BEREAN LASER TRAINING SESSION

Last week P. Graham Dunn was honored to host the first (we hope of many) training sessions for Berean P. Graham Dunn champions who flew (and drove) in from eight different Berean stores from across the country. This July, each of these stores will be having a complete PGD personalization center and boutique installed. To help insure the success of these stores, Berean (Les Dietzman) has assigned an in-house PGD champion whose primary job will be to drill down through the rest of the staff in each store the essentials of successfully operating a PGD boutique.

The two day seminar was put together by our Mike Miller whose specialty is the development and installation of personalization centers and boutiques. Our son-in-law, who manages our Gallery here at the factory, was the primary facilitator of the training of each of the Berean PGD champions on the laser engraving machines.

The sessions were so successful and inspiring both to the Berean people and to our staff that, upon the successful completion of the two days, we all decided that this needed to be an annual event that PGD coordinates not just for the Berean champions but for all of the folks that are current owners and operators of the 29 lasering centers that we currently have in operation!

CBA TRADE SHOW IN ATLANTA

P. Graham Dunn just completed its 30th participation in the annual CBA trade show held every July. This year it was in Atlanta; next summer it will be in Orlando. In 2009 it will be in Denver.

Five of us from the shop were in Atlanta, along with two of our sales representatives. I had ample opportunity over the course of the four days to meet with our customers, some of whom have been with us for 30 years.

My son Paul was with us. We find this to be an invigorating time to check out the rest of the industry. Our goal is to be the leader in innovative giftware - not the leader in copying innovative gift ware.

We find it disconcerting to find our designs in a number of the other gift vendors booths. Our philosophy has always been - create the wake, and let them feed of the wake. We don't concern ourselve with litigation. Often the products that are copied are two to three years old, and we have already discontinued them.

Appreciation Gift from Berean to Outgoing CBA Board Chair

One of the highlights of the recent CBA show in Atlanta was the personalized gift of the Love Chapter by Les Dietzman, President and CEO of Berean Christian Stores, to Chris and Angy Childers, the former owners of the Christian Bookstore in Macon Georgia. Chris also is the outgoing chair of the CBA board.

P. Graham Dunn was selected as the source for the personalized gift. We appreciate the opportunity to work with Les on this project. Peter has had the priviledge of serving on the CBA board with both Chris and Les.

P. Graham Dunn of Branson

Branson, Missouri, is not only a hot tourist destination, it is also home to the largest (to-date) P. Graham Dunn Gallery. Once the new one opens along Rt. 30 in Dalton, it will no longer hold this title. The gallery is a 12,000 square-foot space with carpeted walls, an open ceiling, and loads of display cabinets. If you have ever been in our Dalton gallery, just multiply the retail space times two and the merchandising shelves times three and you get an idea of amount of space they have available. Coming from the perspective of a someone who works in the Dalton gallery, it's exciting to think about all the possibilities that will be open to us when we move into our bigger store.

Joe - my husband and manager of the PGD Gallery in Dalton - and I visited Branson to help out with the lasers. Actually, Joe did most of the training, and I filled in as needed. On Tuesday, June 19, Joe spent most of the day at Silver Dollar City, an amusement park where we have a small PGD booth and laser. While we have a lot of traffic going by our station, most people are more focused on getting to the rides than stopping to shop. Joe worked with PGD employees Larry, Mac, and Lucinda while I covered the floor. The next morning we worked with Angela, manager of PGD of Branson and Silver Dollar City.

Although we didn't make it to any shows, the big tourist draw of Branson, we did take time for one nice dinner down at the waterfront, a newly developed part of Branson. I'd encourage any PGD customers or employees that are going through that way to definitely take the a day or two to stopover in Branson, visit the waterfront, and of course check out our store!

Anna (Dunn) Knutson