January 11, 2014
► A Seasonal Specialty Stores Report Card was received from Wendy S in Nashua, NH. She stated that her general shopping experience with us was Excellent. “Your employees are always helpful.” Sales help and operations were rated Excellent. “Your employees are always nice and knowledgeable. They are always ready and available to help.” Communications and products were Good. “I assume as good as any other pool store but Seasonal is our one and only.” Pool School, In-store advice and at home tutoring were all rated Excellent. She would recommend us to a friend. “Yours is the only pool store we use.” What do we do really well? “Always gives good advice and solves all our problems.”
► Added by Dennis: This is why I appreciate Namco staying in business. They sell way more pools than us, so they create lots of pool customers. And their customers are grateful when they come here. People like Wendy quite legitimately have no idea that we are different from any other pool store in the country. Why would she if this is the only pool store she has been in?
► Advertising, specials, and everything else continues from last week: “Family Fun Sale”
► Remember, we are closed Wednesdays until March.
► Happy Birthday to Rebecca M. on Tuesday, January 14.
► If you have items for next week’s Gull News, give them to Rose.
► Assume that people do not read signs, but they do think badly of stores that look like they are going out of business. So apologize to every customer about the look of the store as we prepare for the floor repairs. We are likely to look like this for more than a month.
► This year, we raised $52 from the boxes at the cash registers, $612.69 from sales of logo merchandise, and $259 from selling scrap metal. We also promised $254 for receiving 127 customer-service pools; for a total of $1,177.69. We gave out $2,075.00 in charity special gift certificates, and $2,408 in cash charity donations. Additionally, Jeanne and I have some other cash charity donations, but we are separating them so as to not affect your profit-sharing.
► I changed the Legacy special order pages to reflect a couple of new prices. The Heritage shuffleboards are being upgrade to the same MDF/veneer play field as the classic. That requires a price rise. The Sterling is also getting the same upgrade, but the price remains the same. Also, traditional oak finish is being discontinued due to lack of sales. If someone really needs traditional oak, have Ann research if they have anything left.
► Please park on the customer side of the parking lot, so potential customers can see your cars. They think we are closed when they drive by, because they don’t see any cars.
► A key design feature of the Contempra pool is the ability to add 12V lighting to the exterior. The new S pool has solar-powered lights available. The Oceanic also has the ability to replace the top caps with solar-powered lights. The 1/7/14 Price List shows prices. I am trying to get you some literature on these options.
► From Patrick: Change to redemptions for Seasonal Reward$ in 2014 – Seasonal Reward$ customers no longer have to print out a copy of their Reward$ certificate. They are being emailed a certificate number, which they need to provide to the cashiers in order to redeem their Reward$ dollars. Under no circumstances can you look up the certificate by the customers’ name. The customer can provide their certificate number from their smart phone – it could be written on a restaurant napkin – or they could have memorized it – as long as the customer has the certificate number, you may process their Reward$.
► From Rose: Dennis has a 12” TV/VCR that is free to the first person that asks. Please see myself or Anne-Marie if you would like it.
► Here is something that was still going on when I was a kid. Remember the book, play or movie: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?
From the Hippo: America’s foremost advocate for frontal lobotomies as “treatment” for mental disorder, the late Dr. Walter Freeman, performed an estimate 3,500 lobotomies during the 1940s and 1950s before opposition finally solidified against him, according to a December 2013 investigation by the Wall Street Journal. At the peak of his influence, he was so confident that he demonstrated the procedure to skeptics by hammering an icepick (“from his own kitchen,” the Journal reported) into both eye sockets of an electrical-shocked patients and “toggling” the picks around the brain tissue, certain that he was severing “correctly”. For years, Freeman (a neurologist untrained in surgery) marshaled positive feedback from enough patients and families for the procedure to survive criticism, and he spent his final years (until his death in 1972) securing patient testimonials to “prove” the validity of lobotomies.
► From the Reader’s Digest: Noticing a friend tossing off drinks at a bar, the man said to him, “Say, I thought you were allowed only one drink a day – doctor’s orders!” “Sure,” said the friend, “I’m following instructions exactly. This drink here, for example, is for August 4, 1971.” Eileen Morris in New Liberty
Asked why she refused to take tranquilizers prescribed by her doctor, a woman said: “The last time I was on them I found myself being friendly to people I wouldn’t even speak to otherwise.” Mary Lee Heinz