Show Time

Today we set up the Greater Edmonton Teachers’ Convention. I am excited about it. There are 15,000 to 20,000 people attending Thursday and Friday….Show Time…I teach a couple of workshops this afternoon then we go. We haven’t heard back from the other company since we told them we will not be stopping The Clay Teacher. As I have said before, a little competition is a good thing.

Jim got the painting the projects video on the website. I wasn’t feeling well the day we shot that video so I look like a grumpy old woman, but other than that, it’s good. I would like to reshoot it soon and replace the grumpy old woman with a more friendly me. It will be awhile before we get that done, but we have this done for the convention.

I will let you know how the convention goes.

Until next time.

Cindy

The Clay Teacher

Every Other Day is Friday

The days go by so quickly, it feels like every other day is Friday and today is Friday again.

We went out to supper for Family Day but the Po Boys turned into mediocre Greek take-out but eat in. We were not the only ones that thought half price Po Boys was a good idea, and most of those people were smart enough to make a reservation. We had a choice of an hour wait or move on to Plan B. Plan B was wander down the street toward the car and see what we found. Not always the best plan when you are on Whyte Ave and don’t want to spend an arm and leg for dinner, but we did come across a little take out/eat in Greek place. It was okay but not the same atmosphere as the Cajun dinner. We will try again next Monday and I will make a reservation.

The company that wants us to shut down The Clay Teacher has finally replied and they are going to try to take it to the next step. It is unfortunate that they are taking this path but we will walk it with them. We have never shied away from…much of anything. I think of a bit of competition keeps us all on our toes.

Next week is the Greater Edmonton Teachers’ Conference. We are looking forward to that. As I have mentioned I do like “Show Time” If we had stayed in the wholesale pottery business we would be setting up the Alberta Gift Show this morning. We would be up and loading or have loaded the trailer with all the schtuff I mentioned before, booth, carpet, shelves, pots etc etc. and then the 12 hour set up time. I am looking forward to the Teachers’ Conference. We have some new projects, the updates to the web site will be online, we are meeting some people and all that and more with out the big booth, shelves and tots and tots of pots. It should be an interesting conference.

I played at bit this week in the studio. It was fun. I will see if I can get some pictures up this week end.

Until next time.

Cindy
The Clay Teacher

Family Day

When I first started The Clay Teacher I thought I would blog everyday and tell everyone about the kids. It’s really hard and as much as I enjoy the kids the stories start to sound repetitive. Not that I have told a lot of them. But I have worked with almost 2,000 children and the stories and the students do blend. So I thought I might make this a bit more personal and try to do more of a “what I did today” then only The Clay Teacher.

I live with my husband Jim, who is the other half of The Clay Teacher. He does everything but be in the classroom. He does that as well if the classes are large. He will help me in a few weeks. We are going out of town and working with about 200 students in 2 days. The first day is a heavy day. They have booked about 130 students, so Jim will come along and help. That’s a lot of clay and projects to carry, not to mention trying to talk to every student. When I go to a classroom I try to help or talk to every student and our first class is almost 50 students. I like it when Jim comes with me, we work well together. We have been working together since we met in 1999.

My/our Kaileigh lives with us. She is 20, going to NAIT and is in her first year of a two year computer course. She is studying web building, programming and whole lotta things I don’t understand. But her marks are good and she is enjoying it. So I don’t need to know. She has a boyfriend Andy or Andrew depending on, well I am not sure, so we just call him Andyrew. It seems to have stuck. He is a good kid and takes the teasing well. His options are limited, if he wants to spend time with the daughter, he has to put up with the parents.

My/our son John lives with us for a very short time. March 4 he is going to Brisbane Australia for an undetermined length of time. He is 18 and never lived on his own before. It might be a bit of a shocker for him. I told him to hurry up and move out while he still knows everything. If he hits a snag, he will be completely on his own. We can’t come over and fix it, or he can’t come home just for supper and visit like he could if he lived …... in the same hemisphere. He has found a good little car that is reliable and has a temporary place to land, a vacation condo at $700 a week. But that can’t last long and he will find a rental. He is a smart boy and will do fine. And I keep telling him and he agrees, if he really doesn’t like it, come home!

Today is Family Day, I plan to play a bit in my studio and then we are going out for supper. There is a nice little Cajun place on Whyte Ave and they have half price Po Boys on Monday nights, so we thought it would be fun and affordable to go out for Po Boys and sweet potatoe fries. I will have to walk the treadmill for sure today!

Another Month Bites the Dust

Another month has past since I blogged. If anyone reads these they know I am a very poor blogger. It’s hard to write often. Hard for me, I just get busy and wander off. Then a month goes by.

January we received the email from the other company telling us we had to shut down. We told her no, and we haven’t heard from them since. As I said, there a number of schools out there, more than enough to go around.

We went to our first Teachers’ Convention the first of this month. It was great. We had a wonderful time. Met the teachers from North Central Alberta, were well received and The Clay Teacher looked good. I like “show time”. The people, the promotion and of course the business all crammed into a couple of days is really fun. We will be at the Greater Edmonton Teachers’ Convention next week. I am excited about it. This type of trade show being smaller and only promotion are so much easier to do. One of the best things about these shows is the set up and the knock down. When we did pottery, either wholesale or retail, we would take hours to set up and then tear it all down. We would bring in carpets, lights, walls, shelves not to mention the tots and tots of pots and all the work to make them. We would get home hours after the show had ended. Most venders at the retail show would be home and finished supper and Jim and I would be still knocking down our booth. After the North Central Convention we were home with our three tots and a box, 90 minuets after it ended and it took that long because we had to wait to load the car and drive in Friday afternoon traffic. I doubt we ever do a show again where we have to do the booth, shelves, carpets and all that ever again. I’m too old for that schtuff.

I am really enjoying being The Clay Teacher. It is doing well and I have quit my job with the City teaching the adult classes, as of the end of March. I like teaching those as well, but it is nights and weekends. I work week days in the schools and I was trying to keep a few wholesale clients supplied with pottery and it got to be a bit much. So I have let my wholesale clients go and now with no night classes or the Sunday afternoon class, I am hoping to start playing in the clay again. We will keep the webpage for retail and I have promised a few people to do their wedding registries and we will continue to do those. Clients really like that. We make them their own webpage and their family can shop from all over the world. The wedding is often here in the city, so all the pottery doesn’t need to be shipped and if it is out of town, someone will be going and they can take it with them. It works well. There is one really fun retail show we would like to do this summer, but it doesn’t require a booth and all the other set up that goes with a regular retail show and it is a hoot to be there. Other than that, I am looking forward to playing in the clay again. It has been a busy couple of years.