Sunday Essays

 

I just remembered that once Holiday Market starts I lose my Sunday day off for a month...Mondays just don't land the same as a day off. But I hope I will still find time to write. I need it. There's always a vast amount to write about that goes in my journals but I don't have to compose within any kind of structure there so this is about the most useful way I keep my skills in practice these days. I haven't felt interested in writing fiction in a long time, and maybe won't renew that interest. I've always been more drawn to the various types of narrative nonfiction and I never have enough time to explore it. 

My latest obsession is taking out trees like filberts that have volunteered in my yard and are demanding my control...I'm sawing them down. It's not hard, and I use hand tools, but there are some stumps like the big holly I took down a couple years ago that do kind of need a chainsaw. Lower priority. Yesterday I bought an elderberry which is exciting, for this one space that used to be dominated by the holly. 

Taking out the filberts so I can maintain my yard independently is fun for me, planning ahead for when I can't do it all myself. I love yardwork. It is the way I process my emotions...the air beckons me, the birds have learned to accept my wanderings through their feeding grounds, and the squirrels jump around in an amusing way when I scare them. Even burying the smelly dead possum was fun for me.

Yesterday, the last market on the Park Blocks this season, was lovely. My neighbor and I warmly said our appreciations to each other and gave gifts...we got a little wet but that didn't matter a lot. I will have to unpack everything and dry it out again, but I have to repack to have a lighter load for the next two weeks selling with the farmers, so that's fine. I'm hoping for decent weather over there so I don't have to take the popup and weights. Guess we'll see about that. 

The wonderful chats I had with many of my friends were sadly offset by a couple of disturbing ones...one of my friends told me the exact same things about six times, so her cognitive loss is getting much worse. I will refresh my knowledge about how to speak to people in that position with the highest respect for what they are experiencing. I think there are several good tactics to handle it so they don't get more confused or isolated. She's beyond the stage of helpful conversations, and now just needs support. I feel for her so much. This is one of the terrifying things about aging that we try hard to deny and pretend about. 

Reconnected in  a delightful way with one of my buddies from the old days. I told him this vivid dream I had about him decades ago, that in his basement was a river, a deep, living one with rocks and moss and everything, and I was envious. In my dream language at the time I identified his house as his relationship, and I was still searching for that kind of a relationship at the time...so we got to talking about our lives in detail and his was astonishing. He writes, too, so I'm looking forward to reading some of that. He's smart, fearless and strong...just what I need in friends right now. So that made me happy and that kind of thing is emblematic of the slower days at the market...we have time to be ourselves outside of our sales personas and connect.

Sales were low for me. I don't think most of Eugene realized it was our last week, as everyone is so focused on HM. I personally vastly prefer the Park Blocks markets to the indoor ones. My income indoors has stalled at the same level for the past four years, and although my outdoor income is down, I think that is because of things like early football games, poor promotions and of course, our current mismanagement which is just killing our market. We're looking at another fee increase to cover her overspending and the high costs to carry out her selfish goals. Every fee increase loses members. We feel that as a message that we don't matter. 

We need more people in our membership to wake up and be willing to get involved, and even with that it will take some years to reconstruct the type of thriving success we had in 2019. We even did well in 2020 and 2021 due to community support, but the lack of skills in our management has squandered that in so many ways. There is no disagreeing with the power structure, without retaliation and closing of access. Every time I write an email to the Board members I get punished by restriction of my access, and this last time I got bullied for writing this blog, by someone who hasn't read it, and says she never will. My email was about letting them know I had finished up the 2019 archives and wanted them all to take a look. She was kind of brutal, and I wrote her privately that it was wildly inappropriate and deeply disturbing to bring up my writing this in the context of my archiving, which I take seriously in a professional way. I've been a writer all my life, and in here for 15 years, so it was way out of context but she has learned that I am someone who only complains and is negative, something that has been constructed out of nothing to take away my joy and voice in the market community. Trashing the reputation of anyone who complains is an activity of quite a few of the leaders, who take the information dished out as truth, as they are seemingly unable to apply critical thinking to what they are told by the management. When criticism happens to them, they punch down.

I've not had an easy adjustment to this false portrayal of who I am, but her letter was kind of illuminating because she and I were friends...I even printed for her for a couple of years to help her get her business started, and even though it didn't go perfectly, she wouldn't have had as much success without my help. And she has asked for archival info many times and I've always given her very useful info. But some unknown people have told her things about me that she has not bothered to verify herself, so I let her know that it's acceptable that she doesn't want to know me as I am, but I won't be interacting with her after that putdown. That's likely to be inconvenient for her.

