As you may well know, we moved our World Headquarters from our tiny cramped 2,300 sq ft spot in Kinkora PEI to our Huge-Big 7,600 sq ft spot here in Borden-Carleton PEI – about 400 meters from the foot of the World-Famous Confederation Bridge.  ”So what’s that got to do with toilets?” you might say.  Read on my friends…

The building we now call home-sweet-home was (or still is) “The Old Liquor Store” and is located right near where the ferries used to dock to take you over to New Brunswick.  It’s a very large open space with 14-foot ceilings and 8″ X 24″ laminated beams throughout holding the oh-so-large roof up over our heads.  This large old building sat empty for a long time, and as you may know – buildings need love too.  They need heat, humidity and even the odd dog bark now and then or they fall into dis-repair, which is what happened here.  Fast forward a few months and we’re right set up.  Our very good landlords have gone all-out on the place.  Ripped out old drywall to defeat mold, gutted bathrooms, even removed doors and replaced them with new ones.  Matter of fact, 3 months ago we were in a big cave without lights, power, heat and with enough drafts that a candle would dance the samba.  Yup, they’ve gone way beyond what we expected.

So you’re still wondering what this has to do with toilets, right?  Well one of the other things that come along with a building sitting idle is the plumbing sometimes has “troubles”.  For a few days now our landlord has been working away trying to find out why the toilets sometimes work and sometimes don’t.  The town has been in with their sewer cam.  The drains have been snaked and snaked again.  The toilets have been off so many times they should use wing nuts to secure them down !  All very dirty work, right ?  BUT… they’ve kept going.  THAT is very cool.  Come Thursday morning the backhoe will be here to open up the parking lot and open the line, and the steam guy (?) will be here from Charlottetown to clean the line out for good… and that’s cool too.

Now you might be saying “Hey, you’ve got yourselves some pretty good landlords” and I’d say you’re right !  We know darned well that they could be taking the easy route and shrugging off some of the work, but they’re not.  So… To Mamie & Gerald… Thanks very much for your support !  And to Gerald & Kenny… Thanks for sorting out the toilets !

You can glean much information about ROTB from this link but if you like numbers, we 5 potters go through about 12 tons of clay a year in our 7,600 sq ft facility making 9 lines of remarkable functional stoneware pottery for our network of 70+ retailers that stretch from Canmore AB to Saint Jo Texas, across to Sanibel Florida, up to Newfoundland & Labrador and everywhere in-between ! Across  the 5 of us we boast an experience level of over 70 years in clay !

As we grow we are recognizing that we need to add to our awesome team to continue the production level required to feed all these hungry retailers.  We now realize we require a well-rounded Studio Tech to keep our 4 kilns hot.  The duties will include – but of course are not limited to:

Greenware prep and firing

Bisque unloading

Sanding / waxing

Glazing

Glaze firing

Glaze unloading

Kiln maint

Glaze mixing & maint

Handbuilding

Wheel work

Direct contact with wholesale clients as time goes along

Hanging out with a super-cool Clay Dog named Carley and relatively-cool folks who REALLY like what they do

Handbuilding & wheel work will increase as time progresses with the opportunity for guidance / supervision / practice with our head production potter Robert McMillan (who’s been at this over 30 years !).  We feel this is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of a professional production potter – one that doesn’t come around too often.  We’re not looking for robots, so insight and opinions will be welcomed as well.  We also offer access to our facilities after-hours, and several marketing opportunities that would depend on the creativity and desire of the individual.  We have a solid team here at ROTB and we’re excited to have the chance to grow it a little more.

Another opportunity we’ve been tossing about is somewhat of a hybrid between a structured partnership and an Arts Incubator spot that revolves around our appx 800 sq ft retail area that would be a great chance for an entrepreneurial-type who would enjoy creating a business though doesn’t have the heap of money that is normally required.  I won’t go too far into that possibility here as I’ve expanded in a previous post, but suffice to say we’re pretty stoked about that too !

So… if you know anyone out there who has a good solid skill-set in clay please let them know – and let us know too – and we’ll go from there !  As you’ll see  - we’re very very serious about this

One of the orders went to a very cool place called The C.R.O.W. Wildlife Clinic on Sanibel Island in Florida.  They’ve got a great facility that focuses on the rescue and rehabilitation of wild critters, but I’ll let them do the explaining… check out their link for a better explanation.  I can say though that we’ve sent them some very cool custom pieces that have been done just for them.  If you’re ever lucky enough to spend the day on Sanibel Island you should check them out at 3883 Sanibel Captiva Rd.

Another order is on its way toward Saint Jo Texas where you’ll find The Davis & Blevins Gallery at 108 South Main St.  I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting their spot – let alone anywhere in Texas – but by the looks of their website it’s certainly a place I’d like to visit.

Last but far from least, we sent a couple more boxes south to Sanibel Island – specifically to a spot at 1614 Periwinkle Way called B Unique Boutique.  David & Sandra have been working super-hard getting their new shop ready and it looks like it’s going to be a winner !

