Scattering Sale - Bettina Network's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Scattering Sale’

We Heard Your Call to Investigate and Write!

Sunday, January 8th, 2017

To the editor:

Thank you for that blog.  We – me and a small group of friends – heard your call to investigate and put together the pieces we have and write about what is happening.  We are going to do exactly that and hope others will follow suit.

We have a little information, but need to expand on it so we are going to contact who we need to contact and you will soon hear from us.  I am writing this because I hope others do the same.

Some of us can put our names out there.  Others, who are still dependent upon their jobs, can’t.  Can we still send you a blog and you will publish it anonymously?

Answer:

Yes! We will publish it anonymously, as long as we know who you are and we know you are a real person. You have to identify yourself to us, but we will keep your identity close.  It does not have to be sent with your blog, but you will have to then call, write, or somehow contact us to let us know who you are and your identity has to check out.

Thank you for caring.  If we all come together on this, maybe we can save a little bit of the country we know and love from what is about to happen here.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

A New World Order

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2015

We first heard of a “New World Order” when George Bush was president and let those words slip.  We want to pick up those words and expand and change what that means – just a little.

We live and see others prosper as we recapture the past and move into the future world order.  Some of us see the past as that place full of light and goodness.  Others see this new technology creating that place full of light and goodness.  We think they are both wrong and totally destroying what they are trying to achieve and capture.  How does that happen?  How did and do they get it so wrong?

We have to go back to the old world understanding that we don’t own anything on this earth.  We contribute those ways of thinking to the ‘primitives’.  Those groups of people who didn’t understand and were very ‘unintelligent’ in their ways of thinking.  Their basic belief was that we don’t and can’t own anything in this world.  All of that changed.  But did it really or only in new constructs we chose to use to define who we are and how we live!

When we enter this world we do so with nothing except the body we take on at conception.  When we leave it, we leave with nothing – not even the body with which we have identified for as long as we have lived on this earth.  So how have we gotten everything so messed up, mixed up, confused and just downright wrong?

We need to go back to accept the fact of who we are instead of who our leaders have created us to be through their mythology – which we have accepted – and look at and accept who we really are and what we really own, if anything.  Once we do that, the Bettina Lifestyle is simple – it is a “New World Order” based on our shared humanity – and a joy to live.

Whatever we receive in this life is a gift and something we own only temporarily.  It really belongs to the earth – whatever that means.  So we should take care of every pin, every dot, every tittle and iota that comes into our possession because it is not permanent and it is not ours.  We keep all of these things for a second and then pass them on to someone else, unless we have ruined all of what we have possessed in the meantime and then we throw our things into the landfills.  Those things we claim to own came from someplace else and are going someplace else when we no longer have use of whatever we have acquired.

Enter the Estate Sale – the Yard Sale – the Garage Sale.  All ways we use to get rid of our ‘old’ stuff’ that we no longer want nor think we can use.  The thought of taking care of our things because we are passing them along in the future very seldom enters our minds.  We are the throw away society.  We use it and throw it away.  And what happens to those waiting to receive those throw away items?  Sorry, but they were trashed, discarded, uncared for because the person using them interrupted the cycle by their inability to recognize their humanity and the need to share everything with those waiting to receive.  We have dehumanized those waiting to receive to justify the way we have dehumanized ourselves.  We have re-created ourselves in the image of the god we created who would put up with our sins, and wastefulness and uglinesses to ourselves and to others.

If we had taken good care of what we ‘owned’ temporarily, and understood that what we have must be used by someone else, those things would continue their lives and would continue to be useful someplace else and to someone else.

Some people can only buy and use “new” stuff.  Some of us delight and cherish the ‘old stuff’ that we find at Estate Sales.  It is like winning the lottery to find something wonderful for a fraction of what we would have to pay for the same item “new”.  It is living on society’s throw aways, but what a luxury life.

Clothes are the best example.  If you wear your clothes carefully, you can pass them on to continue to be used by someone else.  So Bettina provides for that.  Bettina Network, inc. has estate sales.  Bettina Network Foundation, inc. gives away that which is given to us to those who need the give-aways to be able to participate in this society.  How wonderful to find those give-aways in good condition.

