THE NEW YEAR'S BLOG

How do you sum up a year where we all walked around with our hearts in our throats?

Pushing my nice fun business into 2022 which would be so liberating free of cruel pandemics only gave us barely two months of breathing space. Then came the war between Russia and Ukraine. And like a tail of misery followed energy crises and sanctions and a whole bunch of Swedish politicians fighting with shovels in the sandbox before an election that became a farce. As a company manager, I have slalomed and parried both one and the other. A year where nothing was the same. And another year where we graduated with the highest marks in the school for entrepreneurs. 

The requests and offers have been pouring in from all over. Investors who showed interest, dragon's nest bus, lecture requests and the occasional very exciting business dinner.

Me and my talented team have alternately sat still in the boat, alternately leaned outwards to balance the swells. The shops at Österlen have had a fantastic season, even though trade was down between 10 and 20% in some months. But it is not possible to compare the pandemic years with a "normal" year, which we should probably count 2022 as. Tourists and visitors continue to increasingly flow in through the beautiful österlenporten. We have a unique concept to offer with fun shops, cool cafes and restaurants and super cozy b&b's. The season is getting longer and longer every year and today it is not entirely obvious that you only run the open season. The guests are out and about all year round. We have a fantastically well-visited village here in Hagestad. How happy we should be for our beautiful neighborhood. Privately, I have spent many, many hours with the dogs in Sandhammarskogen. I have a hard time finding anything more beautiful and pleasant than walking there for an hour a day with my loving dog family.

Privately, I have messed through a "happy" divorce that did not turn out as well and wise as I had hoped. Suddenly you become strangers and misunderstandings arise about where the boundaries are. My home in Italy has then been extra welcoming and I have had lovely warm guests there during the spring and summer. Turning an upside-down life right side out again takes a while. And it's still pretty good, like this in the sick paleness of reflection. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been involved, and I really was. But life is sometimes put on hold and then you sometimes have to go down into the basement to come up into the light again. 

In October I released the news that I will sell my beloved Reunion Farm and leave Österlen. A decision that sprung from my past year privately in combination with a great longing to live more in Italy where we produce 80% of all our goods. We in the management team have decided to invest in more webshop concepts and it is a natural development for us, who have been at Österlen for 20 years. The winds of change are blowing. We are celebrating our 20th anniversary in the company in 2023. What a journey! A journey that many wish I would tell and write about. Some chapters in my life story are complete. But it takes time. It will probably be a large-scale drama that requires its fair share of courage from me to tell. Some parts of life should probably be statute-barred first, otherwise I'll probably have to move much further than to Italy.

Until Reuniongården is sold, we will continue to work 110% on continuing to be one of Österlen's most beautiful, coolest, funniest and mischievous meeting places. We never put our finger on that. Business as usual. 

What have we done on the web front? We have a fantastically talented web team that produced two brand new web shops. Success was not long in coming. Our consumer website ( www.reunionhome.se ) has increased by roughly 60% this year. And in June, our new åf website saw the light of day (www.reunionaf.se). We have taken on the big job of moving b2b trade from two traveling salesmen to a modern technical platform where you as a shop owner can shop around the clock and have the news presented to you several times a week. It was much, much better than expected and it was faster to bring in our talented dealers than we dared to hope for in this first year as pioneers.

A new dealer website will see the light of day within a few weeks. Just in time for us to exhibit the entire collection at the Formex fair in Stockholm. This of course applies to the presentation of our new brand; Soulsisters, the brand. A playful little sister to cool big sister Reunion. 

We closed the Malmö store in September and moved our web team into the premises with warehouse and packaging. A terrible incident with a shop robbery in the middle of the day on 28/12 last year turned into a good and wise decision. It is in line with the company's development and our Malmö shoproom, which is open two days a week, has been well received.

Now we have the privilege of going healthy and happy into another new fun year with this fine company. A year where we will celebrate our 20th anniversary with a bang! There are a few hours left in this slightly different year. A year where we all learned a lot about ourselves as the wobbly world creeps closer. We have learned that it is nice to be kind and share. We have learned that, together, we are strong and solve most things. We have learned that the media's scaremongering about electricity prices and interest rate shocks is their way of making money. Instead, the entire Swedish people began to collectively save electricity together to prevent the electricity grid from collapsing. And I take that feeling with me into 2023. A feeling that we humans together solve difficulties that we have never done before. I actually think 2022 made us humbler and kinder in general (there are exceptions, well thank you I know). 

I want to thank you all from the bottom of my blood red heart. Thanks for all the love. Thank you for being there and supporting a local merchant in the middle of nowhere. Thank you for letting us do what we think is the most fun. To be able to continue building Österlen's finest meeting place and an eventful and lively online store. You have taught me so much this year. And I hope I have contributed one or two wise thoughts about life in both the big and the small context.

With lots of love and a wish for a truly wonderful happy new year 2023!  m.