2011 Black Friday Sale!

Friday morning starting at 9:00 AM we will be offering 33% off our current 2011/12 lineup. These deals are for Black Friday only so stop by or call the shop at 231.459.4323 to order. We will also be giving away free stickers and decals to anyone who stops by!

See you Friday,

Jeff Thompson
jeff@sccskis.com

TGRs “One for the Road”

Shaggy’s will be displaying this year’s lineup at two showings of  ”One for the Road” by Teton Gravity Research. We will be donating skis to the United States Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame for a raffle at their showing. Also we will be donating a pair for a door prize at  Walled Lake Central Ski Team’s showing in Novi.

Marquette, Mi

Ski & Snowboard Movie & Pre-season Party Night

A fundraiser for the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame and Museum.
Doors OPEN at 7:00
Show Starts at 8:00
Cover: $5
Food, beverages, door prizes, good times…

www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=156881901075357

November 13th, 2011
Doors OPEN at 7:00
Show Starts at 8:00

Presented by Walled Lake Central Ski Team

http://novi.patch.com/events/one-for-the-road-movie-tour-event#pdf-8327758

Grand Opening Timelapse Video

The grand opening went great. A big thanks goes out to the Boyne Area Chamber of Commerce for all of their help. The support from the local community couldn’t be greater.

Check out the video from the timelapse video from the event!

Skis in Production

The grand opening went great, the turnout was awesome, the city graciously welcomed us into the community, and it got us even more excited about the coming season.

The 2011-12 lineup is in full production now, with new skis occupying the showroom just waiting to be flexed. So come on over to the factory/showroom in Boyne City and get ready for winter!

The local media has been great, check out the media page to see their take on everything.

A few of last years skis on sale now.

Skis in the Press!

We now have the new shop finished up and skis are in the press. It may be almost 9:00pm  but the skis are finally baking. More detailed updates and pics to come in the next few days.

Finishing Touches to the New Shop

We can now see the light at the end of the tunnel! The shop is back up and ready to start working. We’ve been working on the finishing touches for the past few days and it finally is just about done. A soft, private opening will take place in about a week and a grand re-opening event will take place 9/10/11 along with an unveiling of the 2011/12 lineup. Details to come about the opening in the next two days!

Check out the shop, and check in later for a video tour.

Laying carpet in the showroom

The shop dog testing out the new carpet

Prep room for base, edges, topsheet, etc

Storage area

Tool storage/packaging area

Grinding room, now we just need to find space for our robot (Microjet) in this shop.

Always have to have some decent music while working.

Sorting a few cores

Finishing up the new shop

The drywall is up and taped, the showroom walls are covered with rough sawn planks,  the osb is painted. The end is near, back to building in the next week!

We Have Electricity!

Monday we received a call from Consumers Energy, appologizing and they told us that they would have people out there tomorrow (today the 26th of July). We were not getting our hopes up as we had been through this a few times already. Around 4pm Monday the 25th we saw MisDig pull up and start flagging the property, something might actually happen…

This morning we got to the shop a little late (around 8:15am) and sure enough there were people from Consumers Energy already working to reconnect the electricity. By 2:30pm today we had electricity and by 3:00pm they had a meter set. LIGHTS! It was then around 3:00pm that we finally got power to the outlets. What a relief that was, no more running the generator.

Consumers Energy did give us the go around, but in the end they took care of business and we are thankful for that.

Anyways here is some of our latest progress on the shop and we should be back to production soon!

 

Problems with Electricity at the Factory

ALL I Want to do is Work. Is that so much to ask?

