I contacted Sarah Van Gorp from the Iowa Soybean Promotion Board in regards to the Free Marketing Material as a followup to my posting here back in November. Here is Sarah's response:

"Sorry this process has taken so long. We had some changes in staff so I'm actually no longer working with the soy candles project. Elaine Kenney (ekenney@iasoybeans.com) now handles all the soy candles marketing activities.

According to Mike's website, Soyawax, the 2nd Annual Chandler Guild Meeting is August 21 and 22. I'm rather surprised and dismayed that it wasn't announced on or through this site.

Jerry Painter
Cedar Creek Crafts

On 10/21/2003 Soyawax Mike responded to Northwoods Candle's question about making pillars with news that he..
"has a new and very easy to use process for all Chandlers to make pillars. I'm in the final testing week. Details will be announced on this website in one week."

Now on 12/25/2003 Soyawax responds to a query about the pillar recipe with...

On August 24th 2003 we met together, formed SIGS and elected a Table of 12.

It is now 3 months later and other than seeing Chandlers helping other Chandlers (and that's a good thing I might add), I have not seen many updates or other SIG/Table of 12 information being posted.

Are folks still interested in this, or are we just too busy right now?

Just curious...

Jerry Painter
Cedar Cree

I asked Sarah for an update on the Free Marketing material from the Iowa Soybean Promotion Board.

Here is her response (reprinted with her permission):

"We are in the process of working on our soy wax agreement. After that is complete I will email the wax agreement to everybody. The wax agreement will say that a candle manufacture has to use at least 70% of soybean oil in their candles. After that is signed the manufacture will be able to order marketing materials on line. We are still in the process of creating some of the materials. We hope to have everything available by January."

Okay gang.. basic question here (probably). I'm experiencing votives sticking in my metal votive molds. I'm using P/V1, dye and fragrance. Doesn't apply to any particular dye/fragrance combination, and on any given pour, not all votives are affected. When I do get them out there is a patch of wax usually stuck to the side, not necessarily all the way around the mold, and a resulting missing patch in the votive (real ugly.. have to touch up with heat gun).

Okay group.. as a relative newbie to the business world I would like to throw these questions out to you 'business-savvy' folks for your input.

1) Consignments: This seems to be the method of choice to some of the small businesses we've approached to carry our candles. Here's the questions:
a) What range of percentages should the retailer normally get?
b) Is a monthly fee to the retailer common?

Having stood on my soapbox and beaten the drum about the need for communication, I must now thank Mike, Jim and the others that have responded with an almost overwhelming stream of information addressing the outstanding issues. Guild mail, personal email and even 'snail' mail... wow..!
I have been able to get wax, I have an outstanding Regional Distribution Partner, I have registered and paid for the upcoming Congress, and have been pleasently surprised at the announcement that there will be 5 special guests at the Congress.