David's AW News: Why Independence is fun..

 

Greetings from a traffic jam in Bali

I'm on the way to work in the AW-Advantage office (we call it the beach office). It's 10 to 15 minutes of normal traffic, but these days it can take an hour, the traffic in Bali has reached crisis proportions.

So I open my laptop in the back of my Grab taxi and get some work done, including writing to you.

Last week I was telling you about Angels & Babies and how we are supporting a young charity here that is saving the lives of babies and helping single moms in dire-straits..  if you missed you can catch up here. The streets are lined with Red & White flags, because tomorrow is Independence Day in Indonesia, a big thing around here.

I just arrived at the beach office. The team are enthusiastically dressed up as historical or mythical figures of Indonesia culture and then do cosplay acts. All before work.. so I have to be here early because I'm the appointed judge, it's like an episode of AW got Talent.

So much enthusiasm and energy, so early in the morning.. it's quite exhausting!

Then after much good humour and entertaining each other, and making content for personal social media... its back to work.

But I learnt a few things about the culture and mythical history of Indonesia. Incredibly diverse, so many very different peoples, languages, religions and sharply different cultures.. yet cheerfully united and comfortable with being Indonesian together.  A different kind of nationalism, totally at odds with the nasty thuggish British nationalism that makes me depressed these days.

I learned how the port city of Surabaya got it's name.. The story began, as these things often do, with a pair of friends: Sura the shark and Baya the crocodile. Basically they had a big fight over food, until in the end they worked it out and became friends, got together and the city is named after them.. Surabaya. The symbol of the city is the shark and the crocodile.

These two young guys bring the story to life with slapstick humour and energy.

Later the warehouse team - who yesterday loaded a container bound for Slovakia warehouse..believe me that's really hard work..

..they certainly deserve some independence day fun and join the beach team.

For party games...

Meanwhile in the UK.. Rodrigo and his team have been hosting a showroom open day in the Sheffield HQ. This is so important, not just so we can showcase our latest products.. but because we can get first hand face to face feedback and great direction from our lovely customers.. the last open day - I was around and it was absolutely delightful meeting customers. Rodrigo says a big thank you to everyone who called by, and an extra big thank you for all the super useful feedback and ideas.

It's a bank holiday creeping up on us.. the BIG one.. time to get stocked up.. and we have heaps of deals, some amazing new products.. and Halloween bath bombs from the AW-Aromatics team..

A new range of Gemstones figures has just arrived.. a lot of work went into this - I'm personally very happy to see them.. we have been trying to nail this important product range for years..

Wishing you a magical and delightful weekend. Hope you discover your independence!

Next week's news may be from a different place.. exciting no?

David