Franchise Purchase - almost! also Bits & Pieces

DEER ALERT:  As I write this I just glanced out the window of the Den and am now watching two very wet deer nibbling the grass on the front lawn.  Can't see any spots on them, but they are definitely very young.  Both my phone and my camera are upstairs, otherwise I'd take a picture of them!

I think the hardest part of this whole franchise purchase has been finding a lawyer to work with us!  After spending what seems like forever on Wednesday trying to get a lawyer to take this (seemingly simple) on, Grant suggested I call Robson O'Connor in Ladysmith, as we have dealt with them in the past - a few years back with the 'Agreement' between Mom and us.  I hit gold when I spoke to Paul Nettleton, who has been extremely helpful in expediting this, when everyone else said it 'could not be done'!  Gratitude is also due to Beverley and Buffy's lawyer in Vancouver, who at our request drafted the agreement - staying late and putting this ahead of other work - and forwarded it by email to Paul.  With a few hiccups which we overcame this shows that sellers and buyers can successfully negotiate a sale - whether it be of a physical property or a small business - without using a broker.  I do agree that if what is being sold is a more complicated property - private or commercial - then often an experienced broker is needed.  But those are not nearly as common as 'normal' residential properties and small businesses.

I also just phoned HO using the 1-888 phone number, and luckily Nadia answered the phone.  She is the one who coordinates the training.  She said I was on her list to contact today.  I gave her my tentative flight arrangements, and she will make the hotel booking for me today.  She will forward me a full email with all needed info on Monday.  I think it is safe for me to start getting more excited!

Grant and I have an appt at the Lawyers at 2pm, and I have just set up a time with at the bank to get a Money Order.  Next week will be busy now that this is a 'done deal' - Some things we can wait til the week I'm back from training to do, but others I want to get prepared next week.

Heather is off to Pre-SOAR Camp at Creina this afternoon, and will be back Sunday morning.  Her car is full, and will be fuller when she comes back from Morrell where she is doing an Interpretive session, and puts her personal gear/packs in the car.  At least on Sunday she will only have her gear!

Ian called yesterday- actually on Amanda's phone, but as we were out, she handed it to me.  He wanted me to check his email last night in case there was anything urgent work-wise.  He then called again around 8:30pm while he was driving to Kimberley - using hands free??? - to pick up his rain jacket which he left there last week.  Because he is working this afternoon, he was planning on staying overnight in the van then possibly calling me in the morning.  He said 9:30 - tho I'm not sure if he meant our time or his time!

Even tho the day is supposed to be as wet and dreary as today, I'm planning for Grant and I do go down to Victoria for the day tomorow.  I have the Museum membership which I bought while I was still working, and I'm sure we can find a few other interesting things to look at.  Once I am back from training Grant and I should try to take at least one day each weekend to go down to 'our area' and do pr.  Eventually when we 'wrap' the car just doing normal activities will also work!

Earlier this week I set aside my travel pack etc - but did not start acually packing anything for fear of 'jinxing' the deal.  Once we've signed etc this afternoon I will feel free to start packing for real...!

BUSINESS plans/ideas

WOW - LOTS TO DO, excitement, trepidation!  Last night I booked my flights to/from Moncton, leaving Victoria 1130am on Saturday June 4th, and leaving Moncton at 7am on Sunday June 12th.  I'm making up TO DO lists, and am slowly ticking items off. 

• Yesterday I checked with both the City of Nanaimo and Duncan about Business Licenses and found that the municipalities in the Cowichan Reg. Dist. have an 'Inter Municipal Business License' for businesses working in all or several areas.  $100/yr available from any of the 'halls'.
• Next week I will work on getting our Business Insurance
• Banking:  I will get the Merchant Accounts set up for VISA/MC; open up a separate Business Account...
• We need to decide if we will just work under 'pg cowichan valley' or CedarHill Consulting or a variation of that.  I think the CedarHill is best, as we can vary what we are doing and stay with one name

• I will do some research and decide whether we need Simply Accounting or Quick Books.  I think I will see if I can get Grant to look at the companies' two websites and make some decisions before I buy software.