I also blocked several people on Facebook even though that is a bit meaningless, just a gesture. I'm on the verge of leaving FB anyway. A lot of the bullying is done on there, by people who consider themselves leaders, and by the regular bullies, and I'm not up for any more bullying, period.

The narcissist violated my boundaries yesterday when I let another staff member know I was not speaking to the narcissist. I don't think the other staff person knew what to do with that, so she probably just reported it more or less as I said it. The narcissist came right over and said she only had one thing to say, that she has never had a problem with me, and was ready if I wanted to talk, or if I wanted another staff member to mediate, and had this very sad innocent victim face. I mean, when someone just said they won't be speaking to you, how is it you go right to them and speak? Super controlling. 

And this is from the person who just last week trolled me with her costume as the Wicked Witch with a Flying Monkey (I hope it was expensive) and was delighted when it caught my attention and overheard chortling about it. She was joined by another "leader" who went as "The Board Chair's Wife" and also went out of her way to make sure I noticed. Trolling the members is bullying the members and it's just one of the items on my now four page list of unprofessional behaviors. Trolling is not leadership. 

Trying to gatekeep my free speech, deny my free access to the market leaders, those are not healthy actions from a manager, and in fact they're appalling. I know her enablers don't see that side of her, nor the other members of her mean gang, and until her control tactics are turned on them, most members don't even believe it is possible. It has taken some people several years to believe me. So much easier to trash the messenger. Fortunately I'm not the only messenger and others are much more brave than me.

And I'm human. I try to limit the abuse that I don't have room in my now short life for, but it isn't going away any time soon so I am also not allowing my joy and satisfaction to be destroyed by it. The truth will come out...facts don't lie. Eventually the archives will show it all, which I suppose is why they are all so determined to make me give up my work on them. I've been told more than once that the archives belong in the office so all members can access them, but before I started organizing it, no one could access them. So I will not let these temporary leaders steal what belongs to history. They can lie, misrepresent and try to control, but I will continue to simply tell the truth as I see it and let the facts speak for themselves. If I could finish the project today I would, even though no one to my knowledge has accessed any of the archives but one person who also tried to bully me to turn them over. When I refused and told him not to write about me, he did anyway, in an insulting way, so that isn't going to engage my cooperation.

I could hand them over, but it would be a small tragedy for the organization and for the future, and for the city as well. When I finish them I will. It is not my desire to keep any of it from anyone, as I think the warts and mistakes should also speak for themselves as history. I think it is a crime to try to change history to enable control and domination. I actually don't trust that they are that safe in the office. (Visualize a photo of the Mar a Lago bathroom with stacks of office boxes.)

Watching market follow the macrocosm down the aisles of authoritarianism is frightening, but we also have our inflatable frogs and if the narcissist is the Wicked Witch, it is good to remember she was destroyed by a common bucket of water. I guess she thinks I am Dorothy, but I have to keep in mind that I am actually Glinda in this warped scenario. I'm in this shiny bubble of kindness and truth, but when people come out for me, I just fly away in it. You can't take my glitter. I am shiny in my natural state. 

And now I will rake leaves and get that day off. I hope all is well in your world, or if not, you find the means to make it so. In times of crisis, community is what saves us. We know how to do good. We know how to be kind. We know how to rise above. We are naturally shiny.

Rain It Did

Years ago, I was "Madder Than a Wet Hen"

 I had a good time yesterday at the market. There's something about the rainy days that makes them special: maybe the extra effort it takes makes it more purposeful. Let's get those property taxes taken care of! Customers also seem to have extra purpose, supporting us and being happy to find us down there.

Of course there were only maybe 40-50 booths, I think 15 on the west block. I enjoy the comraderie of us working together for our mutual benefit, making a market so we can make more. You don't get to your 50th season of selling without a few stormy days. I enjoyed breaking out the story of the day it rained 5 inches, in I think 1981, which was such a wet year it almost destroyed the market momentum completely. There were 9 of us huddled under an overhang, watching the rivers of water run down that parking lot to the center drains, wondering how we would even get packed up to leave. Howard must have been there, but I don't remember any Info booth, or other staff, and we didn't last long. With weather predictions like we have in this day and age, probably none of us would have showed up, but back then I didn't have a TV and rarely listened to the radio, so I'm sure I didn't know it would be like that. My little flimsy setup was not built for that, and all my crafts were made of paper. But it makes a good story, and I looked it up. It really was 5 inches, as I remember.

