July, 2011 - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for July, 2011

Bettina Network’s Policies

Friday, July 29th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

Having been in business over 20 years in bed & breakfast, we have learned much about this industry.

Our policies are in place because of the experiences we have had over the years and they have served us well.

We are not the fastest on the block, but we are concerned, considerate, safe and constantly changing to help create a better world – to be super concerned about preserving what we have as a world community and making sure our homes are all working towards being more efficient, more considerate of others, more considerate of the environment and knowledgeable about the health and happiness of our guests.

Every home in the Bettina Network is one we know well and whose family/owners we know well because someone from the Bettina Network spends the night in each home before we accept that home into the Bettina Network and before we take reservations for guests to stay in that home. From the office, we are in constant communication with our host families, making sure we get even better acquainted with them to know their strong and weak points and to be able to help them move to ever higher levels in this corporation.

We also are concerned about who the guests are who stay in a Bettina home.  We want to make sure both the guest and the Bettina Host Families are well cared for and cared about.  We are a community of people with a common interest in bed & breakfast as a way to travel – we all work together to make this a  great experience for everyone.  We have huge historic mansions, regular suburban houses, apartments, etc. to give you as large a choice as possible, but all thoroughly checked out.

We do everything we can do to minimize any possible problems.  We are not an unknown and unknowing entity, in place to make reservations for whoever comes or to take into the Bettina Network whichever property presents itself for inclusion in the Bettina Network.  Yes, we are a business and yes, we are in business to make a profit, but yes also we are concerned about how we make that profit.  We do not want it to be at the expense of others or to anyone’s detriment.  Our community grows larger each day and grows in depth, wisdom and knowledge – but especially in inclusiveness, caring, eco-consciousness and more.

That may be a slower, more expensive way to work, but it has been our choice and it has served us and our guests very well over the years.

You can arrive at a Bettina Home and know the guests who will be sharing that home with you are wonderful, interesting and concerned/considerate people.  If there is no host family present, you can be assured the Bettina Home is still well looked after and in great shape when you arrive.

You can arrive at a Bettina Home and know it has been checked and constantly re-checked so that you arrive to no surprises and it is the place described to you over the telephone or through the mail or through email.  We are very accurate in our descriptions and quality control is at the top of our agenda as we think through who would be great to stay in our homes and – unfortunately, we do have to make the call that some would not be great guests.  And yes, we also have to make the call that not everyone who calls us would make a great Bettina Host family and so we sometimes have to decline a family that wants to join the Bettina Network.

Bettina guests help us keep Bettina Homes at the top of the industry because they also are asked to keep us apprised of what their stay was like and we share with Bettina Host Families both the positive and negative feed back we get.  If, and that is very seldom, we get negative feed back it is responded to immediately and changes are made promptly.  Guests have sent us letters telling us how fantastic are the homes in which they stayed.  That is the result of our constant vigilence over the Bettina Network.

That is what we work for – that is what keeps us going – and that will continue to be our method of operating.  We hope you approve and support us as we move forward in this business.

We must apologize for the problems we have had with our technology – our Bettina’s Blog was lost for some reason – floating around in the ether until we could figure out how to bring it back.  Our listing on Google has been lost for reasons we don’t understand.  And we have experienced other upheavals which are totally unnecessary in this business world.  It is about competition and being raised up or lowered down because of your business policies and practices and how they affect this world.  It is not about one business trying to move out another because they don’t want competition and want the industry to themselves.  We are tenacious, persistent and very fair and good at what we do and we will continue to hold that space and that place at the top of this industry.

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Remembering Betty Ford at Breakfast!

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

It was a very interesting breakfast.  I am sending this to you for Bettina’s Blog because we don’t normally talk about such things, but this was quite thought provoking.

A couple people at breakfast were old enough to remember Betty Ford when she was at her height and the work she did.  Particularly her stances around women’s rights – or the equality of women.  A lot was said about her, but the part of the conversation I wanted to share with your readers was the observation of the sexism at the funeral and how far we have to go as a country when our top leaders are setting the tone and sending out the wrong messages.

The “presidential” contingent, there to bear witness to Betty Ford and her life were all women, except for former President Bush – the young Bush – the one we try to make fun of.  There was Hillary – but no Bill; there was Michelle – but no Barack.  That was quite a message.  If it were a president who died, the men would be there in force and so would their wives, but because it was the wife of a former president, the disrespect was glaring.  We guessed the others were too busy to pay their respects to a former presidents’ wife who they all knew and whose work they all knew and whose contributions to society they all knew.  That was so sad.  We all felt sorry for them that they would not ‘demean’ themselves by attending the funeral of a former first lady.

Ed Note:  Thanks for sending this.  We watched the funeral on C-Span, but it didn’t hit us that the former and current Presidents were absent.  It looked ‘normal’ to us and therein lies the problem, which is so hard to solve and push aside for a better way of life for all.  The wrong example is certainly being set at the top.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

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Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Bettina’s Blog is Back

Monday, July 11th, 2011

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2011

What a trial by fire.  It is quite challenging if you were not raised with the concepts current in the computer programming world.  You have to learn them through trial and error and it is excruciating.

Bettina’s Blog was flying around in the ‘ether’ or whatever the universe is called that contains lost internet sites and other miscellany of the internet world.  Trying to snag the blog and make it respond to your commands – like having Bettina’s Blog just a click away for you when you want to read the Blog, is not easy.

We changed servers and we must have looked pretty bad over the past few weeks.  Nothing worked!  Now that we are back in force, everything looks different and not as elegant as we thought it was before we went to IH “internet hell”.

Funny how your eyes readjust.  Stop looking daily at your design and other work and the pink cloud, which is the stuff in which you wrap your own ideas, stops making things look better, pretttier, more elegant than they are.

So on to better things and greater blogs.

We have a few email requests to catch up to.  We haven’t ignored your emails, we have just taken a little frustrating, demoralizing, humiliating detour.  We are back now and changes should come quickly as we use our major new learning in the IT area.  For those of you who are still in the pre-IT age, that means Internet Technology (I think!)

Your exhausted editor!

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.


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