Starting June 15th We are back and we missed you!

As spring fades away and summer begins to bloom, we are beginning the first steps to awaken from circumstances never before imagined both individually and collectively around the world.  As we begin to slowly reenter the world and embrace our new normal, our confidence will help move us forward considering each step thoughtfully. To confidently move forward during our opening period, we want to create complete transparency for changes in our operations, class offerings and retail store changes.

Our staff as a collective want to ensure our guests that we will strive to help safeguard your health and safety to the best of our abilities. We vow to listen to your concerns, and to mitigate risk wherever we can.

How Will In-Person Shopping at the Glen Change? Anyone visiting the retail store not enrolled in a class will be required to use the lower entrance of the store. Although we typically encourage guests to enter via our classroom space so that we are able to share projects in progress and visit with students, in this current forecast we believe this to be an unsafe practice and aim to minimize contact with students for everyone’s safety. Please follow signage from our parking lot to the store entrance.

We are limiting the number of guests in the store. We will invite two people at a time in, with an exception if more than 2 guests traveled together in the same vehicle.  Store hours will be available during normal business hours of 9-4, Monday thru Saturday. No guest will be admitted without the use of a mask, no exceptions. Any guest displaying symptoms of coughing, sneezing or a fever will not be admitted to the store or classroom. However, we will make our best efforts to fulfill your order and deliver to your car. Online ordering is still available with pickup options free of charge if you have questions about products and need to speak to a staff member, we would be more than happy to help. Staff and instructors helping our guests will be required to wear face masks to protect our guests’  health. Hand sanitizer will be available to our guests for use.  We’re taking steps to purify the air, and asking Mother Nature to help out. Research has recently found that COVID-19 may exist in the air for up to three hours. In addition to requiring the use of a mask in our facilities, we will also be using air purifiers. Additionally,  all windows will remain open during retail store hours and additional disinfecting will be done each evening to ensure we are doing our best to protect our guests and staff.

Practice social distancing Please remember to stay a safe distance (at least 6 feet) from other customers. Let’s all be as safe as possible.

We’ll be washing our hands, and we’d like you to do the same. In an effort to make your visit with us more comfortable, during our closure we renovated a stockroom into a public washroom within the retail store to minimize contact with students upstairs, and to follow CDC handwashing guidelines.

How Will We Mitigate the Spread of COVID-19 for Students in the Classroom? We will temperature screen every student upon arrival.  Although this is not 100% effective at diagnosing COVID-19 symptoms, it can be an effective tool to help identify some cases and reduce the risk. This is totally non-invasive and part of the greater plan to keep everyone happy and healthy. We have installed HEPA air purifiers in all common spaces. Preferring to err on the side of caution, our units clean the air at a rate of twice the manufacturers’ recommendations per square ft in Glen classroom spaces, The Ridge housing and retail store.  We will clean more than ever.   We will be using a combination of both aerosol disinfectants and hand wiping surfaces to clean common spaces each evening. In an effort to do this effectively we will be reducing the nighttime studio hours, closing at 7 pm.  We’ve switched to paper towels for handwashing. We typically pride ourselves in a low waste facility, but we will be providing paper towels for restroom hand drying vs hand woven shared towels.  We’re using lots of elbow grease and will be frequently sanitized throughout the day and a deep cleaning done each evening. Anyone feeling jealous of our new 10 bathroom cleaning routine?  We’re asking students to bring their own water bottles. We will also be temporarily suspending our use of reusable glass water bottles typically provided for our students. Although you will still have access to our delicious well water, we ask that students bring their own water bottles for use during their stay. Should you forget one, we would be happy to provide you a low-cost option for purchase.

How Will the Classrooms be Different? There’s no guesswork for social distancing. We have taped out individual areas for each student’s workspace (6’ x 10’). Masks are mandatory.   Students required to wear masks in common spaces Some will be online.   Select classes will be offering students an opportunity to study from home. For these select classes we will be mailing your materials and class handouts out ahead of time, and all class lectures and demonstrations will be available for participation via Zoom meetings. If you have never used this form of communication, we can provide a helpful tutorial and are only a phone call away for support. Instructors will let students know when meeting times are scheduled on an individual class basis. Should you have questions regarding your project while in progress we will be available for private consultation.   We’re keeping our hands to ourselves. Many classes in the near future that are conducted in a “round robin” fashion where students weave samples and rotate to different looms have been canceled or rescheduled to later in the year. This is a crucial step to eliminate exposure to other participants and problematic disinfecting procedures.  No Tool Sharing. Each student will be given at the beginning of their workshop a pre-made kit containing all weaving tools needed. This will be yours and yours alone for the duration of the workshop. This kit will vary from class-to-class with additional tools specific to the workshop. Some examples you will find in your kits may include: Shuttles Bobbins Bobbin Winder (yes, one per student!) Tape Measure Scissors Warp and Weft materials Assortment of pins and needles If you feel more comfortable bringing your own tools we encourage this practice strongly but understand travel restrictions. Come assuming everything will be provided for you.

