Fresh From The Oven....

We have another little one to add to our growing number of babies. Hayden Elizabeth was born last night at 10 PM. She weighed 6 pounds and 11 ounces. Both she and Brooke Ewing are doing just fine! Congratulations to the Ewing Crew who now number 5!!! Yvonne

CAD's Are On The Way

It's the time of year that we begin gearing up for Customer Appreciation Days. Here are a few ways to guarantee your day to be a success. 1. Advertise early: Get the word out to all of your customers and to folks in town. Give them the date and time and let them know that you will have free food and prizes! 2. Be excited: Every time you let someone know, make sure that you talk excitedly about this day. If you don't seem excited, they won't want to come. 3. Show up prepared: If this is your first CAD, get with a more experienced office SEVERAL weeks in advance and get your stuff together. Alot goes in to making these days fun for both customers and employees. You will want yours to be a success and planning makes it happen. I hope you all enjoy your day very much. Feel free to call me or any one of the Area Managers for ideas and instructions. A few of us will be there with you on your big day to help out! See you there, Yvonne, Kim, Janna, Bridget

Relay for Life

Hello! I just wanted to share a picture with you of Janna and Kim working on the Relay for Life tent. We have been working hard on getting our tent together and I believe it is going to look GREAT! We need pictures to use inside our tent that night. If you have any family members who have/had cancer or lost the battle to cancer we could use their pictures.

I want to encourage all of you to come and support The American Cancer Society on that night. It will be April 25th on the ICC campus. If anyone needs directions please let your Area Manager know.

(not such a great picture but it is the only one I had!)

Have a great rest of the week!

Bridget

Relay for Life

Selling Southern Belle T-shirts has turned out to be a GREAT fundraiser. We have sold over 250 shirts. That is over $1750 for The American Cancer Society. Thanks to everyone who sold shirts. We want to say a special thanks to Heather Barnes who has sold over a 100 so far. Way to go Heather!! The t-shirts are still available, so please continue to sell them. This is for a great cause!!

Bridget, Yvonne, Kim and Janna

A Moment of Silence

Please take a few minutes to remember Ladonna Presgrove today. She works at our Southaven office. Her first grandchild was born yesterday. Her name is Skie Mackenzie and she weighed 7'12". Little Skie is having some significant respiratory problems and Ladonna is VERY concerned for her. Please remember them both in your thoughts and prayers. Also, Heather Barnes is grieving the loss of a friend's little girl. She was 7 and she passed away a few days ago. Along with all of this, Rhonda Vernon's doctor has found a hole in her heart and she is having surgery to repair this next week. Please remember these families. We all need a little extra comfort sometimes!! Yvonne

Want to Share?

We would like to encourage you to share things with us that we can post to the blog. For example if you have pictures of your monsters, we mean kids, please send them. If you take a vacation and would like to share the photos send those also. When sending pictures please make sure that you attach a brief description of the picture.

Here is a picture of

Aubrey Adams

(Bridget's daughter),

Jade Chism

(Brooke Cockrell's neice),

Cassie Barnes

(Heather's daughter),

and Drew Wright

(Kim's monster)!

They are all in dance/cheer class together. As always there was too many to get ALL of them with a nice smile!

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If you have a funny but appropriate story that you think everyone would like to read let us know. Also, let us know what you enjoy reading on the blog so that we can keep it interesting to you.

Yvonne, Kim, Janna, & Bridget

Great Job!!

We just wanted to take a minute to brag on Chelsea. The New Albany office is the only one who has exceeded the amount she reached during the Christmas rush! Chelsea is doing a great job and we appreciate her positive attitude!

We have several offices that have met their quarterly goal for the end of March and we are extremely proud of you. We know it will just be a matter of time before ALL of you blow past your Christmas numbers!! Keep up the good work!

Yvonne, Kim, Janna, & Bridget

This Subject Again??

I just wanted to REALLY brag on the Alabama ladies. In February, they collected more than 3 TIMES what they returned for the month. WAY TO GO LADIES!! Yvonne

Babies, Babies, & More Babies ...

Congratulations to Jessica Steele! She found out Friday that she is 7 weeks pregnant! That makes a total of 6 women pregnant in this company!!! Congratulations to all of you!

Yvonne, Kim, Janna, & Bridget

I Guess It's In The Water??!!

This morning, Luke announced that Julie is getting married on Saturday but I bet he forgot to mention that he is getting married next Wednesday!! It must be going around. Be sure and offer he and Ashley your congratulations. He will be out of the office next Tuesday thru Friday. Be sure and let us know if you need anything as he will not have his cell phone or laptop. Have a great day! Yvonne

Return Checks Again?

