Traveling Class   Mireille Divjak

Scrapbook Mate’s Retailers Weekend

Part 3

Again it was really early when the alarm clock went. This time, however, we had enough time to first drink some coffee before we left the ship. We were the first to arrive and it’s so weird being alone in this large place. The stands looked all ready, the kits were ready, and we were mega excited. Michelle did a great job baking cakes and those cakes were placed at the entrance so the guests that arrived could have one.

There was fruit and other stuff, too, but needless to say the cakes went first. Some of the workshops started right away. I was standing at the make-and- take table but the first hour those that weren’t in a workshop were happy shopping . I couldn’t blame them with all the new goodies that were all around. Then, when I was about to walk upstairs to take pictures of the girls, all of a sudden there was a rush towards the make-and-take tables and I have to tell you there was absolutely no time anymore to take pictures. I don’t even have a picture of the make-and-take project (which was a lovely Christmas hanger with transparent circles, Christmas stamps, lots of glitter [of course] and hanging tags).

I had lunch at the make-and-take table. It was so incredibly busy that I couldn’t walk away for a minute and Emma, my make-and-take partner, was giving classes upstairs. Luckily there were a few really nice ladies at my stand that didn’t mind me diving under my desk every now and again to secretly take a bite of my sandwich.  I think 10 minutes after Emma’s class finished my class started. Just enough time for people to switch classes and for me to tell short “ins and outs” of the make-and-takes.

My first class was a little “special”. We had a very mixed group of people in class, from Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and of course England so I thought it would be a great idea to teach the class in English. I was prepared for that and how weird it may sound. I wasn’t prepared to teach in my own language. There were as much Dutch people in there as people that didn’t speak Dutch so I automatically assumed that the non-Dutchies wouldn’t mind… but I was wrong. Apparently there were non–English speaking and understanding people in my class that got very annoyed when I started in English.  They said they especially enrolled in my classes because I was the only Dutch-speaking person (not exactly the greatest compliment on earth but oh well…) so they “demanded a class in Dutch.

That kinda knocked me out of balance for a few minutes. Especially since after that some people were mega disappointed that the new Christmas line was sold out and I wasn’t going to teach with the newest products. Bad start, but after that it got a lot better. I offered the people that weren’t satisfied the opportunity to go downstairs and ask for a refund but then everybody remained seated. Guess it wasn’t that bad then.

We kind of had a blast half-way through class… especially when I showed new ways to use older supplies. Might be some great ideas for store workshops with older supplies. Happy afterwards, almost everybody seemed very happy and with my second class I was “more prepared” for what was about to come, and of course, then it didn’t happen. No demands. Totally fun class and I really, really enjoyed meeting so many nice people from different countries.

Emma was totally busy downstairs with the make-and-takes so unfortunately she didn’t have time to come upstairs and take pictures of me teaching. At the end of the day we all went to a “pancake ship”. This was so much fun. When everybody was on board, it took us sailing through the canals of Amsterdam. It was evening and the lights were on and it was such a pretty sight. After dinner, and I didn’t eat too many pancakes, we went upstairs on deck with our team and had a drink, enjoyed the scenery and yapped. It was beautiful and such a great end of the day. Hope to see you next month for the last part of Scrapbook Mate’s Retailers weekend.

If you are “bored” in the meantime you can have your daily dose of inspiration by Scrapbook Mate’s Design Team.

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