PTO stuff

PTO has been crazy busy this year. We hope the rest of year (now that the holidays are done) slow down a bit. The biggest mess up this year was not even our fault, but that of Yankee Candle. Once we sent on our orders they gave us a date that the candles would be delivered. That date began to approach and the delivery date started getting pushed back. The delivery date came and went and we were continually told later and later dates until it became apparent that the candles would not arrive before the kids went on winter brake and it was questionable whether they would even be delivered before Christmas! Unfortunate since many people had purchased thing for gift or holiday decorations. We spent many hours on the phone calling parents to let know how things were coming along and give them a heads up in case any gifts needed to be purchased in replace of the candles.
I went off to California to attend Grandpas funeral and left the other ladies at home to continue to track the candles and field any calls that continued to come in from parents who we had left messages for. As I was coming back into Arizona on Dec 22nd i got a call from Tammi our PTO president that the candles would arrive in Phoenix that night at 9 pm...yea then they should be delivered to us the next day...right? NO. the trucking company was closing the next morning at 6 am for the Christmas holiday. Would sit on the warehouse and be delivered on Mon. What!!! they are that close and we still cant get them before Christmas!?!?!? Well Tami talked to the manager and told him about the mess we were in with the parent and how upset everyone was about the candles not being here by Christmas and he said if we could be at the warehouse with a truck, he would let us take the candles as long as we were gone by 6am so they didn't go into holiday pay. So after I pulled in from our 12 hours drive Chad and I went to u-haul to pick up a truck and Tammi and her husband went at 4am to pick up the candles. she called me at 5am...We had the candles!!! Finally. She picked me up at about 5:30 and we went directly to the school to unload 2 pallets of candles and with the help of one of our other PTO board members we organized the candles and started verifying the orders and at 8:30 started calling parent to come pick them up.

In the end we moved the ones that were not picked up to my house and I had people coming to get them on Christmas eve and even delivered one on Christmas day. I went down to the Yankee candle store in the mall half an hour away to try to replace messed up items that the warehouse was out of, but the stores had. (great reminder as to why I did my Christmas shopping a month ago) It was such a mess and such a hassle, we would never use Yankee Candle again, we are almost done getting things squared away with them...hopefully by next month I can wash my hands of them. In the mean time I need to go find the number to the cookie dough company we are hoping to use for our next fundraiser. This company ships the dough directly to to customers...yea!!