There is no understanding of the ugliness and selfishness of the society in which we live until one becomes homeless.  You can understand it on a very small basis as you interact and see the political fights, the petty jealousies, the coveting thy neighbors belongings. You can understand it only so far, if you also have a position which pays you money to work; friends in the same or better position of whom you can be jealous; belongings which don’t quite measure up to those of your neighbors.  Homeless,  you are cut off from all of that and are standing outside alone or with children or with other family or with friends- all of you alone -it is a stark emptiness, fear and feeling of what was it all about and what is it all about now that I am on the street!  But oddly enough, that tendency to create negative structures in which to live is so strong that the homeless recreate the same scenarios only on a different level from that which we find in the society at large.  What stops that?  What intervenes to get rid of all the myths which we have created to continue this insanity?

To be homeless raises the question as to what got me in this place? Did I do something or not do something that I wound up homeless and cut off from everyone and everything except those in my condition?  There are a few people who reach out to help, but they are not my friends.  They are making themselves feel good as a part of their “belonging,”‘  enhancing their position in society; reaching out to ‘do good’, but going back into the lifestyle and the society which created the underbelly of people that are not doing so good.

Why do we throw away our children onto the streets?  Why do we cast our elderly into buildings which harbor and collect all of the germs and diseases one gets as one gets older and keeps them from being seen and interacted with by others – the normal younger ones?  Why do we eliminate youth and family from these buildings and put those who are only one step above the elderly in such places to ‘care’ for them?  Is there something about youth who don’t tow the line and the elderly who shouldn’t be seen with the rest of us that makes us segregate?

As racism subsides are we so quickly replacing it with this form of elder-ism and creating more isms – so we don’t run out and might have to acknowledge our equality?  Separate and unequal now true for the elderly and for our children?

It is interesting that one sees, on the streets, people active until about age 70 and then it is rare to see those much older unless we see them amongst the homeless.  We have to go out of our way to these elder-buildings to see anyone older than 70.  Why do we so desperately need to be better than, that we will destroy other human beings to fill our need to be better than?

Marketing and advertising create the image of being stunned by those over 40 who look good (translate young) – who are not ill – who are active in society.  We just gasp at a 50 year old who looks younger and is still very active.  Corporations almost totally refuse to hire anyone over 45 and we go along with that.  Somehow, wisdom does not count.  And we can see that in how our society operates.  If wisdom were allowed in, and we commonly shared the experiences we have acquired  from having lived many years through much,  that might change the structures of our world and those who are busy creating this horror might have to give way to others who understand, acknowledge and act out of our common humanity.

If we treated our possessions as being with us only temporarily would that change all of this?  If we consciously understood that when we leave this earth we would not even be able to do so taking our own bodies?  Would that make a change?  If we passed on what we now own and use when we either no longer want or need it and we passed that on in good shape to others would all of this change?

As of now, wearing clothes someone else bought and wore and now throws away is not considered great.  Many of us won’t wear other peoples’ clothes.  We expect to immediately get sick and die from some terminal disease we catch in that process.  This need for new stuff and only new stuff has been created by a marketing and advertising campaign which has made us deathly afraid of each other and sometimes of ourselves.  We must feed the “growth through throw away” societal structure.  The faster we can get others to discard and throw away the faster new industries and companies can grow.

Look at this, –  we can’t stand to be around someone who has an odor. That has created a whole industry, which is thriving.  Try it sometimes and see how repulsed your friends and even your family can be if you smell.  And we all smell.  The exception is those who temporarily get rid of their smell by using chemicals which in the long run are harmful to one’s health.  Maybe those products need the addition in their television commercials to list all the bad things they do to the body, if you use them, as soothing music plays in the background.  Your smell is as unique as everything else.  Get used to it.  Can you walk into a room and know any of the people who just exited by the odors left or do you know the odors left by the brand of the chemicals used by the individuals?

We prefer to be around those who have more than we do and we will do some strange things to each other reaching ‘up’.  We cater to those who seem to have more, hoping they will acknowledge us and pull us ‘up’ with them.  And those already ‘up’ are doing their best to distance themselves from those who have less because they don’t want their ‘position’ compromised, especially by the unwashed.

