Chris Fisher of StagersLISTWebsites.com

Dear Walnut Creek School Community,

I received an email from Dick Nicoll, Superintendent in Mt. Diablo School District, concerning a possible student abduction attempt at Pleasant Hill Middle School (next to the County library.) A man approached a male student in his PE clothes. He called to the student and said, "I need to show you the new meeting spot for your mom." The man was a white male with gray hair, grey mustache, and a thick accent. A woman, with a nose ring, was with the man. The boy walked away. The Pleasant Hill Police Department was informed. Principals will all be reminding students not to talk to strangers or go with strangers for any reasons. I wanted to ensure that all parents were aware of this incident.

Sincerely,

Patricia Wool, Ed.D.
Superintendent
Walnut Creek School District

I don't have an answering machine at home that works, so I received the information from one of the other mother's at the school. She was nice enough to call me to let me know. While my daughter is 11 and I was pretty sure she would never go with a stranger, of course we had the talk anyway. I wanted to pass on the description (bolded above) so we can be alert when picking up and dropping off our kids.

I was told this incident took place last Friday, however in researching today I found it was Thursday, immediately after school.

I'm so happy the boy approached was smart enough to turn the other way and report this immediately.

Take care everyone,

A new friend that I met in Orlando this year, Pam Fox, was in California to visit her family and asked if I could meet with her to talk about her website. Pam is a lovely person. She is opening two stores where she lives in Florida as well as maintaining her staging business. Of course I wanted to have lunch with Pam while she was in the area, and where better than in San Francisco?!

Pam's son lives near Golden Gate Park, so I was looking for an internet cafe near there. I was not successful, but I did find Golden Gate Perk, which is located near the entrance to Chinatown. It was a very relaxed atmosphere, perfect for talking about websites and getting reacquainted. The staff is very friendly. You can even rent a computer if your laptop is not available.

Golden Gate Perk is also a Korean deli and coffee shop. I tried the Bibimbop pictured here. It is brown rice with 7 different vegetables and an egg on top. It was so simply delicious I wondered why I don't eat this healthy all of the time. Then I remembered, it is because I'm lazy. Pam tried the beef curry and said it was delicious as well.

Since we were so close to Chinatown, my mother decided we needed to shop for silk jackets. Pam came along and we spent some time shopping together. San Francisco's Chinatown is the largest Chinatown outside of Asia and is also the oldest Chinatown in North America. It is one of San Francisco's top attractions.

Here is my mother, Terrylynn, with Pam:

Here Pam and I made a new friend. He was in the shop and saw us taking photos, so he decided to join us:

Sculpture for sale:

So a day in the city with a new friend, talking about websites and shopping. That was a good day! I came home with a new silk jacket and silk shirt as a bonus. The only down-side was that Rhiannon was still away at camp... she loves Chinatown and is very unhappy that we went without her!

- offering website design, re-design, maintenance, hosting and virtual assistance
- our next Real Estate Home Staging Expo is in Indianapolis at the end of September!

Fans in a window:

Last year I was unable to attend the first ever StagersLIST Expo in Dublin, California due to family issues. This year I made sure to make it to the event! It was hosted by Welcome Home Furniture in their warehouse and I got to meet Amy Boxer and Donna Lynch in person finally, after having known them online and by telephone for years. The entire Welcome Home staff was just amazing and helped us out with the expo in so many ways, we cannot thank them enough. They have a huge warehouse full of beautiful pieces, everyone attending was quite impressed. They also come from a staging background, so know the Real Estate Home Staging Industry well. They host many classes for Realtors and Home Stagers.

The local organizer for this event was my mom, Terrylynn Fisher, who has been a Realtor for over 30 years and who has been having her listings staged for many, many of those years. Terrylynn is also the owner of StagersLIST.com, which will be launching some cool stuff this year and early 2010.

We had an almost fully packed audience! We were very happy to meet new people and to meet people that we only knew "virtually". I even got to meet one of my own clients in person for the first time, Nikolene Isely. That was very cool for me. My workshop was so well attended I had to use the microphone, which made me very nervous. : )

Our sponsors were fantastic and deserve their own blog each, so I will work on that! We had many local businesses sponsor the event and talk to all of our Real Estate and Home Staging attendees. Sponsors include: Sphere Effect printing and promotional products, Athena Painting and Design, The Mirror Gallery, Omni Virtual Tours (who provided these Expo photos), Thomas Lighting, EcoJoe, Bekins, Certified Staging Professionals, Real Estate Staging Association and The Interiority Complex.

Alexis Summerfied, Feng Shui Expert who has been featured on HGTV gave our lunch-time session and was very well received. Everyone seemed to enjoy learning how Feng Shui ties in with Real Estate Home Staging. Alexis enjoyed the event so much, she is traveling to Indianapolis to speak at our next Expo at the end of September.

As always, our keynote speaker, Christine Rae, was a huge hit. This expo she talked to us about Understanding Communication Styles to Overcome Objections. Christine has also been featured on HGTV and was asked by Wiley Publishing to write their book Home Staging for Dummies (and a guide for the rest of us).

We added some "tech talk" to this Expo with Alyx Flannery of SmartAlyx Computers. He helped us learn how to use social networking to build our businesses and even did a Q & A session so we could get more out of the information he provided.

In addition to my workshop about websites and blogging, Joanne O'Donnell, trainer and staging business owner, provided workshops on Using Color to Solve Property Challenges and Green Business, Green Marketing. Shell Brodnax of the Real Estate Staging Association provided us with an industry update.

At the end of the day we gave away goodies from our sponsors and speakers, as well as $200 in cash. It was a long day, and a hot day, but we were comfortable enough in the warehouse with the fans going. We had a great time and have received some very good feedback, including that we were much more organized than last year. That is good to hear, because we plan to constantly improve as the Expo Series progresses.

Thanks to everyone who came! It was wonderful to meet you!

- offering website design, re-design, maintenance, hosting and virtual assisance

PS: I sincerely apologize for the vegetarian miscount. I am mortified that I messed that up, as a vegetarian myself, and I am thankful you were all so gracious (and that we had other things to eat besides sandwiches). This will NEVER happen again!