Richmond Spring Grove Home & Business Expo

Finally! A lazy Sunday morning. Just what I’ve been needing after such a busy week that ended with the Home and Business Expo on Saturday Sept 12th. The Expo is produced by the Richmond Spring Grove Chamber of Commerce, www.rsgchamber.com, and is hosted by the Richmond Burton High School, www.rbchs.com, in Richmond IL.


My wife and I manned the Pawprints of Richmond table for owner Maureen M. Murphy. Well, my wife manned the table while I wandered around and took pictures and talked with a lot of interesting people. I did manage to tend the table, located just outside the front door, long enough to earn a bright red sun burn across my face 

I quickly learned that almost everyone that walked in and out of the Expo that day had already been a customer of Maureen’s having visited Pawprints at one time or another. Maureen is a big believer in and provider of holistic and homeopathic pet foods and pet health products. If you haven’t been in to see her lately, drop Maureen a note at pawprint@charter.net. Ask to be placed on her newsletter which includes current in-store specials as well as special events like her open house coming up on September

Unfortunately I couldn’t find an attendance roster of all the businesses that were there. I was however able to have a few great conversations with some quality folks. They were all very interesting…

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Tim Boutin, Super-Hero (a.k.a owner ) of Hot Shot Graphix was kind enough to spend a few minutes telling me about his business. 1st and foremost, Tim’s goal is for Hot shot Graphix to be your Super-Hero in marketing and advertising success! “I love this business and enjoy helping others succeed” says Tim.

Hot Shot Graphix,s specialty is short-run custom high-quality printing that we design, create, and assemble or install on-site at our facility.

Check Tim and Hot Shot Graphix out at www.hotshotgraphix.com or shoot him a note at tim@hotshotgrpahix.com

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I met Dorothy Vetrovec of Natures’ Feed. She was manning the booth while her husband TJ was home recovering from knee surgery. Get well soon TJ!

Dorothy took some time to tell me a little about Nature’s Feed. She explained that after 15 years in the software industry, she was a little disenchanted, bored. She and her husband really wanted to do something that incorporated their love of animals which includes their own family of yellow labs. Thus, Nature’s Feed was born. Need feed for your horses and other four legged friends, give Dorothy a shout at info@naturesfeed.net or visit www.naturesfeed.net

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Master Bonnie J. Thiel, Head Instructor of Spring Grove Flying Dragons Martial Arts Academy & W.I.S.E (Women Initiating Safe Environments) was a pleasure to meet. I am familiar with martial arts having studied Shotokan in my younger days but wasn’t familiar with Kyuki-Do. Master Thiel gave me their business card explaining Kyuki-Do

It’s a martial art which combines Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Hapki-Do, the skills of Modern Wrestling and Boxing and the use of ancient weapon techniques.

After visiting their website, www.sgflyingdragons.com, I learned that Master Thiel is 1 of only 3 women to hold a 4th degree black belt within the American Kyuki-Do Federation and that she was awarded “Black Belt Woman of the Year” for her work with Women’s Self Defense. You can contact Bonnie or other members of the Spring Grove Flying Dragons at dragons@imaxx.net

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I also talked with Carla Tammen of Fur The Love of Dogs. This unique dog daycare and grooming service provides full service grooming, self dog wash, obedience training, dog park/open play days and of course, daycare. If ever there was an animal lover (more so than my wife who just collected another cat), it’s Carla.

After a quick run down of her company’s services, she told me a little about Vest-a-Dog and Save-a-Vet. Vest-a-Dog is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the lives of K-9 police dogs through the purchase and donation of bullet and stab resistant vests. Save-a-Vet.org is dedicated to opening a facility in every state that provides both military and law enforcement the ability to retire their K-9 partners. These facilities will feature plenty of land for them to exercise with room and board. They will hire on retired, injured and disabled military and law enforcement veterans to work at each facility.

Fur The Love of Dogs supports both of these organizations and you can learn more about them at their web site, www.furtheloveofdogs.com Carla can be reached directly at clh199@hotmail.com
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Wow – have you stuck with this and read all the way to the bottom of this blog post? I’m impressed! This was a long one.

I didn’t even tell you about Operation Click, the Richmond Police Citizens’ Police Academy, Gansters & Gin Joints, the Richmond Township Senior Transportation Program, the Senior Citizen Howloween Costume Hayride… This list could get as long as this post… So…. I’ll cover all of those things under different posts over the next few days. Thanks for reading!

Peter Gault for Topical Content © 2009