Take a look at what keeps us without an odor – full of chemicals.  Take a look at what  keeps us clothed – chemicals, oil, especially in the middle classes and you will find these  chemicals and processed oils giving off gases into our bodies.  The food the chefs, who now make millions of dollars for the prattle produce, – can be really fowl, only we claim it to be exquisite because we repeat what we are expected to repeat to stay a member of the group.  Once upon a time these Chefs touted Olive Oil as the only Oil to cook with if you wanted to be healthy.  Slowly, too slowly, word got out that one can’t really cook with Olive Oil because it goes rancid as the temperature in the pot goes up and it doesn’t have to go up very far for the rancidity to appear killing all of the B vitamins in our system.

Try life in this New World Order.  Take good care of what you currently own,  with the thought that it will be owned by someone else in the not too dBettina Trademarkistant future and you want to preserve it so it can continue to be used and enjoyed.  Pass your belongings on to those who either won’t or can’t pay the top dollars required of the people buying new stuff.  What is this new stuff they are buying?  Shoes full of chemicals way into four figures; New pocketbooks which show off a certain status costing into five figures.  Instead of landfill, make sure those items with which you currently live are in such good condition they can be passed on to others to enjoy.

Find someone homeless and bring them into your social circle.  Include them in your parties, your dinners, your outings, your vacations.  You don’t have to provide them with permanent housing.  When dinner is over they go back to their homeless state.  When you return from vacation, they go back to their homeless state.  When you pass someone homeless on the street – smile and speak.  When you pass anyone on the street – smile and acknowledge your common humanity.  What will that do?  Possibly cure this society’s penchant for creating homelessness and then not taking responsibility for what we have created.  How? By acknowledging our common humanity.  If I have a lot in common with that person on the street how can I do otherwise than to at least speak.  Maybe one day……………..

As the homeless are more included in your life and the lives of your friends and family maybe they will see another way to move out of the state they are in.  Maybe doors have been opened for them and within them to help move them off the street.

Try this beginning of a truly New World Order and see how far it takes you and us.

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

How to Live Elegantly Spending Less

Saturday, November 2nd, 2013

copyright 2013  Bettina Network, inc.

Estate Sales – Yard Sales – Home Liquidations – and many more names which describe a family or individual or group of people selling what they can’t use, don’t want, need money so they sell the things they own, etc.

These sales provide you with an opportunity to really buy what you need and what you can’t find elsewhere because it is probably not sold anymore.  It is also your opportunity to buy something “real” instead of the pressed paper furniture, plastic made to look like glass, really expensive clothes which don’t last the season, etc.  Try the book sections in estate sales instead of the library.  For $1 or $2 you can snag really great books and sometimes first editions.  Although the first editions may cost as much as $5.  And then pass them along for others to read.

How do you live like this?

Instead of shopping at the mall – make a list during the week of what you need and would shop for-  at the mall, the big box stores, the discount houses, the really upscale designer original shops, the one of a kind furniture stores – to continue to live well and comfortably.

Look up the sales – usually over the weekend – map them out so you can easily go from one to the other without doubling back – and off you go to this new lifestyle.

Many sales by professional estate sale people take credit cards and some even take checks.  When you hit one by owner you probably will need to have cash, although some private sales also take checks.

A real find is the liquidation of an estate which includes all the things the person used in life and now must be ‘scattered’ to others.  All the basics you need for your home you will probably find at these sales.  It is like shopping all the different departments at the stores you may now frequent and which max out  your credit card and ruin your credit.  The estate sales will let you live in the same or better style and you will find your credit card bill much reduced and very manageable at the end of the month.

I wanted a bread baking machine, but didn’t want to spend the $100 plus dollars it cost to buy one – and I tend to have very high end taste.  I will sniff and look down my nose at anything not well made with less than top quality materials.  Especially those items copied from their beautiful, elegant forebears.  But I also have a very low end budget so I shopped for three week-ends until I found my bread baking machine.  It was brand new, still in the box, still sold at the Bloomingdale’s of the world and I paid $20.

My neighbor was going to a very elegant birthday party and wanted something with lots of bling to wear.  She found a beautiful Valentino dress – in her size and with the sales slip and price tag still hanging on the dress.  It was beautiful.  Not as much bling as she wanted, but it screamed luxury and fit her perfectly.  Because she found this at the end of that particular estate sale she paid $18 for a dress with a price tag over $500.  She bought shoes to match, at the same sale, which didn’t fit her 9 1/2 feet, but fit my 7 1/2 feet very comfortably.  She bought them for me for $5 as a ‘thank you’ for turning her on to the estate sales.  She went off to her birthday party beautifully dressed with her old shoes, which still looked great with her new dress.

