Blog Loser...MW Retreat and Breaking Dawn!!

Okay - I am brand new to this blog thing and I am seriously feeling like a looser. I have so many things I need to catch up on, but something else always gets in the way!

I have been pretty busy with MemoryWorks.....and Breaking Dawn....so between the two I am exhausted. We're gearing up for the back-to-school season, which for MemoryWorks means busy, busy, busy! All of the MW consultants are back to their routines and are ready to run their scrapbook businesses again...so I've been working on some really cool party plan guides to help them really make a big impact with their business. Unfortunately, that means typing 24 pages of ideas, suggestions, guides, etc....and my creative energy is spent. Luckily my mom works in our warehouse helping with orders, compiling kits, etc. so when I was at the MW office last week I went down to the warehouse in exhuastion and had her help with proof and edit my documents....so huge to have it off my shoulders for now. (Have I told you how great my mom is...she seriously loves helping any way she can!)

This was at the same time that Breaking Dawn came out...so between staying up late typing, I have also been pouring through all 750+ pages of Breaking Dawn...I bought the book at Wal-Mart on Saturday night when it came out and finished it last Wednesday....I so LOVED it, although I'm sad to say "goodbye" to my Twilight friends. I will posting more on this...but seriously Stephanie Myer needs to do another round of books on Jacob - love him...and have you seen who will be playing him in the movie...I'm usually not into long haired werewolves...but holy cow!! Can't wait for the movie!

I am also so excited that I finally completed the MW Retreat newsletter articles ...our retreat was in June and I just finished compiling a highlights article as well as a testimonial article from some of the attendees...the retreat was a huge success and went off better then I could ever dream. We put our hearts and souls into it...we planned everything down to the detail, had tons of staff meetings, etc. and it so paid off. It exceeded my, and the attendees, expectations in everyway - the best part was getting to meet our consultants and customers in person. We are rarely face-to-face with direct consumers and we were a bit nervous...but I have to tell it was what made the event for me! We were also lucky in the fact that we are key accounts with most of our vendors so they laid on the goodies and classes. Seriously - each attendee received something cool at every event....totally fun and surprising. I would guess that they each walked away with at least $500 worth of products, including the classes, cool Stacy Julian key-note, goodie bags and free prizes. Our vendors were also impressed with the event...we had many compliments from teachers that have taught at CKU, CKU-Japan, internationall events, etc. and they all said they had never been to an event as well-organized, smooth, etc. That was huge for us!!

Anyways we are so proud of our accomplishments and we did it with a fairly small budget and staff - it was awesome to see our team come together. Now everyone is wondering when our next retreat will be...and to be honest we will probably wait another year to do one. Although this retreat was a huge success...we need another year to regroup and really focus on our basic MemoryWorks program. Becuase we were so busy with preperations for the retreat...some of our basic programs got put on the back burner so we're taking a year to get back to business and then we'll be able to better determine when our next retreat will be....but the good news is we WILL be doing another one!!

I hope you enjoy the photos - we seriously had so many fun photos it was hard to narrow them down for our newsletter articles....but this will give you snap shot of how much fun the retreat was!!