Administrative Professionals Day -Apr 22nd

According to Wikipedia, National Secretaries Week (the predecessor of Administrative Professionals week) was created in 1952. Working with the marketing firm of Young & Rubican, the International Association of Administrative Professionals was concerned about the shortage of skilled office workers and wanted to encourage people to consider careers in the secretarial and administrative support fields by promoting the value and importance of administrative jobs. In 1981 the name was changed to Professional Secretaries Week and in 2000 it was again changed to Administrative Professionals Week. The name changes reflected the changes in responsibilities and the expanding wide range of job titles taking place in the administrative support field.
No matter what you choose to call it, it is an opportunity to show your administrative staff how much you appreciate their hard work and dedication. You may think that a good salary, pleasant office environment and generous benefits are what employees want from a job. These are important of course, but when asked what they wanted, many responded that they wanted respect, to be appreciated and to know that the organization valued their contribution. A sincere "thank you" will go a long way.
In good times and in hard times, a loyal, professional staff contributes greatly to the health of any organization.
Call your gift basket professional assistant today! At Laurel Mountain Basket Company we offer a full line of appropriate corporate gift baskets , like our Daily Grind Gift Basket (shown). We design our gift basket to fit every taste and every budget.

Storm Warning

Only last week a woman came into my studio to ask if I had a gift basket with an emergency kit theme. I showed her one I had designed for one of my realtor clients that contains, among other things, a fire extinguisher and a first aid kit. She was thinking more along the lines of a gift basket with items a person would need if they were in a bad storm or flood. That may seem like an odd request, but it happens. Ask anyone from New Orleans or Florida.

Or Whately, MA, my home town. On Saturday evening, Whately was hit by a Microburst. I'm sure there is a difference between a Tornado and a Microburst, but I don't think my neighbors with the crushed cars or houses really care.

I was getting ready to go to a friends' house for a Girls' Night Out party. It was raining, hard, and there was lots of thunder and lightening and one point, the power went out. The storm only lasted about 20 minutes then the sky cleared, and the sun was shining brightly, so I left to drive to my friend's house. Twice, within a half mile from my house, I had to drive around large branches that had fallen and were blocking part of the road. I didn't think much about the situation until I came upon a tree that had fallen across the entire road. More importantly, it had taken the power lines down with it. I guessed I had found the cause of our power outage.

But again, I didn't put any real significance to what I was seeing. I turned the car around and headed for one of the other roads that would take me out of town. I didn't get far. As soon as I turned onto the second road. I saw another large tree had fallen across the road, and farther up the road, three or four more very large trees had either been uprooted or had split.

There went Girls' Night Out! I returned home and told my husband about what I had seen. He went out to see if he could help with clearing some of the roads. One thing about small New England towns, almost everyone has a chain saw. Within a couple of hours, most of the roads were passable.

The next day, I decided to take the dogs and spend some time at the studio where we would have air conditioning, a microwave, and computer access. When I got home that afternoon, we took a drive to see the damage and take photos. The damage from the storm was amazing! Houses, cars, boats, garages, barns, fences, were crushed and there had to be hundreds of beautiful old trees down. Incredibly, no one was injured. Among all the devastation, the atmosphere was actually kind of festive. It seemed that everybody was outside. Probably because there was no power for the tv or computer! When I'd stop to take photos, I'd get into conversations with the home owners or other people from the area who came to take photos and share their stories of the storm. Even the police officer stationed at a dangerous intersection told me how the road had been burned when the power lines fell. The horizontal line in the lower right corner of the photo above is burned asphalt.

This storm taught me a few things. My dogs hate storms, they shake and hide under the bed. I call them my "early warning system". Well, from now on, I am going to take their "warnings" a little more seriously. I am also going to continue to make sure we are prepared. Lots of batteries, gallons of drinking water, a non-electric can opener and I'm going to buy a camp lamp that runs on a 9 volt battery. Reading by flashlight is not as fun as it once was.

Home Town 4th of July

I live in a small New England town. Our current police station consists of a couple of rooms in the basement of what used to be a school house. Luckily, we have a great group of officers, little serious crime and the State Police barracks only a few miles up the road. Still, the town needed a new facility and one was appropriated. Unfortunately, there was little money left over to furnish and supply the space.
The problem was solved in true small town fashion... have a bake sale... well, actually the bake sale was a small part of the event that took place in Whately, MA on the Sunday after the 4th of July. A small group of town folk conceived an idea for a fund raiser. A triathlon. The First Annual Whately Police Triathlon. My company Laurel Mountain Gift Basket Company was proud to be a sponsor and my husband and I volunteered to help work the event. It was a blast!
I try to stay in shape. I work out three of four times a week, but I could never do what these 120 plus individuals did. Start out by swimming 1/2 mile, then run or walk the bike to the starting point to ride for 14 miles, up and down several hills, then run or walk the bike from the end of the bike course to the starting point to change shoes and run for three miles! I got tired just watching!
The participants were amazing but what was really amazing was that a group of people came together to accomplish so much. Two women, got an idea and rallied hundreds to their cause. The participants who registered and paid an entry fee. The volunteers who woke at dawn in order to be at the town beach at 5:45 a.m. to help get the courses and participants ready. I overheard more than one volunteer laugh about how little they slept the night before, afraid they would sleep thru the alarm. Most of the volunteers had never even seen a triathlon before that Sunday, never mind participate in one, yet the event went without a hitch.
As in any USAT sanctioned event, safety is the number one priority. Which made another group of individuals that needed to be recruited. The town ambulance with emergency personnel was standing by, the regional dive team was on site, and those police officers not competing were stationed along the route to insure the safety of the bikers and runners. Again, it was the efforts of the organizers and volunteers that brought this all together.
I am so proud of the people in my small town. I can't think of a better way to celebrate the 4th of July than working with my neighbors to make my little corner of the world a better place to live. See you all again next 4th of July for the Second Annual Whately Police Triathlon.
Marie

The New View

The economy is impacting every business in some way or another. Many of my clients have had to cut back on gift giving even though they know that recognizing others is an important part of doing business. We have been looking for ways to allow them to continue giving high quality gifts while keeping within their newly revised budgets. Laurel Mountain Basket Company is proud to announce that we have found the solution!

We have partnered with one of our favorite suppliers and are now able to offer our clients a line of private label, locally produced, gourmet food items. Our clients can choose from a wonderful variety of New England style treats, like Cranberry, White Chocolate Brownie Mix, which is sooooo yummy, Clambake Spices, a down east seasoning for chowders and sea food that also makes a kickin' dip and other radically fun foods. Beautifully packaged and labelled with the company logo or special greeting, these unique gifts make great favors for corporate events, conferences or special promotion!

We can combine a package of cranberry flapjack or maple scone mix with a mini jug of pure Massachusetts maple syrup, add the company logo and create a one of a kind gift that makes a great impression.

Marie