[CAUT] Rockley Family Foundation

[Paul T Williams]

Thanks Jeannie, and all.

I think I'll stay out of this one.  That's all I need to do is free prep 
work for a store. Or should I say, free store work at taxpayer's expense!!

Paul





"Jeannie Grassi" <jcgrassi at earthlink.net> 
Sent by: caut-bounces at ptg.org
05/29/2008 10:34 AM
Please respond to
College and University Technicians <caut at ptg.org>


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Re: [CAUT] Rockley Family Foundation






Hi Paul,
Those sorts of deals are still going on here in the Seattle area.  A small 
music school in my area had a similar arrangement with the local Yamaha 
dealer only to find that when the sales weren’t reaching the expectations 
of the dealer, all the pianos were pulled from the school two days later, 
leaving them with none.  Many institutions have become dependent on this 
type of situation and wouldn’t be able to function without the “loaned” 
pianos so it is easy to see what the incentive is.  Too bad purchase and 
maintenance of musical instruments is no longer in the budgets of some 
music schools. 
 
jeannie
 

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul 
T Williams
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2008 7:26 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: [CAUT] Rockley Family Foundation
 

Dear List, 

Has anyone ever heard of or worked with the Rockley Family Foundation?  I 
got a phone call in a semi-"cold call" style (he knew my name from some 
list) asking if we at UNL would be interested in a loan program of pianos 
to be replenished every year.  I asked him to send me some information and 
he e-mailed me this morning. 

In Seattle, several smaller colleges have done this sort of thing with a 
couple of the piano stores in the area.  They would loan various pianos to 
them for a year at no charge and then sell them a year later.  The problem 
I saw in this was that the stores would bring in many of their new pianos 
at that time, having a "SUNDAY,SUNDAY, SUNDAY!!" sale and only the school 
pianos were sold at much of a discount.  Lots of advertisement on every 
media possible would be invested and lots of people would show up, making 
it basically a warehouse sale. I'm a bit leary of this and having been a 
store tech for many years, didn't like the store's tactics in their 
selling styles.  Bit my lip many times from some of the crap the "used car 
salesmen" type folks would say to potential victims,  ahhh, customers I 
should say.  On a university end of it now, I would be faced with breaking 
in many new pianos every year and just when I get them semi-stable, I'd 
have to start over. 

Any advise or testimony y'all can bring to this subject is welcome! 

Best, 

Paul T. Williams RPT 
Piano Technician 
School of Music 
University of Nebraska 
Lincoln, NE 

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