Young and "boot-iful"

Today we have to bid farewell to our Marketing Intern from SVSU.  Emily has spent the semester with us and we enjoyed having her.  Good luck Emily on all your future endeavors!

 

 

We all know what it is like to be thinking about so many things we overlook the small things.  Our CEO Linda may ask us to "walk a mile in her shoes" on occassion but, today we would have had to ask her...which one??

 

Fighting for Our Family

In 2009 our "repair this/move this desk/leave us alone/help me make this/you're still here/Relay for Life Team member/cheerleader/Safety Day help/ pain in the @*$" guy was diagnosed with Breast Cancer.  After an extensive treament he was our Survivor officially in remission by 2010.

 

Most of you know him as Doug, his better half is our CEO Linda.

Here he is at the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk held in Saginaw in October of 2012.

 

In June of 2013, he started not feeling well.  He went back to his doctor and testing was done.  On July 4, 2013 the breath was sucked out of all of us.  His breast cancer had metastasized to his lung.  Surgery was not an option this time and shot treatment was started.

 

He has not been able to be here as much as he was before but, he still makes his rounds when he can!  Here he is with his side kick Rick, taste testing the popcorn at our Straits Branch during our car sale with Graff Chevrolet.

 

He was able to greet his Grand-daughter who lives out of state at the airport.  You can tell how excited he was to see her.

He has had to spend some time in the hospital but, in typical Doug style has the nurses wrapped around his finger.

Linda has kept us all informed of every doctor appointment, test result, and "the plan" the what's next.  He's one of us and we need to know.  He was looking forward to walking the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk held on October 26th.  We created "Team Doug" sweatshirts and he recruited his "coffee club" to walk with all of us.  However, mid October he had a scope done to find out why he was having difficulites eating and keeping food down.  The results were not great.  The mass was pushing on his esophagus and he would need a stent placed.  So, October 22nd the stent was inserted and October 24th he started chemo.  The walk was out of the question.

 

The great news!  He was able to eat and we all got to see him with his first plate of food!

 

 As in years past we raised money for our team by having a special day when our staff can pay to wear jeans with a pink shirt.  This year that day happend to fall on October 24th.

 

Here is our Straits Branch Staff.

 

Here is our Wilder Branch Staff.

Here is our Cabaret Branch Staff.

 

Making Strides Walk 2013 pre walk group photo.  Including our staff and Doug's recruits!

 

Coffee Club 

 

Here is a collection of candids from our staff.

 

Bella (our Collections Officer) and her daughter and boyfriend.



 

Doreen (our CFO) and her daughter.

 

 

Kendra (our Straits Branch Manager) and her brother.

 

Brenda (our Marketing Director) and her husband.

 

 

Bella and Amy (part of our Straits Branch Staff).

 

John (our Chairman of the Supervisory Committee), Linda (our President/CEO and caretaker), Lori (Doug's neighbor), Kendra, her brother, Frank (our adopted brother/DJ) and Doreen, post walk.

 

Kendra, Bella, Doreen and Linda fighting the pre-race wind for a selfie.

 

 

Bella and Ashley (part of our Wilder Branch Staff) getting photo bombed by Danielle (part of our Straits Branch Staff), Kendra and Doreen.

 

Don't hold our singing against us, its just what we do.  We know we need to keep our day jobs!

 

 

Preparations....

Final preparations are under way for the arrival of our guests.  Graff Chevrolet will be joining us at our Straits Drive Branch Tuesday, September 17- Saturday, September 21 for an onsite car sale.  Stop out and check out all the great deals and low interest rates!

The neighboring lot is being trimmed.

 Our lot is getting the finishing touches.

 

The meeting room is awaiting the arrival of Steve and Nick.

The yard looks empty now....

 

Check out the sale flyer!

365 days later

One year ago today our Chairman of the Board showed our staff the sketch of the new branch for the first time.  We had all of our staff out to the site where the groundbreaking was held later in the day.  Here is Al with the sketch.

 

And, here is today! 

 

If you look back in the blog you will see this photo was from the groundbreaking.  Al is using our special shovel.

 

Here is our shovel hanging in our lobby.

 

 We are so lucky to have had an amazing year!  To try and list all of the Thank you's would be impossible.  From all of us at COPOCO, THANK YOU!!

 

Yard work!

Last week Kyle and his crew from Green Lawn Sprinklers were out finishing the installation of our sprinkler system.

Today the Gerace guys were back today to take out the temporary service pole that was installed for construction.

 

 They also took away our "future location of" sign.