That goes for every part of your life.  You have to be patient, but in the end patience is rewarded as you find that what you want always turns up at one or another sale.

My kitchen is total testimony to this lifestyle.  It is fully stocked with every gadget around, none of which cost me over $1 or $2.  I profited from our American penchant to buy what we think is really great and will make our lives easier, put it in the drawer or closet and never use it – content with the fact that we have it  ‘just in case.’  I imagine what the person who owned the gadgets I bought was thinking when they went to the store to buy these items – which at the time they couldn’t live without.

I just foolishly bought two shelving units for my attic – to store an ever increasing stash of clothes (my weakness – probably coming from my modiste grandmother).  I bought them brand new from a very upscale hardware store.  They cost $120 each for the component parts I needed to put together the kind of shelving that would help me store these clothes carefully so I could reach whatever I needed in seconds.  At the very next estate sale I went to, there were several shelving units just like the ones I had just bought.  I bought two more at this sale – took them apart – washed them because they were in the basement of the home where I was shopping – put them together the way I wanted them to be and WOW – I had two more units for which I paid $10 each.  What a difference.  My impatience cost me $220 which would have been much better spent on something else, or given to someone who needed a little lift in life.  Having to wash the units didn’t bother me.  I took them apart so I could re-assemble them into my storage needs and carefully washed each piece.  Since they were very good quality stainless steel and beautifully made – not the flimsy kind one finds in the stores these days – they looked like new when I re-assembled them into closets for the attic.

Now I am looking for glass containers for flour, sugar, rice – all the things that need storage in the kitchen, but elegant storage.  I am looking for antique glass or porcelain or any other kind of container which is easily cleaned and looks very elegant to add to what I already have in the kitchen.  I don’t expect to pay more than $2 or $3 per container – for a really great one I will go up to $5 so when I get home from the grocery store I can ‘decant’ my primary cooking ingredients into them and have them within reach.  Because they are going to be very beautiful they will look just fine on the counters in the kitchen.  They will also be home to  the organic teas and spices that I love – and it will keep them fresh and constantly used because I won’t have to reach around and behind other stuff  only to  find them moth infested because they are still in their paper and other kind of containers.

That goes for every part of your life.  You have to be patient, but in the end patience is rewarded as you find that what you want always turns up at one or another estate sale.

I think you get the message.  Happy hunting – maybe one of our blogs will suggest a way for you to use all of the money you are going to save with this new way of life.  It certainly brings ‘recycle’ to new heights.

Ed Note:  For the purposes of full disclosure, Bettina Network, inc. manages estate sales across the country.   The sales will soon be a benefit to those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

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The Morning After

Monday, April 29th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

Estate Sales should be staffed by psychiatrists and psychologists who are looking for material to use in writing a book about all of us.

At some time or other we all pass through – either an estate sale or a bed & breakfast.  We pass through as a guest or as proprietor of a bed & breakfast (defined in the old fashioned sense of a private home which welcomes guests) or the owner or executor of items sold via some kind of estate sale.

Our goal, the Bettina Network’s goal, in this business as in our lives is to be truly responsible to the environment; to quality in all our offerings and the way we offer them; to diversity, acceptance, equality and especially respect of others.

That said – we would like to pass on to you some of the lessons we have learned – and we will certainly take them to heart and do our best to incorporate them in our lives going forward.

One incontrovertible fact – the estate sale, scattering sale, antique sale, moving sale, art sale are social events.  Many people come to meet and greet; to see what is offered; to talk about themselves and their lives; to travel-in-place exploring the neighborhoods around the sales finding new places to eat – to visit – to enjoy.  What has been obvious to us for decades is the fact that antique people, estate sale people, artists, bed & breakfast people have some very similar personality and character traits in common.  So much so you can spot a ‘newbie’ in a few seconds.  Interestingly, that ‘newbie’ gains experience and moves up in the ranks very quickly.