So just about a month ago on Saturday June 25th, 2011 I was on my way from Houghton, MI to South Lyon, MI and had scheduled to see a building at 01170 M-75 South in Boyne City, MI. This is where we are moving to and we wanted to get a shop secured because we were going to be in Boyne City permanently as of July 10th. So I met up with the President of the Boyne Valley Columbian Building Association to walk through and see if it was something we should pursue. It turned out it was so I called up my father/ business partner to come up and take a look at the building. The building had been vacant for about three years prior to us looking at it so we knew there were going to be some issues with it. First off the carpet throughout the building had been wet for some time and mold spores were all over it, it had to go. Also there was some bar in the middle of the area we wanted to lease so that too had to be removed. There, it all seems good, the association (actually the Boyne Valley Knights of Columbus) has some strong community ties and the carpet was out by the 5th of July and the moldy floors were bleached. The bar took about another week to be removed, but alas it was taken out and not a big deal.

Here comes the kicker… There was some speculation at some time that the building could be demolished, so Consumers Energy took it upon themselves to just cut the electrical leads to the building at the ground of the utility pole in front of the building instead of just disconnecting the service. So as part of our original agreement with the building owners they would have the electrical service reconnected and told us that it would be a quick process; remember this conversation took place in late June (Monday June 27th to be exact). So the owners talked with Consumers Energy and per their request had the building’s electrical work/panel inspected by Charlevoix County so Consumers could reconnect the service. The reason the inspection took place was because Consumers Energy requested it, they knew from the end of June that we needed electricity hooked up from that point on.

So we went about our business moving our equipment into the back of the building to store it until our build out was finished. We were under the assumption that it would be a little while before it was connected and thought as long as it was before the 10th any day would be fine. So we were told that electricity was coming tomorrow for a few days in a row and some crews from Consumers Energy finally started showing up around the 13th of July. Within about three days, four trips were made to the building by crews from Consumers Energy and we were told by just about each crew that a different crew would have to come out because it was out of their realm of work. Again we were left waiting.
On Friday the 15th we were finally able to talk to an Engineer at Consumers and she eventually explained the process she would have to go through to get electricity to our building. She would come out on Wednesday the 20th at the earliest to survey the property and past connections then engineer a plan for the hookup. Once the plan is completed she explained that Consumers would wait until payment for the work was completed and then take up to 13 days to hook up electricity. This was extremely frustrating for us as we wanted to be producing our skis at the latest the week of the 18th. We contemplated walking away from that property at the time but decided the road frontage we were going to have would be worth the wait. Also we thought about how the money from our rent would go right back into the local community seeing as we would be renting from the Knights of Columbus, another benefit of staying at this building. We could put up our partitions and have our interior electrical work done in the mean time. So now we pulled permits for interior walls, put them up, and had an electrician start wiring the interior.

That brings us to today, Thursday July 21st, 2011, and we hear from the building owners that the engineer told them it could be up to five more weeks now to hook up the service. Wait… FIVE WEEKS??? We have been in this process for four weeks already and Consumers has done nothing more that send out some people to look at the connections. What, I ask, is taking them so long? The state of the economy in Michigan is BAD, there is virtually no new construction going on, there is no huge backlog of work for them… Is there? Maybe they could tell us. But when I get on the phone to call Consumers all I get is some customer service person that tells me it has been turned over to the Engineering Department and can transfer me to them, great… Ring, Ring, Ring, answering machine, “Blah, blah, blah, I will be out of the office for some extended period of time so our Engineer (I won’t say the name) in Traverse City will be taking care of our business, you can reach her at 555-1234 (again I won’t post it).” So I call this engineer only to get to another answering machine, I leave a message and three hours later I still haven’t heard anything nor have the building owners who have tried to contact this particular engineer.

I just want to be able to work, we are bringing a new business into Northern Michigan and all we have is problems. Our only provider is Consumers Energy, what are we to do? We now have not only invested our time, labor, and materials, but also brought an electrician in and have to pay him. We do not want to have to move, we don’t want to start a big fuss with Consumers Energy, we just want to be able to work and produce skis for people to enjoy.

Thanks for reading and please spread the word of our plight. Who knows what might happen?

Jeff Thompson
SCC Skis, LLC
248.921.1620
jeff@sccskis.com

Walls up at the new shop

We’re getting closer to production again. Just waiting on getting electricity hooked up and we should be building again soon.