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Who
does what at The Belfry?
With
our surname
of Batt and Keith's sense of humour, or not,
he decided to call the
house The Belfry.
It seems that as in many partnerships,
where
mawspaws
is concerned that Keith has the role of book keeper, web site designer
( he is
self taught, so please excuse any mistakes) and tea maker, although during
the summer this has to fit in with his hobby of Hot Air Ballooning, so
when the weather is good things get very hectic. |
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Teddy
Bear
Times
article
published
Feb
2005
issue
133
"Hey Maw, come and have a look at this email from Hong Kong" that was
the sound of Keith calling me from our living room whilst I was cutting out a pattern in our kitchen.
Incidentally that is how mawspaws became
our trading name, Keith find it easier just to shout "Maw" rather than my full name of Maureen. As you can tell our house doubles up as a
workplace for us to run mawspaws.com.
The email was from Lydia in Hong Kong asking for 4 dressed bears to be adopted, Dyllis, Lady Jane, Audrey and Claudia, nothing to unusual there
because we regularly send bears and pandas all around the world, the
surprise was in the fact that Lydia had requested permission to use the bears for one of her projects.
What happened after the initial email was a very pleasant and unexpected surprise to me. We were sent some samples of 2 sizes of cushion covers,
tee shirts and mouse mats from Hong Kong,
with my bears being the
feature of them.
Another surprise was to come just before Kensington fair, we had an email asking if we could meet Lydia at Kensington and further to that
she asked if she could visit us at The Belfry,
that is the name of our
house because our surname is Batt,
and batts are renowned for living in The
Belfry.
Well what a weekend that turned out to be, having a very successful day at the Teddies 2004, so well organised by Hugglets.
Well we all know what comes after Sunday,
then came Monday and I cannot express just how apprehensive I was. What had I let myself in for, a complete stranger coming to my home to
be shown how to make a bear, something I have taken years to learn and she will expect to make a bear in 8 hours.
It was really helpful to meet Lydia at Kensington as that broke the ice and she understood English fairly well and she was such a pleasant lady.
As we picked her up from our railway station my emotions were really
taking over, excitement, nervousness, sheer fright at having to instruct someone how to make a bear.
Well after the first hour of instruction I had calmed down and the only problems were going to be making the bear in the time we had, and more
importantly what shall we serve for dinner,
Keith really likes his food.
When asked what Lydia would like, "anything English", came the reply, mine and Keith's minds went into overdrive, Keith did try and make a
funny comment of "
Tesco's do a nice sweet and sour" I did not
appreciate his sense of humour at that time. We eventually came up with something English. Lydia was quiet amused at the thought Keith was
preparing dinner whilst we carried on making her bear.
After a very long day we had the bear made, only because the 2 of us were making the bear at the same time, then it was into the garden for
pictures, we learnt that a garden was a special thing for our visitor
from Hong Kong because all they live in is high rise flats.
The time then came to return Lydia to our railway station and have a drink to celebrate such a wonderful weekend and the collaboration of
mawspaws.com
& hamptonberry.com.
Maureen
and
Lydia
The lessons learnt after such an experience, never knowing where an email will lead you to, instructing another person how to make bears is
very demanding and tiring, but extremely rewarding.
I hope you enjoyed my reflections of a bank holiday and look forward to some more emails coming into my web site, and wondering where they will
lead.
For any enquiries about either Maureen's bears or the Hampton Berry
collection please email
some
photos
of
the
cushion
covers
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How has MAWSPAWS progressed ?
When I first made the decision to actually sell the bears I had made it was through friends and both Keith's work place and mine. Keith used to work for the head office of a multi-national company, this led to many of the bears
travelling around the world to find new homes.
The local shopping centre was then chosen as a way of selling the bears, hiring a barrow and with my mother there to lend both a helping and reassuring hand. This was obviously a major move for me, although I have spent all my working days in retail this was something else. The questions that run through your mind are sometimes frightening, will anyone actually come up and talk to me, will they like the bears, if so will it be enough to make them actually buy my bears? Therefore it was with great trepidation we set up the barrow for the first time, a couple of hours passed without so much as a good morning, then my first customer, a local bear lover who has since become a friend.
As those of you who regularly do shows know, you get some good days and some not so good, in fact some down right useless. This starts to put different questions in your head, are my bears any good, are they over priced, what is wrong, those of us that sell bears must have been through this. The facts were that most of the time we had a barrow we were successful and the contact with people who were themselves interested in bears was very satisfying and also
encouraging.
The lucky break
A
friend
who
worked
for a
design
agency
was
approached
to
produce
a
bear
for a
promotion.
She
contacted
me
for
some
assistance
and
that
eventually
led
to my
bears
being
sold
through
The
English
Teddy
Bear
Company.
When
we
consider
all
the
chances
of
this
happening
,
this
can
definitely
be
classed
as
our
lucky
break. Thanks
HELEN
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What next for MAWSPAWS?
LOL,
(
laughs
out
loud
)
Who knows, my bears being sold in Harrods or Hamleys, an all expenses paid
trip for myself and Keith around the world to promote MAWSPAWS The Film,
The Book, The Cookery Show, The CD ROM, even The Postage Stamp, Any
offers will be considered. That's in my dreams but, so was making, designing
and selling bears, having my own web site etc. only a few years ago. so who
really knows. Realistically, looking for other outlets and ways to promote my
bears with the continued love of teddy bears and friendship of others involved
with teddy bears. Selfishly to still enjoy making bears and avoid the book
keeping side of the business. I sincerely hope that the British Bears on the
Net will grow and provide as much pleasure to others as it has already has
given to me.
Finally I must thank everyone who has
adopted a mawspaws creation
and
shown
so
much
trust
in
both
myself
and
Keith.
Thank you
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