Hello All
Newsletter time again. I thought there was a lot going on last month, but this month is a busy one too. We have the company anniversary party on the 23rd of this month. More about that later, and we are having the fourth quarter SPC, Strategic Planning Committee meeting on the 26 & 27th of this month. Before we have the quarterly, we have a number of meetings to finalize our initiatives or Rocks as we call them, so that we can plan new initiatives for next year. We just finished our third quarter Emplify survey raising our approval rate slightly. As strange of a year this has been, we continue to do a number of things right in most of the employees’ opinions. We still have some improving to do with regards to our Covid policies and remote work policies, but the general consensus is we are moving in the right direction. Thank you for that. We work very hard to make this the kind of place you want to work and make a career and, to a large extent, that is what it has become. Finally, we had a very successful fund raiser for Angel Flight on North Texas Giving Day; thank you to those that contributed! Lone Star directly or indirectly (through our match) helped raise $62,474! This is about one third of the money needed to keep the nonprofit organization operating for a year, so this is a big deal to the association. Lone Star brought in the majority of this, again, THANK YOU for your generosity.
Profit-Sharing. As I have mentioned a number of times this year, Lone Star is having a very good year. The sales are still strong, and all the regions have recovered from the weak first quarter. The first quarter was strong on sales, but it was difficult to get the work done for various reasons including Covid, so our revenues were actually down in the first quarter. Because of the strong sales I felt it was a positive and reported it as a big quarter, which it was from a sales point of view. But as we roll out the profit-sharing program over the next few weeks, it will report and pay bonuses based on profitable quarters, year to date. Meaning, each quarter as profits are calculated, 401k distributions will be shared, and cash bonuses will be paid when we exceed our goal. As a result of the low revenue in Q1 there is no bonus for Q1, but Q2 and Q3 were very good and both will have a bonus. Q2 will be paid on the next payroll date of October 22nd and Q3 following that on November 5th. If we have a nice 4th quarter as well, look for that distribution in January. Anticipate 2022 401k distributions in April for Q1, July for Q2, October for Q3 and January for Q4. If we exceed our goal as explained above, this is when cash bonuses will be distributed as well. The plan overview will be shared over the next couple of weeks.
30th Anniversary Party. October 23rd is our big party in Grand Prairie celebrating 30 years in business! This party is from 1pm to 5pm at the Grand Prairie office on Saturday and we have almost 500 people RSVPs for attend. The party will actually be on the adjacent lot behind our Post & Paddock building. We have 3 Food Trucks for lunch which include TEX Mex truck, BBQ truck, Burger truck and Ice Cream truck for dessert. There will be a band, bounce houses (5), Face painting, Lawn games, and Bingo. There will be lots of door prizes and we have prizes for Bingo as well. Rumor has it, Ron Kruse will be calling the Bingo game and Patt Bowles will be calling the door prizes. We will also have a location to take everyone’s picture. Please let us take your picture for our scrapbook…
The official hotel for the event is the DoubleTree by Hilton Arlington 1507 N Watson Rd, Arlington. We will have 4 buses and coaches providing transportation between the Double Tree and the office for the party so even if you are local, you can park at the hotel and ride buses to the event. We have very limited parking at the office due to the city permit requirements so we are encouraging parking at the hotel. We expect to make arrangements with 50 Floors across the street for 50 spaces of parking, but that has not been confirmed to date. We will let you know the day before the party via email where parking is available if we are able to arrange something, but please plan parking at the hotel if possible.
Survey. Thank you to those that participated in the survey. Your opinion matters to us. We want Lone Star to be the best place to work, ever. We can only get there with your help though, so please take the 5 minutes usually needed to do the survey each quarter. WHY is participation in the Survey is so important? Your voices need to be heard. WHY do the same questions get asked each time? So we can TRACK improvement in areas you have mentioned and more quickly spot areas for improvement. Of course, if you have any serious items of concern, you should discuss them with your supervisor immediately or schedule a visit with HR. We can only take action on items of which we are made aware, and it is up to each of us to provide the BEST experience for both our Customers and our Coworkers. We appreciate getting accolades for the things we do right, but it is the things we need to improve or change where we need your help most. Please, do the survey each time it is published. Ray
-By Ray Bailey, President