Still feeling uneasy about attend class? No worries! We are listening and completely understand if you are not wanting to take additional risks in attending classes that have been pre-paid, and you will not be criticized or penalized should you feel the need to stay home and continue to practice social distancing. Here are some options we are offering if you are unable to attend due to illness, pre-existing conditions, or concern exposing an at-risk member of your household with no pressure to share personal or medical information with our staff. We pride ourselves in creating safe and positive environment for our learning facility as well as a supportive community among our students. This being said, we need to protect the economic health of Red Stone Glen and can offer a solution that works for both parties.

You may transfer your tuition to the same class at a later date should space be available. Tuition amount in full may be held as a credit to use at later time on another class with no limitation to time expiration for the life of the business.

We are a non-essential education based business, regardless of the social and mental health benefit we all have experienced in our time here at the Glen.  Our volunteers are on hiatus, for now. Although our volunteer staff has been crucial in the past to help with daily tasks, class preparations and retail store help we are currently suspending their time with us here. This is a difficult decision as this increases our workload and we love them as family, but we agree that this will help to reduce the number of people within the building’s daily operations and mitigate exposure.

Family Matters to Us.  Our's and Your's. Safety first. Many of our guests enjoy spending time with us here at the Glen and getting to know our family better. But under the current forecast we will be reducing the amount of time our children spend in common space and will limit use of public entrances to our family’s personal space.

Navigating Student Housing at the Ridge Staying at the Ridge is a nice alternative to hotels, but it comes with its own challenges. As we enter the “Green Phase” in our county, we recognize that this does not indicate that the virus is gone. It isn’t.  We have flattened the curve, but we still need to be careful.  COVID-19 is not over.

We clean it like we mean it. Morning, afternoon and evening surface disinfecting and cleanings will be performed in common spaces following meal preparations.  One guest per bedroom. To further reduce the risk, we are working our best to limit one student per bedroom with the exception of folks who have traveled together and have requested to share housing spaces.

We want you to breath easy Every bedroom is now equipped with a “Molekule” (pronounced molecule) air purifier. These devices work slightly differently than an air purifier with a HEPA filter. Using a technology referred to as PECO or Photo Electrochemical Oxidation . PECO destroys pollutants at a microscopic scale, including VOCs and viruses 1000x smaller than what the HEPA filter standard even tests for. With no ozone byproduct, Molekule air purifiers safely destroy a vast range of indoor air pollutants. Although these were a large financial investment, we believe it was worth every penny knowing it would be used in spaces where people may be spending 6-10 hours each evening without wearing masks. These units also satisfy performance criteria outlined in  FDA guidance  for use in helping to destroy SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus. As an added benefit these units will remain in place to help us achieve clean air free of dust, pollen and even odors to provide the cleanest sleeping space possible… and it’s super quiet so you can rest easy. We ask that guests do not turn them off. Downstairs we have also placed in the common areas HEPA air purifiers twice the recommended size for the space in the common areas and Ridge classroom.  Now What? If you have any additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us via email. And remember, we also have listed on our site other housing options should you decide that you would rather stay at a hotel during this unusual period of time.

In closing, we ask again if you are joining us here for class, or to visit the retail store that you make the decision before coming to self-analyze any symptoms you may be experiencing and stay home if there is any question in your mind that you may be experiencing flu-like symptoms.

Although missing a class after months of quarantine may be disappointing, we agree that potentially infecting a small group of people could be catastrophic and result in Red Stone Glen returning to quarantine and halting operations until it is safe again. We pride ourselves in catering to an audience of well-educated and level-headed customers that will make the right choice for both themselves as well as our community.  We miss you terribly, but as our dear friends, we want you to be healthy, safe and comfortable.  Working together, as in all things, we can do this. ~Sara Bixler Owner of Red Stone Glen

Red Stone Glen LLC | 717-212-9022 www.redstoneglen.com

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