Estate sales have three kinds of merchandise – the ‘real’ antique and old masters art, the collectible items, the new stuff being sold so it can be replaced with more new stuff.  Mostly, or should I say historically, those items are segregated into “classes” and sold separately in different sales.  Our way of doing business is to offer them all at once so you have the experience of seeing what one person has deemed important and collected over a lifetime or over the time they have spent in a particular house or profession.  One of our goals is to break those barriers and offer a Rembrandt and stainless steel spoon in the same sale.  We now have enough appraisers, art historians, consultants who are expert in just about every item out there working with us to be able to do that with confidence.  We hope as we move forward, you will gain enough confidence in us and in our ability to bring to you the best way of selling your art, furniture, collection, musical instruments, jewelry, cars, houses, stocks, bonds, other financial instruments and more, that we are the first and last people you call to engage to sell any and all of your earthly possessions.

Currently, the  ‘real’ antiques and old masters art works are the joy of every collectors heart.  They don’t even have to be able to afford the prices, they just like to look – to touch – to feel – to smell the items they have read about, would love to own but can be satisfied just being there to hear about the owners – where the items came from – how they were acquired – how they were taken care of, etc.  These folks love a bargain, but will pay a fair price because they know what they are buying will only increase in value over the years and they hope it will become a family heirloom and their inheritors will cherish those items left to them and will pass the stories surrounding the items down through the generations.  These are the dream clients.

The collectible items in sales appeal to a whole other group of people.  These are the people who are looking for that big score.  Finding that item for $1.00 which will sell for $100,000, but they will be content adding the 999th item to their collection of Disney, or old spoons, or interesting picture frames, or Victorian furniture which used to be in their grandmother’s house or…..  These are good clients, but their conversation is very different and their approach to an estate sale is very different from those looking for that exquisite work of art.   You don’t have a community forming with this group.   That strong bond forms with those looking for the antiques and old masters art works.  But you also don’t have the intense competition and extreme jealousies which can form around those looking for those antiques and art works even as their sense of community forms.  You do, however, have a lot of bragging going on about 195 items collected with only  804 to go to have an entire “collection”.  Out of this group can come those in whom a switch is flicked and the hoarder appears.

The third group is problematical – both those who own what is being sold and those who buy.  These are the people looking to furnish and add some luxury touches to their homes and generally they want to do it as cheaply as possible.  No problem with that, nor is that a negative.  Some of the people selling have bought items for their own comfort and enjoyment and want to recoup some of what they spent as they move on.  Others have done the same but want those buying this used merchandise to pay close to full price because they have their faces turned around and are so focused on ‘taking’ that ‘sharing’ is an unknown and unknowing concept to them.  There is not often a two way street here and there is very little recognition of anything except their need to squeeze everything and everyone around them dry, leaving nothing behind and even taking from those who don’t have much to give.  These tend to have bought and are selling poorly manufactured merchandise, have lived with it very hard so it can be quite damaged and want others to pay a lot of money for their – no longer new and well worn goods.

Once you walk out of that nicely decorated store with its offer of interior decorators to help you place the items, choose colors, materials, window treatments which they make and more, the value of what you have bought and are probably having delivered drops immediately in value by at least 50% and each year thereafter that you keep that new merchandise, the worth of it drops ever more sharply.  The penalty for purchasing merchandise which is not beautifully crafted; not able to withstand the test of time over its design attributes; is poor material camouflaged to look like something it isn’t is the low price you get on the resale market.

To not recognize that fact and want others to pay for your enjoyment of goods you purchased which are not worth what you paid for them in the first place and which you have worn hard is a very unrealistic place to be and is either a naive or ignorant expectation.  This group is usually made up of those who are up-from and who turn a hard cold face to the world – responsibility and respect are not attributes which can be used to define their character.

And then there are the customers.  These are the ones who make psychiatric history.  Some of the antics we have observed should only be in books – fantasy books, unreal books, novels when one needs to create drama, or really – Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.

