Hello everyone!
I am looking forward to hopefully opening and seeing you all really soon.
It is strange how exhausting isolation and restricted activities are. Perhaps this is caused by the stress of new ways of living though Covid restrictions.
I cannot believe that it is exactly one year since we opened at our new Croydon Store! It was such a tough decision to leave our safe little perch in Railway Avenue Ringwood East. I remember talking the option through with one of our team, Aleisha. She was so excited, she closed the Ringwood store (for only 5 mins) to go down and have a look at the shop in ‘The Mall’ that was up for rent. She rang me back telling me “Bron, we have to do this, the store is perfect for us” and somehow that was enough to give me the courage to jump into the new space.
I am so glad we did! If you haven't seen it, the new store is much bigger which means we have been able to increase our range of beautiful fair trade goodies. The best thing has been the support and generosity we have been blessed with from this beautiful community. While painting and setting up the new store, we received many smiles, waves and ‘thumbs up’ from people getting our attention through the window just walking by. What a welcome! The whole community seemed excited to have us move in. This was the best feeling and very encouraging that we had made a great decision to become a part of the community.
Since we opened, October last year, we have had all the Covid restrictions and shut downs to cope with, yet through all this, you have reached out and supported us. I have people sending me so many encouraging texts and emails; which really does warms my heart. While working alone in store, fulfilling our online orders, people walk past and I can hear them say “I love this shop”. You have no idea of how encouraging this is, and how much energy and courage this gives us to keep moving forward.
Not only do I want to thank the community on such an amazing year but I would also like to thank the team for all their hard work throughout such a challenging year. Each one of the team works so hard in their role to bring this effort together. I was looking at the team on ZOOM meeting yesterday, thinking just how blessed John and I were to have such amazing humans working with us toward our Fair Trade goal.
Finally, I want to give a big heartfelt THANK YOU to each one of our fabulous customers! You are amazing too. Without each of you, and your consistent and generous support, none of this would be possible.
As I said at the beginning, I am missing your smiling faces and I hope to see you all very soon.
Bring on another amazing year!
Bron
