One person show
A major milestone achieved — we received the permit to occupy the house. There’s still lots of work to be done but these items are not deemed critical for ‘living’ and after years of wrangling, sweating and agonising over so many things, one key part of the project is behind us.
On 20 April 2023.
The next phase of this whole thing is to flip the incoming invoices to outgoing invoices. I hate to focus this much on revenue growth and minimising loss and debt but this is the life now. How to build a great product on this platform — or off this platform? What makes sense here? What new things can happen here that might inspire new ventures?
There are still construction related administrative hurdles, big ones, to overcome…but that’s a separate track. I wish I could somehow outsource this track to another part of my brain, a part of me that doesn’t stress about it.
But these are distractions from thinking and acting on:
How do we build the best memories for our guests? How do we operate the place in a way that feels like the ceramic symposiums — of coming together, creating, resting and contemplating?
How do we cool down the hot and heavy operations that was the construction site?
What hand soap should we use here?
I need help but I have very little means to hire anyone. So for now, wherever we can, we’re building the operation around what’s possible within the resources we have.
Three updates on our work:
New website: We’re re-opening soon our online shop. We’ll have more control over it and can surface more of the ceramic work from our archives. We’ll find a good way to do this over time.
Art stipend: This year we’re increasing the art stipend amount for students here at the local school. This is a practical way we’re investing in our community and to be honest, currently, we haven’t found a better way to contribute to Posio. Hiring of local talent and skill sets for future work may be limited around here but the kids know what’s what. They always do.
Partnerships: With regards to partnerships, things are different. There are some great experience-operators in the region we could partner up with in order to extend the experience for our guests. We’re also looking into expanding our partnership work in Taiwan and Singapore. What that will look like remains to be seen but it’s quite exciting!
On a more meh note. I’ve been contemplating that I didn’t use to worry the way I worry today about everything — I used to be more positive.
I don’t know what happened. I think it’s the combination of moving to the countryside, being fired that was retaliatory, the pandemic isolation, financial woes and the messy construction site. One of these would be I guess enough to throw you off but I’m surprised how my reaction to the world has shifted quite drastically towards the more negative, the more skeptical.
I don’t want to be this worrying type. I don’t want to be afraid of rapid unscheduled disassembling issues lurking every time I turn a corner towards the sun.
Anyway, no worries. It’s ok.
Hugs,
Hans