very generous in sponsoring the free harness giveaway. There were so many others who worked really hard to make it happen on the 7th. I can’t tell you how lucky I am to be surrounded by so many giving, enthusiastic people in and out of carriage driving. I am looking forward to seeing everyone this season at clinics, competitions and of course, in the store. Stay tuned here, because we just keep coming up with more really cool things to tell you about. I can’t wait to tell you about next week. ;-) Take care, Andy |