Gary stressed that continued cooperation with the IWCA and other groups of window cleaners was key to the success of the network, and that even though “membership kits” would soon be available to online networkers, and Gary’s goal is to make it the best networking medium in the world, the Window Cleaning Network is not, and will not become a trade association.

Robin Tucker, Tucker Manufacturing, not only talked about how his company was focused on that same mission, helping the industry continue to grow, but also how the entire water industry and its understandings of how to use water is changing and making rapid progress. He discussed reverse osmosis and deionization as it is relates to the Tucker Pole and its use in our industry. Water technology is making use of waterfed pole practical in more markets than ever before.

What I thought would be a real yawner became one of the highlights of the entire Picnic. Who wants to talk about public service at a window cleaning seminar? I got my mind changed when Jerry Rigdon of Companion Tools and Theresa Martin, of Martin’s Window Cleaning put on a show. It was a real eye opener.

They approached the topic from different perspectives - at least that’s what we expected. Jerry is from Burlington Iowa, and Theresa is from Houston, Texas. There companies operate on a different scale, but they could have switched places, because their message is universal.

Jerry told us to join the chamber of commerce and get involved in one or more of their projects, be it a fund raiser, cleanup project or whatever. He stressed that you can use community involvement as a way to be perceived as a part of your local business community, instead of a fringe player.
Theresa explained how her company has built relationships with some of their larger customers by helping out with some of their pet projects. Martin’s Window Cleaning has, for example provided equipment and manpower to one of its largest customers’ neighborhood cleanup projects.

The bottomline for both was how community involvement had helped them personally, helped their businesses and reflected well on the window cleaning industry as a whole.
Tom Thomas of Blountville, Tennessee, recently opened the "Window Cleaning Center" which is a national website that customers can use to find the website of a window cleaner in their area. That address is: http://www.window-cleaning-center.com

The Window Cleaning Center will be sort of a mall of window cleaners. Tom’s company, Brite-Way Publishing can also design a website for a window cleaners.
Tom talked a little about how web page sites and multi-web page sites are now being posted rather randomly by window cleaners, and about how he hopes to pull it all together and make these sites easier to find.

Tom also announced that there will be a “window cleaners only” side to his website. There, all Window Cleaning Network members will be able to find information on numerous window cleaning topics and take what they need. Tom has been editing our daily email messages into digest form, and his digest is favored by perhaps 1/4 of subscribers because he edits out the goofs and such. For the last 9 months or so he has archived these messages, and they will be a key feature on his site.

Our afternoon session consisted of hands on demonstrations. A lot of windows were cleaned at the Olympia Sports Center as a result of these hands on demonstrations. Gary says he made a point of NOT asking if he could clean the windows there this summer, so we’d have some real dirt to work with when the picnic came around. We could tell.

We all saw the article in the AWC about the Bucket in a Bottle a few months back (AWC #61, page 24). Bill Price of Wyndow-Tech provided a live demonstration of this system, which he invented. After witnessing it, I can see many practical applications as to how this one very simple idea can be of great value to any form of window cleaning.

The idea is to apply solution with the bottle. It’s always at your side when you’re inside, on a ladder or up on a roof. Bill says northern window cleaners can use his system to keep their hands drier and warmer this winter because there’s no need to strip excess water from a wand if you haven’t dunked it in a bucket. He also showed us how he drilled holes in his squeegee handles to make them lighter - a trick he learned by way of his racing hobby.

Gary then showed us how easy it is to apply the new glass protectants that are on the market. He used samples from Racenstein, and it really did look easy You just apply the stuff to a clean window using a clean wand squeegee it off. But Gary hasn’t used the stuff much, and we ended up directing our questions to Chris Wallace of ABC Supply, and to Theresa, whose company has used buckets of the stuff.

Jerry Rigdon of Companion Tools demonstrated the Ledger and the new Swivel-Ledger. These are squeegee handles which reach over window ledges, so you can clean recessed windows with a pole instead of a ladder. Jerry showed us how they work as a hand -held tool as well as on a pole. Robin and Carol Tucker ended the afternoon session with a Tucker Pole-DI demonstration. These things look heavy but they’re not, and once we got used to the idea of leaving water on glass, we began to see the attraction of waterfed poles. The deionized water simply didn’t leave spots.

At the end of the day those of us who had filled out our survey forms descended upon product samples provided by ABC Supply, J Racenstein and Wyndow-Tech.

But that’s not all there was to this event. We had several hours of serious networking opportunities in a hotel suite equipped with computers on Friday and Saturday evenings, and under the picnic tent while devouring a pig and corn roast. It must be noted that the generosity of Companion Tools, Ettore Products and Unger Enterprises made all that possible.

I had my own reason to I appreciate these extra networking opportunities. I hadn't seen Tom Thomas in something like 22 years. We were both surprised to see each other on one of Gary’s earliest email lists, and we both looked forward to having a reunion of sorts at the Picnic.
Quite a connection, maybe even a bond is established after a year of online communication. That's how I felt anyway, and it was good to see all these faces, most of them for the first time.

We’re already talking about doing it again next year. Gary Mauer should be commended for organizing the picnic, and for what he has done to make the Window Cleaning Network a success over this past year.

Email is turning out to be the most popular thing on the internet, and I can see why. There are around 400 window cleaners involved in email networking in one way or another. They’ll never all be able to attend a picnic like the one in Oconomowoc, but that was just one of many ways that email networking has been helpful to our industry and those participating in it.

If you are interested in participating in the Window Cleaning Network, visit the website http://window-cleaning.net
Russ Rigdon
Brite-Way
Cedar Rapids, IA