Outreach 24/7

Isn't this a great picture of Dee and Santa at Molback's? This was on Bryan's first Woodinville Wine Tour done through Meetup.com. Click here if you want to see more pictures of the day.



What I like best, of course, is that Santa has been handed Dee's Tours Northwest business card and is intent on reading it despite the holiday moment. Thumbs up, Dee!

Signups!

It's nearly Dec. 1st and people have been asking about Spring Signups. We are going to try to do these in a new and efficient way. We are adding tours to our brochure times, due to the Olympics, so there should be more tours to signup for.



1. Signups will take place over 3 days (hopefully), Dec. 11 through 13th. (Each person, according to seniority, will be assigned an hour slot after consulting with you re your availability. It may well not take an hour to accomplish what we need to do.



2. We will be signing up for 3 months, not 4 months. This quarterly system will also be utilized for Quarterly Reviews so I can have a regular sit-down with each guide who will be working over the next quarter.



3. This is not meant to be a "hot and heavy" confrontation, but rather will be essentially an information session that both sides benefit from. I'll ask a wide range of questions: from availability during off-scheduled days to update address/tele/email info to Auto-Deposit of Paycheck to IRA contribution decision. We will cover goals for the upcoming quarter, as well as compensation issues. If you come in, you will be paid for the time spent; if we do this over the phone, you will not be paid for your time.



Stay tuned!

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Here is a snapshot of the floor of one of the coaches after a tour this week. The guide either did not walk the coach after the tour, or did not think this trash worthy of being picked up. (In another section of the coach, there were a pair of gloves and another guest called about leaving a cell phone on the coach-though that was never found.)



I'm tempted to make an online survey to see if others feel this small amount of trash should have been picked up. Windows smears are sometimes hard to see; dirt of floor is hard to judge ... but trash is TRASH and should NEVER be left on the floor or in the coach.



Walk your coach EVERY TIME. Pick up trash. Do the windows. Sweep if necessary; mop up spills!



Here's some other recent unacceptable floors:



Cell phone cameras are a terrible thing to waste: they will now be used!

Wine Tasting!

We are in the process of investigating a wine tasting tour for the new year. As we did with the Famous Tour earlier this year, I have set up a few Meetup groups to test out the concept with us (one of the participants on Thu. had gone with Bryan on his inaugral Famous Tour.) You are more than welcome to come along to 1. have fun 2. put your toe in the water with this potential new tour. 3. And visit a distillery!



Visit Meetup.com and take a look; Bryan will be running this one on Sunday, Nov. 29th.



Nicole, Bryan and I went to Woodenville this past Thu. night for their Third Thu. Wine Walk. See pictures for that Meetup at the Whim Tour site.



Remember the Boeing-Winery tours we had four years ago? We'll be going back to Columbia Winery this Sunday! It remains a gorgeous place.

Policies

Odd and End policies that have come up this week:



1. Do NOT add any fluids to the engine compartment without approval! This includes spraying some compound on the belts to stop squeeking.



2. Keep up the great work on cleaning coaches after your tours to make them READY TO GO for the next driver. I took a random survey (and will continue to do so)and as a company we scored near 3 on a scale of 4. More soon....

2009 End of the Year Party

Click here to see all of the individual pictures.