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Thursday, February 12, 2004
Challenger Gold Mine Page 6
Established 2003
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Locals say love in a flowery way
VALENTINE’S DAY…Local florist Mel Vanzati will be swimming in flowers this week as she ramps up for the busiest time of the year – Valentine’s Day – this Saturday.
ROXBY DOWNS…Valentine’s Day is the least romantic time of the year for Mel Vanzati, owner of Flowers in the Bush, the Far North Region’s only locally-based florist. Mrs Vanzati will make more than 1000 Valentine’s Day bouquets this week – which works out to be about a fifth of her total yearly orders. She will distribute as many as 400 roses in the Roxby Downs region alone, and will go from a one-person business to employing five people – one of whom will simply answer phones during the Valentine’s weekend rush. “It’s great to see the ideas that people come up with and what they send to each other but I’m not feeling very romantic by the end of it all,” she told The Monitor this week. “Sales for Valentine’s Day are four or five times bigger than on Mother’s Day – our next biggest event. “This is the sixth Valentine’s Day I’ve spent in Roxby Downs and the whole family doesn’t get a break – my husband Carl delivers the flowers and our three kids are put to work packing the car, stripping and wiring the flowers. “One year Carl made a basket of flowers for me out of the discarded blooms – which was a nice surprise – but the day is usually far less romantic for me than for the rest of Roxby Downs.” While Mrs Vanzati boasts Roxby Downs’ only locally-based florist service, other local businesses will offer fresh flowers for the big day. For Desert Décor owner-manager Taryn Chick Valentine’s Day is a welcome boost to the annual post-Christmas slump in sales. “If it wasn’t for Valentine’s Day, February would be a very quiet month,” she said. “This year we’ve expanded into fresh flowers for the first time but we always get a bit of a rush on our adult novelty products at Valentine’s Day – things like fluffy handcuffs and body paints.” Roxby Downs Foodland manager Darren Pedler told The Monitor that his flowers sales double during the lead-up to Valentine’s Day, as do chocolate sales. “It’s probably one of the best times of the year for those items because we get all the late-minute sales of flowers and chocolates for people who’ve forgotten about it until the last day – and then there’s your Valentine’s teddies and baskets which you don’t see other times of the year.”
ROXBY DOWNS COMMUNITY CLUB Ph – 8671 0117
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Beautify the Beer Garden Fund Thursday, February 12, 2004 - Page 1