I know I have harped on Return Checks like they are the reason for my existence so I have some congratulations that are in order! 2 offices reached their $500 goal for collecting this month of February. Hamilton and Vernon have done the tremendous job of collecting more in one month than they returned for 3 months of last year. Many of the offices reached their $100 goal and I appreciate everyone's efforts in this. Together, we collected $80,000 this month. Thanks to all of you who made this happen! Yvonne Swader

John Avery Storey

John emailed me some new pictures of John Avery today, and I could not wait to share them with everyone. He is absolutely precious!

Janna

John Avery Storey

CANDY ANYONE!!!

The Area Managers and I thought this story was funny and I wanted to share it with you! I have asked Stefanie Ashton if I could post this and laughing she said yes. So, lets all join in and laugh with Stefanie!!

Bellena sent out an email letting all the offices know to be on the look out for your package with your starbursts and info on the Relay for Life. Well, Stefanie called Bellena and told her she received her package but she didn't get any Starburst and Bellena proceeded to tell her she put some in there and Stefanie said she had no candy in hers! :)

We thought this was so funny and thought everyone would get a kick out of it. We are sure there are some others who might have thought the same thing about the candy, so if you did leave a comment so Stefanie will know she wasn't alone in this!!

I hope everyone has a great rest of the week!!!

Bridget

Update

I wasn't sure if everyone knew it or not but Michelle and baby, John Avery, came home last Sunday, February 17. They are both doing great!

Janna

WOW!!!!!

If you've read Luke's blog, you know I have a new nephew!!!! John Avery weighed 6 pounds and 3 ounces and is 17 inches long. The proud parents are resting well and should be home on Monday. Michelle is my hero! In the face of some pretty stressful circumstances, she acted calm and in control. Unable to get to the hospital, she took care of business herself. Congratulations to her and John on their new bundle of joy. Pictures will be following shortly..... Ya'll have a great Friday! Yvonne

Change Is In The Air

Springtime is right around the corner and with it come the thunderstorms that are so prevelant this time of year. For the days to get warmer, we have to take the good with the bad! It's the very same for business. Change is happening everywhere. The initial confusion that comes with the change always smoothes out and the new system should make life easier for those who use it. Just remember how most of us felt about the Western Union computers and now for the most part, we wouldn't want to be without them! So the next time you are asked to make a change, take a deep breath and remember that we're only trying to make your job easier or comply with some new regulation we are under and SMILE, pretty soon it will be old hat to you! Have a great Wednesday! Yvonne

Verify Checks

A couple of weeks ago a lady named Christy Cox came into the Hernando office to cash her payroll check. Christy was currently working at Mississippi Emergystat Ambulance Service, and to her knowledge still had a job. Tabitha followed company procedures and called to verify funds on this check. It was a great thing that she did, because the funds were not available! Christy had no clue that this company had closed their doors and not only was she unemployed, but her payroll check wasn't good. This is just one reason why it is so important to always verify ALL of the checks we cash. You never know when something like this might happen. This is a well known ambulance service and this lady had absolutely no clue what really was going on there. When you have time please go to the following website and read more about this story. http://www.wreg.com/Global/story.asp?s=7786008 Great job Tabitha!! Janna

Active Write Off's

As I was reading Kim’s post about the Fayette and Amory Check Depot Offices doing such a great job at collecting returned checks, I thought I would remind you that even though we aren’t in the competition for AWO's it is still very important to work them. We have a few offices that are still working on AWO's and did well last month. Vernon collected on 3 AWO's and the Aberdeen CTE and Amory CTE collected on 2. So, if you aren't working yours I recommend you do because by doing this you are bringing in more money for the company. Also, the longer you let them sit without any contact with the customer, the harder it is to find the vehicle. If anyone would like suggestions or help with your AWO's call your Area Manager and set up a time for them to come and work with you on a couple so you can see what to do and look for. Also, if you have any tricks that work for you, please share that with your Area Manager so she may pass it along to other offices. I hope everyone has a great day! Bridget

Kudos...

First of all we would like to brag on Christy & Denise at the Fayette office for collecting an amazing $2800 in return checks. WAY TO GO GIRLS!!! Some offices always complain saying that they were too busy. We would like to say kudos to Lynn, April, Johnna at the Amory office for collecting $1800 on return checks while they took in a total of $43,000 on checks and title. These two offices sure follow the old saying "if it is to be it is up to me". HAPPY COLLECTING! Yvonne & Kim