Hey!
Normally we’re pounding out blog posts and other social media outreach on a pretty steady basis. December hasn’t seen much activity in that regard. Why?
The fact is we’re running a little shorthanded this month. Normally we’re already just three folks working part time to keep R.H. Lindsay going. All three of us have other jobs or financial commitments that keep wool as one task on our usual work list. When our bookkeeper and invoice collector was called away to attend to a family health issue, it took us a bit to get our act together.
While we’re doing well collecting and invoicing the new stuff we see a line of orders where folks eluded paying us. If that happens to be you who hasn’t paid for your wool that was shipped in early December or sometime in November, it would be great if you would come forward and help us put it together. We have every intention of tracking you down, but how about helping us all out and sending an e-mail asking how you might help. Or better yet, respond to our initial e-mail with a phone number and time we may call you to get things fixed.
We’ll be on this path over the next week or two, so you have time to get ready.
Then as 2017 begins and our 80th year slips into the rear view mirror, we’ll start thinking up other ideas to stimulate interest in our products. We hope to do a lot of that this year and continue to get to know our customers better.
We probably won’t bring on many new products as last year saw us bring in a lot of different products. Most notable was some Tasmanian wool for our 26 & 27TAS carded sliver. We’ll have the 26TAS for quite a while, but be warned the clock has begun to tick on the 27TAS and we’re not sure we’re going to replace it. We also brought on our Primitive wool types 21DK and 23DK which is mostly Churro with a bit of Scottish Blackface thrown in. We’re evolving it to all Churro as we do new production given we dehaired some Churro and have that available as well.
We’ve nearly tripled our storage capacity in our Boston-area warehouse though, so we’ll be looking for more products to add to our selection. We’re looking at bringing on a 19.5 micron Domestic wool top for one thing. We will also be adding more types in their scoured (first stage processed) form as we’ll start bringing our scoured lots in house prior to sending them to the carding mill to be made into sliver. We’ve been happy with your reaction to these offers so far, so here we go.
One thing that we’re struggling with is adding more individual fleeces or greasy raw wool. We handle a lot of greasy wool in the Boston-area warehouse. We are finding a lot of growers hold onto their wool in poorly stored bags or locations. As a result, we have to be really careful and move this through fast. With our expanded warehouse we’re hoping we have enough room to handle greasy wool and not have it affect our other products. We’ll most likely put it on the One Off sections (currently empty) along with New Products and Greasy Wool sections, so keep an eye out and move fast when you see what you want.
So thank you all for your great support during 2016 which was our 80th year in operation. We’re looking forward with more anticipation than we were at this time last year, thanks to what you all did for us this year. So, Happy New Year! We hope we hear from all of you a lot in 2017 and beyond.