Cookiers Helping Cookiers in the Time of COVID-19
We’re all facing challenges right now that we never would have imagined just a short time ago. It's safe to say that each of us could use some support from our Cookie Connection family! So let’s get together in real time to chat and see how our fellow cookiers are doing. What challenges are we facing? How are we adapting our businesses? What solutions have we found? Let’s vent, share ideas, lend support, and encourage one another. We may feel alone, but we’re not! Please join chat host and Cookie Connection contributor Dotty Raleigh (aka Sugar Dot Cookies) and Cookie Connection founder Julia M Usher for this unprecedented and hopefully helpful event!
Background and Preparation: The chat will be text-based as always. But, this time, instead of you asking questions of a featured guest, Dotty will be asking everyone a series of questions. She would love for all of you to contribute to the discussion. To that end, she has provided the questions now so that you can give them some thought. If you’d like to prepare further, you could type up your answers in a Word document or in the notes on your mobile phone. Then, during the chat, you can simply copy and paste your prepared answers after each question is posted. This approach should leave you better able to focus on reading others’ responses instead of trying to type your answers quickly. Just one more note: Please number your answers to correspond to each question below. (Numbering will make it much easier for Julia to moderate the chat; that is, to know when and where to post your answers.)
Here are the questions that Dotty will be asking during the live chat:
- What's your name, where do you live, how do you participate in cookies (i.e., as a hobbyist vs. professional; by selling cookies, teaching, and/or designing or selling cookie products?), and how long have you been involved that way in cookies?
- In general, how are you handling the crisis and stay-at-home orders?
- Are you still making cookies?
- If so, are you making cookies in different ways or for different reasons or people?
- If you are in business, what are the most challenging obstacles your business has faced because of the coronavirus pandemic?
- How, if at all, have you adapted your business?
- If you live in the United States and have a business, have you tried to take advantage of any of the Small Business Administration (SBA) loans and debt relief options that came about via the recently signed CARES Act? If not, why not? If so, what's been your experience so far?
- Has there been any “silver lining” to the pandemic? What is the most positive thing to come out of it so far?
- What lessons have you learned personally or professionally from this experience?
- Do you have any words of encouragement for those of us who are feeling it all – anxiety, fear, helplessness?
Do you have your own questions to ask Dotty, Julia, or the group? That's fine too! The chat room is now open to receive advance questions that will get answered once the chat is live. Just enter them in the comment box at the bottom of this chat room and then hit the blue "Post" button. Again, neither question nor answer will reveal until the chat opens and Julia (the chat moderator) posts them into the main viewing area.
Dotty and Julia hope to "see" you on Saturday, April 18 at 10 am CT (central time) for the live chat! In the meantime, stay safe at home, and wear those masks when you go out!
To learn more about your chat host Dotty, read her bio here.
We’re all facing challenges right now that we never would have imagined just a short time ago. It's safe to say that each of us could use some support from our Cookie Connection family! So let’s get together in real time to chat and see how our fellow cookiers are doing. What challenges are we facing? How are we adapting our businesses? What solutions have we found? Let’s vent, share ideas, lend support, and encourage one another. We may feel alone, but we’re not! Please join chat host and Cookie Connection contributor Dotty Raleigh (aka Sugar Dot Cookies) and Cookie Connection founder Julia M Usher for this unprecedented and hopefully helpful event!
Background and Preparation: The chat will be text-based as always. But, this time, instead of you asking questions of a featured guest, Dotty will be asking everyone a series of questions. She would love for all of you to contribute to the discussion. To that end, she has provided the questions now so that you can give them some thought. If you’d like to prepare further, you could type up your answers in a Word document or in the notes on your mobile phone. Then, during the chat, you can simply copy and paste your prepared answers after each question is posted. This approach should leave you better able to focus on reading others’ responses instead of trying to type your answers quickly. Just one more note: Please number your answers to correspond to each question below. (Numbering will make it much easier for Julia to moderate the chat; that is, to know when and where to post your answers.)
Here are the questions that Dotty will be asking during the live chat:
- What's your name, where do you live, how do you participate in cookies (i.e., as a hobbyist vs. professional; by selling cookies, teaching, and/or designing or selling cookie products?), and how long have you been involved that way in cookies?
- In general, how are you handling the crisis and stay-at-home orders?
- Are you still making cookies?
- If so, are you making cookies in different ways or for different reasons or people?
- If you are in business, what are the most challenging obstacles your business has faced because of the coronavirus pandemic?
- How, if at all, have you adapted your business?
- If you live in the United States and have a business, have you tried to take advantage of any of the Small Business Administration (SBA) loans and debt relief options that came about via the recently signed CARES Act? If not, why not? If so, what's been your experience so far?
- Has there been any “silver lining” to the pandemic? What is the most positive thing to come out of it so far?
- What lessons have you learned personally or professionally from this experience?
- Do you have any words of encouragement for those of us who are feeling it all – anxiety, fear, helplessness?
Do you have your own questions to ask Dotty, Julia, or the group? That's fine too! The chat room is now open to receive advance questions that will get answered once the chat is live. Just enter them in the comment box at the bottom of this chat room and then hit the blue "Post" button. Again, neither question nor answer will reveal until the chat opens and Julia (the chat moderator) posts them into the main viewing area.
Dotty and Julia hope to "see" you on Saturday, April 18 at 10 am CT (central time) for the live chat! In the meantime, stay safe at home, and wear those masks when you go out!
To learn more about your chat host Dotty, read her bio here.
$25 each.
**Do something fun at home to take your mind off your worries. (revisit an old hobby, read a book, watch a movie, bake, play a board game)
**Stop watching the news constantly! Get a daily update then move on.
**Is there something productive you now have time to work on? (update or create a website or social media accounts, clean a closet, learn how to film a cookie video, make/donate something) **Take a shower. Fix your hair. Put on some makeup. You’ll feel better and your family will appreciate it!
**Count your blessings. Recount your blessings. Look for blessings. Be a blessing.
; ability=capability (Typing fast!)
<3
Thank-you.