TLDR:

Break the Machine (UK) and Russo Music (US) will be getting stock shortly.

Hand Samwitch and Canny Fettle runs have been put back until February (or possibly March)

The next batch of Swan Hunters will be Friday 28th January at noon (EST). It will be a bigger batch. I’m hoping to have some ready to ship, but some will still be preorder slots with a lead time of a couple of weeks.

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The nitty gritty

The last couple of days I’ve had a really good think about things.

I realised that I was gearing up to make all the same mistakes that wore me down last year, so I’m relaxing my release schedule a little for the next few weeks

I really need to get caught up on a lot of behind the scenes stuff, take a bit of time to work on my processes and work areas. All of that takes time, and I really need to invest time in doing that properly sooner rather than later.

In 2021, I put my physical and mental health pretty low on the list. I had to take time off when things got bad. The problem has been that over the last few months, I’ve hit that same wall several times, but instead of taking a proper break to get everything running smoothly and efficiently, I’ve repeatedly taken the shortest amount of time away then just thrown myself back into everything and tried to brute force my way through like a moron.

Towards the end of last year after talking with Chris from Swamp Witch Pedals about this stuff and he sent me this.

and this

It’s all very true.

Champion Leccy is at the point now that I really need to focus on ‘working smart instead of working hard’, I’ve come a long way from the DIY handpainted enclosure days. Champion Leccy is evolving and at this point I need to steer the ship a bit more.

With all the delays and shortages caused by the pandemic I ended up spending significant amounts of money buying up as much stock to avoid any production delays. Champion Leccy is my only source of income, so if I can’t build and sell pedals, I’m knackered.

Every few weeks there was fresh news of shortages or price hikes, so I had to keep putting up more pedals to get the money in to buy the thing I needed to build pedals to get money.

It got to the point where lead times were a few months and my work schedule was very heavy. It was a vicious cycle, and a very unhealthy one and whilst I’m technically out from under it, I’m just catching up to that fact now.

I’ve been struggling with how much to write here. In the grand scheme of things everything is fine. I certainly don’t want people to be overly concerned, but there’s definitely some things that I can’t put off addressing and I like to be upfront with people as to what’s happening and what they can expect from Champion Leccy.

There’s little doubt that I’m “different-brained”, it’s a blessing and a curse. It is easy for me to get carried away and shoot for the moon, which is great if it’s a new design or a piece of music, but not a good thing when I’m flitting between twelve projects at the same time or an insurmountable hill of work, or both.

So, instead of setting myself up for failure and launching into more work than I can possibly get done in the timeframe I’ve set, I’ve decided to pause everything until I’m caught up and where I want to be.

Essentially I need to build and sell fewer pedals for a few weeks, and sacrifice income for better working conditions for myself and my sanity.

I am currently working on a couple of decent sized orders for Russo Music (US) and Break the Machine (UK). I’m also trying to press ahead with several prototypes so I can get releases scheduled for later this year. If I don’t invest the time now, it’ll be 2023 before any of them see the light of day.

Apart from dropping more Swan Hunters at the end of the month, I’m putting off all other builds until I feel like I’ve suitably caught up and have better systems and tidy work surfaces in place. I expect this will take me into February or perhaps March. The Canny Fettle Boosts and the Hand Samwitches are the next in line. After that will be more Woozies, Skitters and Kilters.

As always, I greatly appreciate your support and patience!

All the very best for the new year!

good things are coming!