Author: kaileyw389

WOW! Those weeks went by so fast!

I spent the day finishing up all the projects from throughout the week and preparing for the 8th Grade Celebration. We blew up 36 balloons, prepared and distributed 20 gifts throughout CA, and completed a few other small tasks. It was mostly a day of reflection which wasn’t very exciting, but it was very needed. I also ran the store independently, checking out multiple customers and making beverages at the beverage bar, with all the knowledge and experience I had gained over the two weeks.

I’m going to miss working with Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Bowles, but I’m excited to be continuing this role during the next school year through an independent study!

The biggest accomplishment of the day had to be selecting next year’s PE uniforms. Mrs. Hall and I met with Coach Cherry, Coach Bryant, and Coach Shaw to update the style of the shorts. The biggest update will be the fact that we’re now offering a female cut (think along the lines of Nike shorts) to the traditional youth/ adult basketball shorts. In addition, we’re changing the material from the mesh, large hole material of the jersey and shorts to be a more breathable, attractive material.

After the meeting about the uniforms, we had our last vendor meeting with Jeff Stern. It was very similar to the other meetings in that there was a big rack of clothing. However, this time Jeff brought out a huge selection of hats, including casual hats, sports hats, and even trucker hats. There was a huge selection of styles and logos available in trucker hats. He also included home decor, including picture frames, coasters, magnets, and tabletop signs. Here are some of the samples Jeff brought in:

After lunch, I spent a few hours organizing the storage room for Charger Corner. All the extra merchandise that’s not out on display is boxed and shelved until it gets pulled out onto the floor. At the end of the year, the storage room gets pretty unorganized and it’s hard to find specific merchandise. I went through the boxes and counted inventory of all the items we have left and organized the boxes by category (ie. youth, water bottles, bags, athletic, etc.). Here is a picture of the before and after:

Today, I ventured off campus to do some research for the new cafe on CA’s campus.

The new cafe will have a pastry display next to the register. It makes sense for whoever is working the register to hand the customer the pastry upon checkout. Only, technically according to health codes, after handling money you must wash your hands, put on gloves, and use tongs in order to handle food. This is impractical when you have a line of customers that want to order. Therefore, I went to different cafes to see how they deal with these rules. I went to Panera, La Farm, and Starbucks and I couldn’t find a logical fix to the problem. I guess we’ll have more research to do another day!

Another vendor meeting was scheduled for today but unlike last time, I wasn’t new to the game. This time, I was more experienced.

Like last time, the meeting started with a nice man entering Charger Corner with a rack of clothes. This rack of clothes, however, was much smaller than the one from my first vendor meeting. He explained how he was no longer selling Nike’s collection, only smaller companies. Similar to the last meeting, he handed us a catalog and went through the different styles of clothing. However, this time the clothes weren’t athletic styles, they were casual, more everyday style clothing.

Yesterday, I was told that I would have the opportunity to sit in on the final meeting where the details of the new cafe would be finalized. It was scheduled to start at 9am in CA’s boardroom. I knew this was going to be a very professional environment so I got there early enough to be respectful without being so early that I would be waiting around. At 8:55, I was standing outside the room working up the courage to walk inside. I opened the door and there were three people standing around a huge table. They seemed a little confused when a 16-year-old walked into their meeting. Even though I was dressed and educated properly, I felt so out of place. I attempted to defuse the situation by saying “Hi, I’m Kailey. I’m a rising senior working with Ms. Hall on opening the cafe. I’m supposed to be sitting in on the architecture meeting, am I in the right place?” and thankfully I was. They then continued to talk amongst themselves leaving me to take a seat and wait. Dr. Ehrhardt and Mrs. Goodnight walked in next and I started to get more overwhelmed. Thankfully, Ms. Hall wasn’t long after and the meeting started. Once we started discussing the plans for the renovations, my nerves calmed down and my brain kicked in. I can’t share the specifics, but the renovations are going to be amazing! I can’t wait for the end of the year when the space will be finished.

After the meeting ended, I discussed with Ms. Hall some of the details and prep work that need to get done. For the remainder of the afternoon, I worked on those miscellaneous tasks.

Wow! It seems like I really am learning something new every day!

5/29/2019 at 10am marked the start of my very first Vendor Meeting. Being 16, I don’t have very many similar experiences to relate this to. That means I had no idea what to expect. Leading up to the meeting I had so many questions; How long will the meeting take? Would I be able to contribute or will my opinion be overlooked? Is someone about to walk in with a mountain of clothing or just a bunch of pictures? How many of each product will we buy?

A few minutes after 10, Bryan Harmon came into Charger Corner with a huge rack of clothing and handed Ms. Hall, Ms. Bowles, and I each a catalog. He introduced himself and seemed very nice and energetic. 

He pulled out each style of t-shirt, pants, jacket, bag, hat and answered any question about the material, the colors available, the price, and the minimum purchase count. Honestly, I started getting overwhelmed when he started talking about the tri-blend material vs the typical athletic material. Both Ms. Hall and Ms. Bowels seemed to know all about the different styles and common terminology, but I didn’t. I asked a bunch of questions to ensure I always understood what they were talking about. Ms. Hall and Ms. Bowels asked me a bunch of questions too about my preferences as I fit the profile of the potential buyers. I always gave my honest opinion but it was hard to speak on behalf of the entire student body. Luckily, Ms. Hall knew the student’s interests well and a general idea of what the students are looking for. I would say it was a big success even though I didn’t really know what to expect. The next step is to take all the designs and decide what we will sell the next school year. Here are some of the samples that were shown that you might see coming to stores next year!

Mrs. Hall found out last minute that she would unexpectedly need to run Charger Corner all day. That meant instead of getting straight to work on preparations for the new café, I  started by learning the details that went into the existing store at CA. Like I did (not more than 10 hours ago), you might think running Charger Corner is just sitting behind the register waiting for someone to checkout, but like me, you’d be wrong. When I wasn’t checking someone out, I was restocking items from the back, counting/ checking on inventory, clearing items that can’t be resold next year (ie. 2018/2019 planners), making gift cards for the incoming 6th graders, and lots of general cleaning around the space. Tomorrow I’ll have my first vendor meeting where I will help choose the apparel that will be sold in the store next year! I can’t wait!