Could it finally be spring?

It is starting to look like spring may have arrived at the Straits Branch!

 

We have a tenant, soon to be tenants!

 

Blooms on the trees!

 

And believe it or not...baby grass!!

Denim Day 2013

Tomorrow we will be wearing Denim

in support of Denim Day 2013,

presented by Bay Area Women's Center. 

Wear Denim.  Make a Statement.

 

 

 

HISTORY

 

ROME-ITALY, 1997

 

An 18 year old girl is picked up by her 45 year old instructor for her very first driving lesson.  An hour later. raped and abandoned by him in an alley, she has to make her way back home.  Undeterred, she reports the incident and the case is prosecuted.  The driving instructor is convicted of rape and sentenced to jail.

 

MONTHS LATER

 

The perpetrator appeals the sentence.  The case makes it all the way to the Italian Supreme Court, where the case against the driving instructor is overturned and the perpetrator is released because the victim wore jeans.  The justices reasoned that the victim must have helped her attacker remove her jeans, implying her consent and failing to take into consideration force, threat or intimidation. 

 

The case made international headlines and the young woman's jeans became a symbol of the many misconceptions still surrounding sexual violence, such as there is a "correct" way for someone to respond during an assult and what someone wears can be an excuse for rape.

 

TODAY

 

Denim Day and wearing jeans in April became an international symbol of protest about harmful attitudes about rape.

 

 

If you would like more information about this event or would like to join the Denim Day Campaign please call TRACY RAINEY at 989-686-4551.  We salute all who are willing to join us in the fight for a safer community for all people.

 

 

-This information was taken from the pamphlet provided to us by the Bay Area Women's Center.

 

 



 



Graff Bay City Visit

We had two visitors crash our Management Meeting Friday morning.  The finance guys at Graff Bay City, Nick and Steve, came with Graff-wear and cupcakes!!  Thank you for the visit and cupcakes!  You are welcome back anytime :)

 

 

Here is a photo of my selection, yes it was as good as it looks!

Long time no talk...

I did not realize how long it had been since I updated you on the happenings around here!  I have a lot to catch you up on.  Our ribbon cutting, brick award, birthdays and visits.  Over the next few weeks I vow to get you all caught up!

Just to be fair.

I have posted other birthdays so the ladies at my branch said I had to let them take my picture and I had to post it.  So, here it is!  Happy Birthday Kendra!

 

Happy Birthday Becca

Becca in our Wilder Road Accounting Department has a birthday today!!

 

Congratulations Danielle!

This past weekend I had a honor of being invited to attend and judge competitive business events at the State Career Development Conference for the Michigan Collegiate DECA in Battle Creek.  Friday afternoon one of our members had stopped in to the Straits Branch and mentioned she was heading to Battle Creek for the weekend for school.  Word got back to me and I tried to look for her throughout the weekend.  I didn't think we were going to find the opportunity.  However, Danielle was called onto stage TWICE to receive awards for the events she competed in.  Afterwards I tracked her down and we took this photo. 

 

All of the participants who received awards now have the opportunity to represent Michigan in the National competition held in Anaheim, CA later in April.  Good luck Danielle!!

All 3 branches OPEN!

We are all a little snowy but, we are open.  If you cannot get to one of our three locations today you can call us, use COPOCO@home or download our app for your Droid or iPhone!

 

Here are some photos from this morning around our branches.

 

Wilder Road and Bangor Road - Main

 

Cabaret Trail S and Bay Road

 

Straits Drive and Mackinaw (US-10)

Go Red For Women!

I almost forgot...We always use this day to GO RED for Women and raise awareness about women and heart disease.  Here are some photos from around the branches today.

 

 

 

 

30 days in

I have been playing around with all of the photos I took during construction.  The top one I took yesterday and the one below it was in the beginning of July.  When I took the one in July I wasn't really sure where the building would sit.  I think these two together are cool to look at.  Love yesterdays sky color!!

 

Still working on some finishing touches.  Doug and Doreen installing my keyboard tray.

 

 Keyboard trays at each teller station.

 

 They were testing the slide on this one when I took this picture.  Neither one of them knew I was there and they both had mini heart attacks/strokes because they were so close to the electrical in the counters when the flash went off.  Oops!  I didn't plan that, if I had it would not have worked.

 

 Doug recruited a new helper.

 

Doug also hung our new lobby clock.

 

 

Our marketing intern, Anna-Shea, spent a couple days here working on our video messaging in the lobby and helping me with Open House invitations.