There is a famous cloth that hangs in the Norwex home office. This is the first cloth that Gerd Doroshuk brought to Canada and showed to her friend Debbie Bolton back in 1999. Gerd had just returned from her trip to Norway visiting her sister. Once Debbie got her hands on that cloth, a dream was born. To quote Debbie,
“My journey with Norwex began in 1999, when my dear friend Gerd introduced me to the power of a red microfiber cloth. Being a passionate, positive person, I couldn’t wait to share it with others. It was ‘just a cloth”, but when we saw what it could do, we immediately understood its potential – especially knowing that it worked using just water. Imagine fewer chemicals in our homes!
Working together, Gerd and I discovered that this little red cloth could make a big difference in not just our homes, but in many homes across North America. It took a bit of courage for us to put our trust in that little red cloth, but we began to purposefully share it with others. We believed in it, we dreamed big and eventually our dream became our destiny – to leave a legacy for each other, for our families and for our world.”
Debbie connected with Bjorn Nicolaisen in Norway and Norwex was born. When I attended my first North American Conference in 2007, the famous framed cloth was there. Here is a picture of Gerd Doroshuk, Tammy Burgardt, Cheryl Moffat and myself.
Once our tour of the factory was complete, with emotion in his voice Eivind Schackt our Norwex Global CEO made an announcement. He wanted to give each of his leaders the opportunity to make their our own Red (aka Pink) EnviroCloth. From start to finish. We were excited to have seen the nine steps and now we were going to do the nine steps and experience the working on the factory floor.
With a partner we unrolled the microfiber, laid it flat and cut it.
Here I am laying the microfiber out… and cutting the strip.
Here we are laying out the fabric for our cloth template.
Then we laid a template out on the fabric and cut our two cloths.
After that, we went to the inspection tables to inspect our fabric for flaws or dye inconsistency. Everything was great. So we moved onto the sewing machines.
Now this was entertaining! I actually screamed when my sewing machine it took off on me. I was the first to attempt sewing. I actually screamed and so did everyone else. It was very comical.
Did I mention, I don’t own a sewing machine and I have never worked on one. So, needless to say they gave me some test fabric to work out the kinks before sewing my actual cloth. Check out my YouTube cleannatural to watch my factory clip.
Albert, who is beside me, is a very long-term employee and manager with Norwex.
After the cloth was sewn and the Norwex tag was attached, I was off to the hot tip table. They wrapped tape around my left finger to press down each corner after we removed the excess seam and sealed it.
Then we did our final inspection and ran it through the metal detector. Well, let’s be honest. One corner of my cloth wasn’t totally square, so my cloth failed the inspection. I was still delighted to take my cloth home!!
David pulled all the factory staff off their machines and introduced us. We cheered for them and they cheered for us. What an amazing group of hard-working Norwex employees.
As we were about to exit the factory floor, I wanted to sit and watch one last worker make a cloth. Savour the moment. This was a once-in-a-lifetime trip. I thanked the employees for their diligent efforts and for their amazing craftsmanship – delivering an outstanding product.
We were then brought back up to the board room for our final surprise! The idea for us to make the cloths was evidently Eivind Schackt’s idea. He shared with us the significance of the first Red Enviro Cloth framed hanging in the Canadian Norwex home office. Then with excitement and full enthusiasm he declared that each of us had just made history and wanted us to take our own framed Red Enviro Cloth home. Wow, that what an emotional gift!! Thank you Norwex, for your class and generousity!
A treasured gift!
We also received a parting gift: A beautiful rotating ceramic pot, on an engraved base “Factory Tour Norwex China June 2015”.
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Delores VandenBoogaard is an Independent Norwex Sales Consultant from Edmonton, Alberta Canada with customers and consultants throughout Canada and the United States including; New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, North West Territories and Ontario. She also has customers and team members in; Michigan, Texas, California, Massachusetts, Florida, Arizona, Missouri, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Idaho, Washington, New Hampshire, Iowa and Maine.
