It's Sunday Tomorrow..!

It's hectic here..! Saturday started off flying, customer after lovely customer and that was after a very busy Friday. The trouble with being busy in the shop is that I didn't get into my workshop until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, which is crazy. Consequently some of the jobs didn't get done, not that they were needed for today but I wanted to get them finished early, never mind.
I could do with an on site jobber/goldsmith, my dilemma is that I don't want to send work out. I have tried that and you end up doing the job again sometimes because its not 100% right. Having someone at hand would allow me to train them to my way of getting the job done. I must put that ad' in the paper and see what turns up. Saying that 90+% of other jewellers send their work out and seem to get by, perhaps my powers of communication are lacking somewhere.
Time to pack up now, it's 5pm, late customer just walked in hope he doesn't spend next half hour looking the walk out without buying something.
My e-newsletter went out Thursday, still need to get more people signed up. The response has been good, apparently very good so my marketing people say, according to the open and click through rates. Its all good fun anyway, I hope people enjoy it, you never know it may just nudge someone to pop in and buy something.

Got to go now, Nancy and Brits got talent finals tonight, ye ha..! I will come up with something a bit more interesting next time.

Tuesday

We wake up to a lovely sunny day, take Josh (our great doggy) for a walk and get ready for the day ahead. First on the agenda is to sort out the petty cash and a few accounting bits and pieces, then its off to a BS Town centre partnership meeting to discuss CHRISTMAS..! Christmas lights, when they go up when they come down, can we afford them, how we placate the 30 people (out of 50,000) who think they ruin our planet by turning them on..? How do we raise the cash if the "councils" withdraw funding, how do we raise the cash to make BS look really festive? Late nights, Italian markets, PR, Advertising, BS "green" shopping bags, FREE car parking day, the marketing of BS in general, Etc. Etc. Etc.

(I'm the one in the middle)

Good meeting which straightened lots of issues out ready for CHRISTMAS. Then we turned to the Town centre partnership Action plan for 2008/09 which sets out our plans to improve the shopping experience for the people of BS. What has all this got to do with Jewellery, I hear you ask, absolutely nothing BUT it has everything to do with improving the surroundings in which Ce' The Jeweller trade and the type of town we want to live in, I think.

Anyway, Jewellery..! I have to get into the workshop and start the repairs for this week, with a bank Holiday next week I need to clear the decks a bit. I also have a few mounting jobs to complete for pending engagements and birthdays etc. During which we may have the odd (meaning 1 or 2 or 3) customer in, as we speak, I'm off to help one......................Lady looking for earrings for sister in-law, couldn't find any "cheap" , tacky ones to suite. They love each other really..! Jan & James, have I not mentioned James? He is a great asset, expensive but an invaluable member of our team, very arty and far too intelligent to work here. You will meet the others as we go along. Jan & James have been busy this morning with a few "odd" customers and perking up the Hearts on Fire display, doing the post and keeping everything going.

I'm off now to do some work, then we have Julie from Raymond weil to show us whats new from the annual Basel trade fair, at the close of play tonight we will all go out for a meal and talk business, dogs, Bournemouth amongst many other things. I have also booked in my marketing guy to see me, at the same time, Jan told me off but we will get round it.

BREAKING NEWS...........

I have just found out that someone is trying to bring our website down, underhand tack tics or what, by downloading 100's of 1000's of pages from our site they attempt to make it unusable. Blimey who have we upset? Apparently it's an NTL user, so they will know exactly who it is but of course because to the protection handed to crooks and tricksters they hide behind the "data protection" act. Anyway, its nice to know we are making enough of an impact on someone for them to really not want our website around. They WILL ultimately fail, so if you know how we can find out exactly which NTL customer is responsible, please let me know and I'll send Jan round to sort them out..!

Bye,

In the Beginning

Well, this is a new departure for Ce' The Jeweller, a BLOG SPOT..?

I'm not sure how this works but I will give it a go anyway. You may find all sorts of spelling and grammatical errors but hey, I'm a jeweller..! My name is Rob and with my wife Jan we own a small independent jewellery store in the UK. We started some seven years ago after a bust up with my former employer (who shall remain nameless, for now) We set out to change the way jewellery was sold, the environment, display and the jewellery its self. Seven years down the line we are still looking to change the world because the world has caught up with us.

Just to let you know, my training started at the age of seventeen when real apprenticeships still existed. The apprenticeship was a serious, signed contract between employer and employee which lasted for five years. I worked in a dingy attic in SOHO, London where health and safety just didn't exist. We made and repaired fine jewellery for most of the Bond Street retailers. It was a fine experience and my first job after leaving school, wow, that is such a long time ago now. As apprentices we did just about everything, make the tea, to do that we had to move the cyanide pot, used to clean silver, from the tea making table, Fred the polisher used to leave it there to warm up, almost every day he got a rollicking from the directors when cyanide fumes engulfed the workshop, he wasn't the sharpest tack in the box. We ran errands, had the mickey taken out of us, swept up every day searching through the fag ends and pipe tobacco looking for any diamonds or tiny bits of gold that may have found their way onto the floor, then, just sometimes we sat down and learnt how to make and repair fine jewellery.

More about my wonderful days past some other time, or I will be here all day.

The purpose of this blog is at least two fold, one is for me to find out how all these techie things work and the other is to publicise the world of the Jeweller, as I know it. We love our work and see all types of fine jewellery as real treasure. To see how each piece is made, how the goldsmith or diamond mounter overcame design problems, how the piece sits on the wearer, there are so many interesting facets to the jewellery trade, you just never stop learning and every day something new happens. I would love you to post a comment and ask me some questions, lets have a dialogue..! Over to you..!

The Jeweller