And lots more ideas!  I'm 'waiting' for the lawyer to call me this morning so I can set up an appointment - if his schedule is too full I will need to make lots of phone calls to find another one...we must proceed and CLOSE on June 1st or all is for nought..which would be a big shame!

Business Owners...really close now....!!

Well, we received the final bits of information this morning that we needed for our decision to go ahead with our purchase of the Cowichan Valley PropertyGuys.com franchise!  I hope to meet with the lawyer tomorrow.

stuff & things

wow - what an imaginative title that is! 

This morning's weather looks much more hopeful for the day, which is supposed to actually be warmer and not rainy at all...maybe even actually sunny. So far it is cloudy, but high cloud that might burn off.

Yesterday 'in between things' I spent time actually organizing my photos on the computer into categories, deleting junk and many duplicates.  Much easier to find what I want to see/use!  Made me feel rather homesick for the house in Cedar...  And photos of cats/kittens and puppies also really pulled at my heart.  Seem to have lost a lot of photos when I had a computer crash - or was that when I upgraded to Windows 7?  The puppy pictures of us out on the front lawn with them - showing them off to prospective new owners - seem to be all missing.  And I do know a lot of my digital photos are missing.  One of the hazards of the digital age...  I do plan on getting a separate hard drive sometime this year...hopefully that will eliminate that problem.

This afternoon I meet with Jan at the bank to discuss finances for us possibly buying the Cowichan PG franchise.  There are pros and cons to it, but Grant seems very much for it.  Tomorrow at noon we have a meeting with the current franchise owners.  And sometime today/this evening I will check out the 'profile' I received the link for - which is the next step in purchasing the franchise.  If we do - and the timing is right - then I will be heading to Moncton NB for training the week of June 6-10.  I'm hopeful that I can manage to get flights and hotel arrangements that are ok prices.  I'd kind of like to go over on the Saturday rather than the Sunday to give myself time to look around...otherwise, arriving in Moncton at the airport at almost midnight Sunday night would make for a very tired day!  But so far I've only checked the flights from Vancouver....I just thought that I could fly from Victoria and have Grant or Amanda drive me down..must check that possibilty out!

My WORK is moving too!

As if moving house is not busy enough, now my work is moving!  I no longer work for Nanaimo Telephone Visiting Society - we have changed our name to Nanaimo Seniors Visiting Society.  And we will be moving to the same building as United Way (and several other non-profits) at the end of October.  We will be saving money, and having the plus of being with other similar agencies.  Having United Way just down the hall will be great for increased visibility!

With me being away for two weeks for moving house, we don't have a lot of time to get ready for our move.  Today we started going thru boxes and deciding what goes to Value Village, what is garbage, what is paper recycling/shredding - and what we want to keep.  I know that we will need to have a volunteer or practicum student help us with re-sorting and organizing all the papers into useable resources.  We did junk old day-books, hundreds of thank-you letters going back to the early 80's, etc.  But I kept a variety of really interesting in/out letters.  Some of the most interesting were letters to and from government officials and politicians - including Premier van der Zalm! We even have a personal letter from the Premier!

We do need to find a place to store some of the things which we won't need til Christmas, etc - then I hope we can be finished with a huge lot of seasonal decorations.  We use the Nanaimo Ecumenical Centre every year, and therefore take advantage of their decorations.  We just won't have the space to store all this stuff.  And we did not use it this past Christmas.

At the top is our current logo - NTVS standing for Nanaimo Telephone Visiting Society.  We don't know what our new logo will be - for NSVS - but hope to know soon as the local web company who is working on our new website is also working on our new logo.

Home Business?

With everything I've learned with selling and buying houses this year, and my interest in Home Staging, I'm percolating an idea about starting a new small business. Not sure how it would work - but....



My idea is to look at the photos and listings for houses, and work with realtors and home owners to better present the home. Maybe to connect with several realtors and have the service included.