January 3rd the first Thursday of the year and subsequently the day determined to be the inventory count for the whole gift shop. This is the day that has caused me very late nights and some difficulty sleeping… So today I was pleasantly surprised to have so much help with the counting….this began last night with Gale and Becky G and I counting most of the items in the office and in the store room, this is something that we have not been able to do in the previous counts.
The day began with doughnuts and coffee, then the troops began to arrive….Howard, Pam, Kim, Roxanna, Sharyn B, Mike Chisler, Chelsea, Danielle, JVs Shelley, Brianna, and Andy. The counting began and then some reinforcements arrived prior to lunch…Monica and Dena, Bonnie and Bethann came over after cleaning to help if needed.
We had lots of people counting so Bonnie and Dena started working on the plethera of petitions to be entered into the spreadsheets. By lunch we had almost finished counting the whole Gift shop!!!! We broke for lunch from Olive Garden that BCR kindly paid for, everyone in the back yard. After lunch we finished up the last corner that we had left to count, got another helper in Mike Pope, and also finished the recording of all of the totals. The only thing left at this point was entering the totals into the physical inventory, (this is the part that usually takes Howard and I hours to do and is why we are not done until 10PM-12AM).
Gale was short for feeding and I got to go help feed the cats and sign off on Valerie for feeding while Monica, Howard, and Mike continued the process. We finished with feeding and I returned to the gift shop only to find that the 20 pages of inventory had been tallied and entered into the system.
WE WERE DONE WITH EVERYTHING BY 6:15PM. This was absolutely amazing!!! We were done so early that Roxanna and Sharyn even had time to clean the bathrooms so that they will be nice and shiny for guests tomorrow. I cannot begin to really put into words how thankful that I am for ALL of the help that was graciously provided today.
Since Phyllis was unable to help with the counting she volunteered to come in for a few hours and help write some thank yous. I should mention that I was also contacted by Janet and Lisa A who were planning to come in to help, but since I had plenty help for today, they both agreed to come in tomorrow for the tour since I think we will be very busy. I thank them for their flexibility and willingness to help when and where they are needed.
While all this counting was going on the cats were being well cared for by Gale, Marie, Barbara, Nanci, Marylou, Vanessa, Andrew, Valerie, Nicole, Becky, and Annette. If I have missed anyone that made today possible in this update I apologize, I feel like I can finally take a much needed breath now that inventory is over.
THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!! Have I mentioned lately that BCR volunteers ROCK!!!!! Check the blog and the daily photo updates for photos of today’s inventory party, I took lots that I will be sending to Carole.
Sincerely grateful for all the help,
Honey
