Good Morning Corvallis.

I’m getting straight to writing the blog post this week… so here we go!

We started with our 30 second commercials, as usual, though today was a little different. In order to prevent members from going over the 30 seconds, as it’s been known to happen from time to time, Bonnie had a bell and timed everyone. A few people got dinged. but it was a helpful reminder that these commercials are suppose to simulate the “elevator speech” where there is no room for rambling or unimportant information. Peg W. from Pathfinder Travel is very excited that many tour operators are picking up that people want to travel with their friends instead of large groups of people they don’t know. More and more tour operators are offering small group (up to 6 people) rates that are quite reasonable. Ilene {A&S Accounting} brought in an interesting document today. Did you know that charities are required to file financial reports with the Oregon Dept of Justice showing their income and expenses? The Better Business Bureau {BBB} issues guildelines that state that a charity should dedicate at least 65% of their funds to charitable programs and the cause they serve. Today we got a look at 20 charities that failed to meet that standard over a three year period and by how much. The worst only putting 3.63% of their funds to charitable work. Yikes! I won’t spill it here, but you can go to the Oregon Attorney General’s webpage for more info. On a more positive note Mary and Janelle shared that Drs. Bugni, Laster, and Jensen are accepting new patients at their Corvallis dental office. Also positive was Anne’s {Remax Integrity} information that interest rates are AWESOME, as low as 3%, for a mortgage. All the businesses and departments involved with home selling & buying are backed up due to the demand. Hooray! And Karen {KidSpirit & Girls on the Run} is excited to announce a GOTR garage sale coming up later this month. It’s going to be BIG and a lot of fun. You can check out more info here.

Our speakers today were Lora and Amy.

Lora is an Independent Creative Partner with the company Initials Inc. …but first a little bit about Lora. A graduate of Oregon State {Go BEAVS!} in speech/communication Lora went to work at a local home furniture and decor store, The Inkwell, until 2008 when she had her first daughter Bailey. She continued to work for them seasonally until she had her second little girl Olivia just over a year ago. With two little ones at home she decided that she wanted to generate additional income so that her girls could participate in fun programs like KidSpirit, swim lessions, etc. She found Initials Inc while reading a magazine and liked the foundation and future of the company. You can read more about Initials Inc. here.

Lora shared with us the brand-spankin’-new Fall/Winter catalog {good until February} and passed around the ring of fabric samples including fun new patterns. Initials Inc. & Lora use home parties to sell their personalized-monogrammed bags, cases, wallets, purses, totes, etc. Each month there is a hostess and customer special as incentive to invite more people or buy a little something extra. The August hostess special is a SoHo style purse called the East-West Bag for $20 {reg. $48}. Initials Inc. is also involved with a program called I-Care that gives a fixed amount of a specific product purchase to a skill building organization. For the fall/winter catalog $5 from every purchase of a Zip Around {reusable shopping bag} goes to support the building of a new sewing training center in Zambia. Good work Lora!

Amy was more of an impromptu speaker today as Peg W wasn’t feeling well after an emergency root canal yesterday. Ouch! However that gave Amy {Carefree Massage} the opportunity to give a helpful demo massage on Peg. If someone isn’t feeling well first Amy will ask them if they’re actually sick. Massaging someone who is ill can make their sickness worse so it’s important to know why they don’t feel well. If they’re not sick and she finds out for example that they just had a root canal then she’ll want to check on medication. A person who is heavily medicated may not be able to give her the cues she would need to know if her pressure is too hard and they might hurt worse for it later. So, starting out light and getting the muscles warmed up, checking on pressure and tenderness, Amy’s goal is to work out knots, relieve pain and tension, and help her client relax without causing more inflammation. Sometimes a little pain is expected, but only in that “hurts so good” way. As we watched Amy work on Pegs upper back and shoulders she opened the floor for questions. Peg O. asked about massage in conjunction with physical therapy {pre or post surgery}. Physical Therapy tends to be very difficult and strenuous on the whole body. Amy often finds that if a person is doing PT for their shoulder that their back and/or neck might become tight or sore from the unfamiliar and difficult activity. Massage can be a great tool to use with PT to help the rest of the body recover, relax, and heal.

Amy will come to your home or place of business for chair or table massages by appointment. Several of our PEERS members use Amy to give 10-15 min. chair massages to their employees and what a treat it is. Having Amy come to your home allows many people that are in pain to avoid a car ride or driving that might cause more pain. …From personal experience let me just say that Amy has a warm and gentle touch with healing energy radiating from her fingers. 🙂

That’s all for this week. Have a GREAT WEEKEND!!!