The Board Chronicles: Valencia High Choir Holiday Boutique

The Board Chronicles: Valencia High Choir Holiday Boutique 3 comments

The Board Chronicles is an ongoing series of articles about the adventures of Mrs M’s Handmade as a vendor at community festivals & craft fairs. Mrs M’s subsidiary, Mr M’s Woodshop, has been approved to create this chronicle for the good of vendorkind.

The Valencia High School Choir has sponsored a Holiday Boutique for 10 years. Their teacher, Mrs Tavares-Mocha, likes to have the boutique start on Friday so the students can see the merchandise during the schoolday on Friday and bring their parents back to the boutique on Saturday.

Works for me. Had a nice event in 2014 with sales of $812. We hoped to do better in 2015; additional marketing was secured to promote the event to the Valencia High community.

New Ideas

Students help vendors carry merchandise from the parking lot to the MPR. Loved seeing those young men and women struggle with the board containers. And no matter how much they struggled, I believe it was preferable to selling candy bars to raise money for the choir.
I set up and ran the event on Friday during my staycation, while the elder Mrs M ran the event on Saturday while I was at another event.
The merchandise and table we brought arrived in the Jeep and left in the Honda. Successfully, I might add.

Observations

I am still not used to the clothing worn by high school students. My guess is in 10 years I’ll simply stand in the front yard and yell at all passersby, “Get off my lawn.”
There was a domestic disturbance from a vendor one day. Loud enough to turn heads. Note Mrs M and I never were there together, so it wasn’t us.
Valencia High is the destination for many special needs kids in the school district who attend their classes on campus. That kind of exposure is good for everyone, I believe.
Vendor spaces were sold out with 26. Hope that doesn’t mean prices are going up….
Another child wanted to buy a single block at this event. However, when the child learned that S stood for Snake and not their name, they lost interest.
No students were caroling this year, which was a change from last year. That would have been a nice touch.
The Christmas sound track that was offered was nice when it was playing, but it seemed as if it went silent if left unattended.
Our booth neighbor kept telling Mrs M what a gem I am. Perhaps someday she’ll believe what she’s told.
A food option would have been a nice option as well. Note: no one starved.
Mrs Tavares-Mocha needs help; she coordinates this boutique herself. Where are the choir booster parents?
In addition to the sales recorded on Friday and Saturday, there were 3 quality conversations about buying boards (multiple boards in a couple of cases) that would substantially increase the value of this boutique to us. Happy to be a part of it!
Sales were up; the marketing worked. Or, uh, maybe our products are better.

The Food

Friday Breakfast: McDonald’s # 4. It’s a habit.

Friday Lunch: Made it home for a sandwich.

Saturday Breakfast: 5 raw almonds & a glass of milk (guess who ate this breakfast!)

Saturday Lunch: Chunky Skippy with Welch’s grape jelly on whole wheat

Saturday Snack: A cube of pumpkin bread and 2 crackers with homemade jelly from another vendor. Purchase activity ensued.

Saturday Dinner: Pistachio-crusted salmon with vegetables, and half of a Caesar salad, from Marston’s

(ed. note: Does anyone else notice how many nuts the elder Mrs M is eating? I mean, I knew she was nutty, but geez….)

The Facts

Total miles driven: 10
Booth cost: $180
# of people we met during the event from the producer: 1
Total sales: $923
# containers of product taken: 21
# boards available: 62
Friday alarm: 5:45a
Saturday alarm: up before the alarm
# transactions: 38
# soap & lotion vendors: one other lotion vendor with body butter & sugar scrubs
# woodworking vendors: just me
Edge grain vs. end grain: 5:0