August 2007

The Elves Union (I.F.E.) strike is continuing. I have met several times with Jimmy and other senior IFE leaders to no avail. They are convinced that they need to continue the strike. In the latest meeting, Melody and Jangle sat down with Jimmy and asked that they at least take a vote amongst the elves they are representing. They refused to take a vote. We believe that a general vote would yield a majority... though a slim one... in favor of calling off the strike and returning to work. The majority is not yet significant enough though to have anyone crossing lines. And in fact, we do want to respect the union so we are not asking for anyone to cross lines. Hopefully we can get this resolved soon.

As you can imagine the remainder of this July was much busier than the typical July. Not only did we have all of the union talks, ironically, the strike forced us to accelerate our negotiations with the outsourcer. We signed a contract yesterday. Under the agreement, the outsourcer will open three new manufacturing facilities over the next ten years. The facilities will be focused on making "basics" toys. "Basics" are those toys that change very little, if at all, and remain popular year over year, decades at a time. Toy trains are a classic example of a "basics". The outsourcer will handle only incremental growth... unless, of course, we can not resolve the strike. Given the strike, we are not publicly announcing the name of the outsourcer. What I can tell you is that the three facilities will be geographically dispersed.... opening in Brazil, India, & China.

Mrs. Claus and I did take a brief break and went to Maui for 4 days. It was beautiful. I even got a little surfing in! And I managed to have my favorite meal in Hawaii - Lemon Butter Mahi-Mahi from the Honokowai Deli - twice. Overall, it was a blast... just a little too short for my tastes.

August looks to be busy as well... particularly now that the strike seems to be lingering. I remain confident we'll be able to keep our Christmas Eve commitments but it certainly looks like it is going to be more difficult than I first thought when the strike began. Anyway... I'll keep you posted.

I've been tracking high-level traffic numbers.... we definitely have a drop in readership in the off-season. Please spread the word that I'm posting through the summer.

Enjoy your August. And be NICE, for goodness sake!