Time Flies.
The years sure seem to go faster, the older I get. And every year we never get it all done. But we just keep trying as hard as we can and dancing as fast as we can. I can honestly say we all do the very best job we can do with the tools and staff that we have.
All in all 2018 has been a pretty good year here at Bee Culture. We’ve added two new people to our team and that has helped us to catch up on some things that were lagging and be ready to press on to several big projects for 2019.
The Bee Culture team taking a break during the ‘My Story’ event – Amanda, Jean, Johnny and Kelsey.
Kelsey joined us almost exactly a year ago. She’s the youngest member of our team and full of energy and eager to learn new things. If you call with a question or to subscribe it’s most likely going to be Kelsey that you talk to. She answers the phone for us, answers email, helps Amanda with subscriptions, does the mail and she make me laugh everyday. We are so happy to have her with us.
We also have Brenda new to the team. Brenda has been in the beekeeping industry for several years and is now doing our layout and design for the quarterly publication BEEKeeping, Your First Three Years. She is working remotely from her home in Minnesota. Thanks to today’s technology it’s pretty easy to make that happen. She has been able to visit Medina a couple of times since coming on board. Brenda was here to help us out with our ‘My Story’ event in October.
The rest of the team remains the same. Starting with Kim and I, the old folks of Bee Culture. We were just talking about our years here and figure cumulatively we have around 70 years experience with the magazine. We’ve seen a lot of changes, mostly for the better. We’re still enjoying the work here and looking forward to finishing some things, so we’ll be hanging around for a little bit longer.
Of our writers Jim Tew, Clarence Collison and Ann Harman were all writing for ‘Gleanings’ In Bee Culture before Kim and I started our journey. And they are still at the top as far as popularity. We treasure them and hope they stick around for a while too.
The room was full for ‘My Story.’ Stay tuned for next year’s event details.
Then we have Jean who is our Advertising Coordinator and continues to do an amazing job of reaching out to new and current advertisers. She’s always searching for new directions to go. And she’s only doing this part time for us. In Jean’s other life she is a dispatcher at a local hospital. She is one busy lady and we are so glad she finds time to be with us. Jean is not only a co-worker but a treasured life long friend.
Amanda is our Subscription ‘guru’. She knows all and sees all that has to do with our subscription program. She takes care of our Facebook and Social Media stuff and organizes our annual events and Pollinator Day each year. In other words she takes care of the detail stuff and tries her best to keep the rest of us organized. That’s a tough job! And she also makes me laugh everyday.
And then there’s Johnny. He is one of the IT people here at Root Candles. But he has really helped us out a lot in Bee Culture land. Johnny is our sound guy and computer guy and even puts on a bee costume and dances by the side of the road when we’re having our Pollinator Day. So we have kind of claimed him as our own.
Next year promises to be another busy one for us, but with all of these wonderful team members we’re ready.
It’s the 150th anniversary of the A.I. Root Company (Root Candles) and we’ll be doing our part in the magazine to highlight some of those activities. We’re tossing around some ideas for our annual event to tie that in with the celebration.
I am working on ABC and XYC right now and the plan is to have it out early Spring of 2019. We have other projects that will be released in conjunction with our celebration – a book by Tammy Horn Potter that has been on hold for a while, about a lady named Jane Cole that worked in our factory when A.I. was alive. The book gives her perspective and A.I.’s perspective during the same time frame. We’re also right now redoing the Autobiography of A.I. Root, to be released next year.
So there’s a lot going on and we’re going to try and enjoy the holidays, get a little rest and be ready to charge ahead in January.
I hope you all have the Christmas that you dream of, that you are surrounded by the people you love and that you have some peace and quiet. Enjoy the season!
