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Milestones of 2012 (so far)

Posted on July 18, 2012 by METIER . | 1 Comment

Milestones of 2012 (so far):

1.We started 2012 in Wellington, Florida by taking part of the longest equestrian event in the world, the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF). For 12 consecutive weeks we were able to share our story and that of our hats with people from all over the world who showed their appreciation and support without hesitation. We were especially lucky to have the internationally renowned luxury-goods manufacturer HERMES as our neighbor. We took advantage of our long stay in Florida and joined two of the main Polo events in the area as sponsors and vendors: the Polo US Open at the International Polo Club in Palm Beach and the Miami Beach Polo. Coming April we flew to California to take part of the prestigious Del Mar National Horse show for three weeks and a couple other equestrian events in the L.A. area.

2. We were able to join the Del Mar National Horse Show as sponsors and vendors and there is where we had the honor of meeting Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg as they visited our stand. Their shopping experience translated into the purchase of 12 of our hats, which confirmed to us the high level of quality and detail we have been able to achieve with the world-famous hand-woven natural straw hats, original from Ecuador. “I always wear hats and I have been looking for something like this for a long time.” ~ Kate Capshaw about our METIER hats.

3. At the end of May we were part of a Memorial Day show in Los Angeles together with a Dressage show full of Magic. Then our road trip started. We traveled over eleven thousand miles, drove through 23 states, went to two more shows one in Colorado and one in New Jersey, camped out in almost a dozen campgrounds in national and state parks and got back to Miami to set a permanent office before flying back home to Ecuador. We are proud to say that we kept our vegetarian diet free from junk food except from the occasional kettle cooked potato chips. Staying with friends and family made our journey so much lighter through places like L.A., Denver, Chicago, Washington DC, Eastover (South Carolina) and filled us with warm energy. We feel like we have a great big family all over the world.

4. Before flying back to Ecuador we made sure to send the first check in support of the Galapagos Scholarship Project to the EARTH University Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia. We have now contributed with 10% of the annual cost of the scholarship that gives the first student from the Galapagos Islands, Micaela Solis, the chance to study sustainable agriculture and community development in the best university in this field. We are delighted to be part of this project that supports the search for knowledge in order to create conscious, ethical leaders that recognize the value of biodiversity conservation for the evolution of humanity to a more equitable and just society.

This is just a small grain in a pile of sand but you can be sure we will keep giving our best every moment to bring positive change to the world one hat at a time. Thank you all for your constant support and thank you for letting us be part of your family!

Much love,

Posted in founders, Kate Capshaw, lifestyle, metiercrafts, micaela's scholarship, milestones, road trip, Steven Spielberg

Aim High

Posted on March 27, 2012 by METIER . | 1 Comment

Hello out there! Welcome to our Blog, On my first post I would like to take the chance to share with you a thought, a pic and a quote that remind me that we set our own limits in life and that we can go further if we are really willing to do whatever it takes. A bit of inspiration is always good when we are starting somenthing new, something great !!! Welcome to our New Website, hope you will enjoy It.

In my opinion living with no fear is the only way to be free. Life is such a wonderfull miracle that we should be able to enjoy it at its best.  We make it memorable by givinig it a sense, by setting a goal to reach; something in what we believe and we are passionate for. In fact we all know it is not easy to answer such important questions as, Why am I here in this planet for? Or what do I want to do with my life? But it is essential to remember at all times that we all have the potential to make dreams come true; sometimes it may take more than one trial but at the end it will be always worth it. What we need is to keep ourselves motivated, stay focused on what we really want to achieve, work hard  for it and, most importantly, live with no fear, no fear of failure specially. Never give up a dream!

Today I want to share with you this quote from Michelangelo, just to remember that we all have our own "Everest" and the chance to reach the summit eventualy. It is on our hands to make our time on this trip memorable. So maybe we should  take this advice from someone whose life is part of History itself.

METIER @ Cotopaxi Volcano, Altitude 5900m/19.357 ft, Ecuadorian Andes.

Have a wonderful day everyone, find your passion, put your heart on it and enjoy life with no fear.

All the best,

Alessandro

Posted in founders, inspiration, lifestyle

My Way

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Trading Rural Efforts TRE | 0 Comments

Hi everyone. It's my turn to post on our new blog so I decided to hand-write it, this way I can share with you my undeveloped talent/metier for drawing. There she is, Maria Rosa, one of the first weavers I got to meet in Ecuador when METIER was getting borned. I will never forget her words:" Our children are not weaving any more". This made me reforce our mission and inspired me even more to rescue this tradition, a one of a kind in the whole world: weaving the so famous "panama" hats. Hope you enjoy it and understand my letter! Have a great week and welcome to our new web page!!!

Best regards, 

HUGO.
Co-founder.

PS: english is my second language so sorry for any mistake, I have no liquid-paper!

Posted in founders, inspiration, lifestyle, panama hats, weavers

Bull riding

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Trading Rural Efforts TRE | 0 Comments

So I've heard way too many times that you have to "take the bull by the horns". I'm not sure this applies to bull riding, but it certainly does to this, our first official post: 

Hi! I'm Diana! Together with the guys we are going to be sharing our experiences with you on our blog through our journeys with METIER, our life project! We'll share our dreams and hopes, our musings and feelings and wish to encourage everyone to get more emotionally connected to their own realities, our here and now. The choices we make today really DO shape our future in every way. How do you envision your future? What do you think you'll be eating 30 years from now? I am particularly optimistic about everything so I envision a flourishing, diverse, evolving community floating around the globe like a moving island; that has a mostly vegetarian diet :)

The idea is that each day one of us will have to make a post. My post today is called "bull riding" because after begging to have a fan in our booth for the past 10 weeks finally we got one today and I couldn't be more grateful. It came from who I call our equestrian angel, a great friend from Canada who is always willing to do the best he can at all times. Today, he went to the farm and brought a big box fan from his barn to our booth (see photo in next post by Diana). He also rides bulls. He is the first bull rider I have met so I can also scratch that off my list of "memorable people to meet". He is a really cool guy and he is helping us keep it cool too.

We'll keep these posts short too so that's me for today. 

Love all!

Diana

p.s. I'm overly excited about this and I hope I can get you excited too.

Posted in founders, inspiration, lifestyle