The customers who are most intriguing are those who come in to a home, find what they want, take out cash – usually about 10% of the price of the item – and wave it around in front of your face saying something like  ‘look, I have cash money for you right here, right now”.  I am never sure of their expectations.  Is the response to that supposed to be one where you put your tongue out as you hyperventilate because you are so eager to grab the cash you will do anything?  Are you supposed to follow their waving the cash around with longing looks in your eyes?  Do you faint on the spot because you are so close to cash and its affect is so overwhelming you just lose all control and all consciousness so they can rip you off before you can recover?  Or maybe you are expected to dance around them excitedly because they are so willing to pay so little to get so much?  Whatever the expected response, what they are showing are the really negative character traits we all recoil from and what is so, so sad – they don’t even realize – the emperor has no clothes and his/her real ugliness, rudeness, arrogance, disrespect of self is showing and neon signs are flashing out all kinds of messages for the world to see.

It gets even better!  An estate sale is the place to go to understand what large retail corporations have done to American Society and to other societies around the world in the name of competition, branding, marketing, advertising, selling strongly to people who don’t need what you are selling -can’t afford what you are selling – have lost the ability of discernment in things they think they need and struggle to buy and don’t know about the secrets some retailers are hiding behind those fancy packagings.  The need to bring non-profits into the picture, which is so commonly done today, blows smoke into your eyes. You need to gain back that lost discernment, but not yet – this feeling of your giving to those in need while buying what you think you want continues to cover the emptiness in you with the money you are spending for so very little in return.  The non-profts, in return, are losing their soul and their mission in that same process.  Their real, direct contributions drop.  The number of people knowing about their mission, committed to it, working to help bring about their goals drops dramatically in this process, but the mirage has been created and we all fall for it like 16 year olds whose hormones are raging.

It is at the estate sale where the customer goes to project upon those selling their feelings of anger, anxiety, being ripped off which they acquire when they are buying retail.   Some go to the estate sales to gain back the power they have lost in the greater society by parading around like the great and powerful of yesteryear, treating others as though they are the servants and have the job of mopping up what they leave behind.  It is to the estate sale we go to crap on the people selling because we can’t do the same to the large multi-national retailer ripping all of us off in the name of making a profit, because we don’t have the strength of character to be able to put blame where its due.

At the same time, the loveliness of shopping happens at estate sales because they are very personal and at the sales are the customers who have beautiful spirits and share some of their lives.  They share who they are, what they are looking for and why and who want to stay within their budgets and pay as little as possible but also want you to thrive and make sure, as best they can, that what they are buying and what they pay for what they are buying seems fair to all.  Sometimes, they share some of their dreams and visions of the future, what the world could be like, their problems, their great families, their ungreat families who have sent them out to strangers to share what’s in their hearts and I could go on for quite a few paragraphs.

Accordingly, having learned these lessons and a whole lot more, we are responding in a way which lessens the pressure on those selling with us (our staff) and which makes our days in this business much less stressful:

1)  We have established a “watch list”.  No we aren’t watching for thieves, they are the least of our worries.  We put on our watch list those who are ugly in spirit and want everything for themselves and enjoy ripping off others to get it.  They can’t do this in a larger context because it would be defined as a criminal act and they would have penalties to pay through loss of their freedom.  So we will use our “watch list” to exclude them from all future sales;  spend no time with them and discourage them from coming to Bettina Network Sales.

 

2)  The only people we will put on our ’email’ list, a list of those to whom we send notices of our sales – invitations to special events – invitations to previews of sales before they are open to the general public – will be people who are fully human; who understand and promote equality and diversity; who have reasons for buying other than to hit the jackpot by ripping off others.  How will we know these people?  Experience.  Work an estate sale for a few hours and you will also know!!!

 

3) The last day of our sales will be split in two.  The first half, items left will be half-price to those who have previously purchased items from our sales and the second half will be entertainment, refreshments and what is left given free to those who have receipts for having purchased previously or who have checked with us about people they know who are in need and who could use some of what is left.

 

4)  As time goes on, this list will get longer.  But for now it is a beginning.  We hope it is a beginning of the Reformation of retail in this world.  I can’t say in this American Society because it is not limited to the U. S. A., it goes across the world and is getting stronger.  An ethical, responsible, strong and good character is what is needed to overcome the greed, avarice, jealousy, obscene profits, now driving this and other industries.  If that is what you have – join us!  We would love to manage your sale; house your travelling guests; be a lifestyle reference.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Alice Amsden’s Commemoration at MIT

Saturday, November 3rd, 2012

Dr. Alice Amsden, Barton L. Weller Professor of Economic Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Over the weekend of October 20, 2012 MIT held a commemoration/memorial for Dr. Amsden and it was recorded and published.  One of  the Bettina Network Community members called to ask that we post the email on Bettina Network’s Blog that we sent to those who purchased at Dr. Amsden’s Scattering Sale.  She had forwarded the link to a couple friends and they said the content of the weekend should have a wider ciculation and encouraged her to have the commemoration put on the blog.

