BARNSTABLE — For thrift store junkies, nothing pleased like the clean, well-organized yet cozy thrift shop run by the Hospice & Palliative Care of Cape Cod.
"This is our favorite," said Maureen McNulty, of Centerville, who habitually haunts second-hand stores.
The Barnstable Village store, however, had its final sale yesterday. David Rehm, president and CEO of hospice, decided not to renew the lease because the shop didn't make a big enough profit.
For many of the volunteers who ran the store — some for more than 20 years — Rehm's handling of the closing left them feeling like castoffs.
"I hope this doesn't reflect badly on hospice," said volunteer Nancy McKenzie. "I think it's an organization that tries to be very caring. It's the lack of caring toward this particular group of volunteers that makes it stand out."
Volunteers, who number up to 45 during the summer, complained that they had heard rumors for a year about the 22-year-old shop closing. It was not until Feb. 9, however, that Rehm notified all of them by letter that the shop would close.
"It was very upsetting because we could see what was happening a year ago," said Viola McLoughlin, 90, who has volunteered on Tuesdays for 21 years.
When the paid store manager, Eva O'Connor-Souza, resigned last year, Rehm didn't hire a new manager.
Reached by phone yesterday, Rehm said the decision to close the shop was very difficult "entirely because of the level of investment those volunteers have made for so many years."
Rehm explained in a letter to volunteers that the net profit of $20,000 a year meant the shop was only bringing in 17 cents on the dollar. Acceptable benchmarks are 20 to 35 cents on the dollar, he wrote.
He said he has been considering various options for a year, but didn't decide to close the store until December, because the lease was up for renewal.
In the future, he would like to open a more upscale "heirloom" store, in a more high-profile location, he said.
The current address, in a former schoolhouse by the Unitarian Church of Barnstable on 6A, does not fit the bill.
"We love our volunteers," said Karen Knaub, hospice's director of volunteers. "They have been the face of hospice in this community and we want to honor that."
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Summary: Good organization inside Virtual Data Rooms is critical to getting deals done. CapLinked’s advanced technology brings speed, security, and superior organization tools to leading deal-makers all over the globe. Get some tips and techniques to help organize a successful deal.
As an example of the good that comes from orderliness, it’s hard to beat the builders of the early rail roads. Massive numbers of communiques, financial records, and technical drawings were collected to make decisions about even short routes. Entire national economies were built and continue to expand on their tracks. Economists measure their impact in the trillions of US dollars. Without fantastic organization using the best technology of the day, none of that work could have been done in so little time and with such scope.
The maxim of good organization via best technology for great progress still stands. In a moment in time, business leaders can make decisions affecting millions of people simply by speaking to anyone in the world whenever they want, collaborating with subject matter experts in multiple time zones, all of whom are reviewing massive amounts of financial and technical data at the same time. And yet, even now, for a deal to enjoy its potential for substantial economic impact it must also be grounded by great organization using the best available technology.
Just as the facsimile gave way to email and FedEx, now email and cloud storage has given way to Virtual Data Rooms or VDR.
Even the most unsophisticated teams leverage VDR solutions to get deals done. In fact, VDR platform technology has dramatically improved just within the last few years.
Few things can set a VDR to fail like poor organization. So what tips and techniques help deal makers to keep an organized secure data room?
The dirty little secret to most secure data rooms is that nobody can locate an important file in 3 seconds or less. Rarely in 30 seconds. Why? Often it is because the rooms are not set up to a reasonable standard.
Solve that problem by instantiating the four pillars of document management: administration, categorization, delegation, and segregation. Approach the organization or structure of the VDR strategically. Ask these questions before setting up or configuring a secure Virtual Data Room:
How should the documents be administered? What are the primary types of information that will be posted, will it be by organizational entity, or by information type, or by department? What are the work assignments? How should information be delegated? Who should have access, and what should some not be able to access?
Thinking in those terms will suggest a simple and clear folder structure. For example, a creative agency typically organizes its folders by client, then by year, then by project (Disney/2017/Bambi 21) because that’s how their teams think about and bill their projects. They store their internal management documents in another folder, away from general staff.
Most VDR platforms determine roles and permissions by folder. This is the most efficient way, and the most manageable way, to define security policies. For one thing, it costs too much time and money to control access to each one of what may be hundreds, or thousands of files. Things could be missed in that situation. Better to inform the system of the permissions by policy, conceived by category or segmentation and defined by permissions to a specific folder.
File names should also reflect planning. Users should be able to determine file content without having to open it. For example, many proficient VDR admins impose a file naming convention to include the Company ID and file source, along with the data “as of” date, e.g. Acme – Cash Flow Statement – 201708. Note that date format, with the four-digit year preceding the month (and day). The advantage of including such specific indications in the file name adheres to the four principles, and accomplishes two things: it makes it easy to navigate available files, and it groups files in an intuitive order. For example, if there were multiple Cash Flow Statements, all of them would be sorted and presented together in a way that makes sense to the team. (Notice how easy it is to find the Cash Flow Statements and to see which file is missing?)
Of course, the best organizational intent will fail with poor infrastructure. Most VDR providers offer basic capabilities but struggle with compatibility, stability and speed. CapLinked offers a better solution for well-managed deals. Its technology is built, from the ground up, with the latest in document security and collaboration. The result is incredible infrastructure and stunning speed. Users focus on their job and don’t think about the product that makes it happen.
The world’s best capitalized organizations, and startups looking for backers, use CapLinked’s virtual data rooms to manage their deals. CapLinked works very hard to deliver superior capability and speed by avoiding buggy browser plug-ins! Secure online document sharing made easy. This modern platform, combined with custom branding, advanced permissions and activity tracking, watermarking, and digital rights management give clients a competitive advantage to effectively manage a deal with any number of participants.
Talk to a qualified support technician today, or better yet, sign up now to begin organizing your next deals’ virtual data room.
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