So thanks to these three new retailers, and here’s to years of happy times !

So we were talking… A lot of people have heard about Business Incubators – Opportunities for young and not-so-young Entrepreneurs in an established business setting to try their skills out.  Perhaps some of you have heard of an Arts Incubator ?  Check them out on Wikipedia  for WAY more info than I care to type.

This discussion led to us eventually realizing we have an opportunity here at Right Off The Batt Pottery World Headquarters to establish an Arts Incubator program for one or two up-and-coming artists / artisans this year.  Yup, we have a large-ish 800 sq ft area that will serve as our gallery, but to tell you the truth we don’t have the time to really establish a gallery.  Soooooo… if someone was interested they could create their own venture under the ROTB flag to sell & develop their craft.  The entrepreneur supplies the skill, drive, and interest and we supply everything from a roof, security, power, heat, light, high-speed internet, FAX, POS, customers, marketing, cool people to work with and maybe most of all a whole lot of experience from a name that is becoming more known by the day.  A serious commitment and a Win – Win for both parties.

We’re working out the nuts and bolts but if you think it might be interesting you should contact us by email at contact@rightoffthebatt.com or 1-888-PEI-CLAY to chat !  In the meantime, keep up to date with us at Facebook or Twitter when you get the chance

So imagine how odd it was this weekend when we took Sunday off ? Yup, we both took the entire day off. Lounged about, caught up on some TV, cleaned out a couple freezers, conquered a few dust bunnies lurking behind the fridge and freezer… you know. Felt a little guilty but what the heck ?

Yesterday I pushed the envelope a little further and took all Monday off too ! Imagine ? Cindy couldn’t do it. Had to go in both in the morning and after we got home from a basketball game. Me ? Well Carley and I went for a snow shoe walk, more lounging about, did a little Wii Fit, went to the previously-mentioned basketball game, then did some serious relaxing for the rest of the day. Tough work though… not for the feint of heart.

What’s the point of this blog post ? The point is that I feel WAY more focused today here at ROTB World Headquarters – which is a real good thing because I was able to get a couple seriously-complicated paperwork bits done that have been patiently waiting for my attention. I renewed our domain subscription for www.rightoffthebatt.com too along with changing some login info out there in the world.

Pretty cool, but guess what ? Sounds like our new kiln just pulled up so I gotta go ! See ya next time

Yes, I haven’t posted here to the Clay Blog in about a year and a half ( !!! ) but if you’ve been keeping up with us on Facebook then you’ll know we’ve been a teeny bit busy !

What’s been happening ? Well we’ve moved our official ROTB World Headquarters from 2,300 sq ft in Kinkora to a whopping 7,600 sq ft beast of a building in Borden-Carleton PEI about 400 meters from the base of the World Famous Confederation Bridge ! It’s been a heck of a lot of work but it’s really paying off. Some production remains in Kinkora until later on this week but the majority is happening here in Borden.

We hope to get 100% of production going by the end of next week with the arrival of our fourth kiln – as long as the new electrical service gets installed From there we’ll shoot for a ready-date for our very expanded class area and our large retail space, but that info will come soon as we can nail down the dates.

So again, sorry about the delay… I promise to keep on top of this stuff WAY better this year !

Hi everyone!  Cindy here ….  Darryl is taking it a bit easy right now on account of turning 47 years old today.  One of our workshop customers just brought him a birthday tart to help celebrate and he has no intentions of sharing it.  He and I are heading to NorthPort, PEI this evening for a quiet celebration dinner at the Boat Shop  Steak & Seafood Restaurant on the pier.  Yum! my mouth is watering just thinking about it!

We had three winners… Nick MacLeod and Steph Smalls guessed the correct number at 113 and will receive one of our hand-crafted mugs in the mail as soon as they send me their mailing address.  Our third winner was Ian Chung from Tucker’s Pottery Supply who guessed 112.  Ian of course will also receive a mug in the mail.

Honorable mention also goes to Paul St John of Kingston Ont and Tracey Allen from Charlottetown PEI who both guessed 114.  Close, but Ian guessed 112 first.

Again, thanks to everyone for playing along, and keep an eye out for our next Earth Shattering Contest

If you take a sec and drop by our Face Book Page  then you can take a guess at how many mugs I was able to fit into one 7 cubic foot kiln.

Wait… a little background is due I suppose… Ever since we were little potters we have always wondered if we would ever fill a kiln completely with one specific item – mine of course being mugs.  At that point I was happy if I could make 10 at a time that at least looked similar.  Well fast-forward a couple years and here we are.  On Sunday night i loaded our first-ever completly-full-of-mugs kiln!  How about that?  To celebrate I put up a contest on our Face Book Fan Page where if you take a look at the pics supplied and took a guess at how many mugs were in there, you could win one of them !  This Saturday I’ll select the three folks who guessed the closest and I’ll mail them a mug for their troubles.

Take a guess, leave a guess, and let’s see if you can win yourself a mug