In that spirit, the link follows and we invite you to take a look.  It was a tremendous couple of days and an opportunity to both pay tribute to Dr. Amsden and to learn about her ideas, work and family.  We came away with a much greater understanding of what she was about and a different set of ideas about how the world could work.

We sent the following message to those who purchased items at this sale and decided to share it with the Bettina Network’s world.

http://amsden.mit.edu/program/

http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/21431-alice-amsden-commemoration-part-1

“A couple months ago you purchased items at a Bettina Network Scattering Sale which were from the estate of Alice Amsden.

There was a memorial service for Ms. Amsden at MIT recently, which is now on-line.  We have included, at the top of this email, the link for you to use to see this service.  It is a fantastic tribute to Dr. Amsden and it gives you an idea as to who she was, her work, ideas, colleagues and more.

Some of us keep as much of a provenance of the items we buy as possible.  We assume you are one of us and would like to have this information that you can peruse as you wish.  There are six parts to the video and it is excellent.

Thank you for being a part of the Bettina Network Community and for the purchases you made at the Alice Amsden Sale.  We hope this video becomes a part of your collection and you keep it with the items you purchased from Dr. Amsdens estate.

At Bettina Network we are working on building a research library which would include such information on all the items we sell so the next generation will be able to search for and find the art, furnishings, everyday items and more of those who meant a lot to them.  I still wonder what happened to some particular items from my grandmother’s estate.  I would very much have appreciated being able to search for those items, so we are working to give others that opportunity.

We also hope the research library will be used by researchers, appraisers, historians and others to gain an idea into who owned what, why, its value when it was sold and its history before it was acquired by that particular person.

We hope this video is as meaningful to you as it was to us.  Besides the ideas and discussion in this Commemoration, the video about Alice Amsden from baby to the end of life was beautifully done as was the tribute to Dr. Amsden by her family.

We commend it to you with our best wishes and thanks!”
_______________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Who Won the Prize at the Bettina Sale?

Sunday, August 12th, 2012

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2012

The Bettina Scattering Sale for Dr. Alice Amsden has come to an end.  It was a great experience.  Many lessons learned to carry forward to the next sale and many, many people to thank.

First, we want to thank all of you who came, looked,  bought and those who clicked into the ‘on-line’ part of the sale and put in bids.

As you know, everytime you put in a bid your name was put into the computer box which keeps such and today we had the computer tell us who it picked to win the night at a bed & breakfast in a Bettina Network home in Concord, Massachusetts.

That person was Christine Gilbert.  Congratulations!  We will be in touch with you to tell you how to collect your prize.  The family of Dr. Alice Amsden and the Bettina Network, inc. thank you for bidding. We appreciate your participation and we appreciate everyone who helped to make this a success.

We look for you at the next sale.  Make sure you are registered on the Bettina Network’s web site so you can be the first to be notified when the next sale takes place.  Lots of changes coming with the next sale.  This was our first sale using the new software and it worked beautifully.  We had a couple glitches in the beginning, but it took only a few minutes to get it fixed.  Susan Buck and Nicole Noll of Web Start Women did an outstanding job with the software.  They are off putting their heads together to make the program we use that they wrote – better, easier, and of course,  elegant.  You must come to the next sale to see their changes.

We also want to thank Louise Botero and Alexandre Hawley for playing wonderful duets on the viola da gamba on Sunday afternoon at the Amsden house.  We have security cameras that we set up all over the house during our sales.  Maybe we will try to figure out how to use one to make a video that we can post to the blog to share with all of you.  A small buffet followed the recital and in the process we learned how to make the next event, at the end of a Bettina Sale, a really special time.

Thanks also to all of you who inundated us with suggestions for the next sale.  I had no idea we had so many friends who want us to succeed and who have taken a special interest in what we are doing and how we are doing it.  It will take time to sort through all of the suggestions, but I know you will see some of them implemented soon.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

 

 


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