 The best story from yesterday was when I was chatting with Dave, coffee in hand, just outside his booth, which is one of the old wooden kind with a regular tarp. It is challenging to get those tight enough to shed water, so they puddle up and you have to have a regular dumping plan off the back where it won't get on anyone. He was apparently not sticking to his plan, because a gust of wind came up and his tarp dumped a bathtub full on the two of us. He was just in a cotton hoodie because work in a food booth keeps you warm, so he got thoroughly drenched. I, however, had on my rain pants and two jackets, the outer one being a hooded Carhartt that another member gave me because it was too small for him. I had not worn it before, as we had a really dry season, but wow is it worth whatever it cost. I was not one bit wet on the inside from that deluge. I would have had to go home dressed any other way. The funny part was how we all screamed and then laughed, and Dave was impressive in handling it. I had to rush back to my booth to make sure everything was still holding firm, which it was, but it's always fun when history is being written. Now we get to laugh again when we reminisce. 

The upside of rainy days is the sunbreaks when people rush out to buy things and sales were pretty good. Plus the "pie theory" kicks in that with fewer booths, the sales are spread more evenly and are generally higher than on a day when there are a lot more booths. It's hard to not have water damage and other problems, and I will have to go out to the shop and unpack all the tubs today, as everything will be damp. Mostly nothing got soaked, except a few things, and of course I have to dry out the popup and the sidewalls. And the weight bags. And I am not anxious to go outside of the house today although the yard is trashed and I would have fun.

I bought new boots last week and those were also a resounding success. It was the first day in years that my poor little right foot did not hurt at the end. I got bigger men's boots so that my toes had room and I could put some extra padding in there, and they were wonderful. I could even stand most of the day, which I prefer to sitting. I did not walk around as much as usual, but I really think the boots are going to be a game changer, much more so than the Hokas which everyone praises so much. 

I had a nerve conduction test this week, and I biked all the way to Springfield for it, which was mild torture except for the wonderful bike ride. Weather was cooperative although the results of the test took some adjusting to. My plan is to keep a lid on the speculative anxiety and keep going through the process as if all the outcomes and procedures will be good ones with positive end results. Guess I'll see. Anyone who goes on a daunting medical journey knows how it is, a bit of a roller coaster some days, a resignation to the ravages of aging, and actual work to maintain some normalcy. I'm trying. It's going to cost, of course. Glad I've been saving.

I hope my roofer comes through soon. I think I'll go up in the attic and make sure I don't have leaks. The only upside of having a very old roof is that my property taxes went down...with the valuation of my structures. The neighbor next to me used to have the worst house on the block and now I think I've taken back the title, as she fixed all of the stuff on hers, even the stuff that didn't look like it needed fixing. Her plan is to get it all done at once, my plan is a never-ending list of things to manage one at a time. If you could call that a plan, which really,  it isn't.

Being able to hear the stage is another fun aspect of the rainy days, and the Kudana set and the Miller Brothers were keeping us dancing all day. They played that Redbone song, Come and Get Your Love, which is a favorite of mine. Moments of joy are a big part of my Saturdays, and dependable. 

However much fun it was, I sure hope we get better weather for the next three weeks. Next week is the last outdoor market on the southern blocks, but I will be selling with the farmers for the next two weeks, Nov. 8th and the 15th. I have friends over there, too, and am kind of excited about stocking up on the good meats and things for the winter. I don't look at food prices, mostly. I shop for quality and health and to keep those farmers alive for the strength of the community. We are so lucky to live here in the abundance and thoughtful practices of our local farmers and food producers. But do look for me and come out even though the Saturday Market side will be gone...and I'll be at the Holiday Market as usual, starting on the 22nd. I can not do a general strike, but I respect you if you don't buy things during that period. I've always respected Buy Nothing Day. We need that to counter all of the consumer nightmare we are living in. Sure is a good thing to have a place you can go and see people standing proudly with their creations, ready to tell you all the good stories about how they got to today and your conversation. People are good out there. I still have faith in us. 

And I am not the only one who loves possums! Sold two. I'm going to add more color to the frog, which I was hoping to sell as a one-color hat, but just doesn't have the punch it needs. Also I will work on the Hummingbird a bit, as it needs more impact. I'll bet I have some iridescent paint.

 

The Meadowlark design came from the drawings I did for Mom's book. That has plenty of punch. Should draw some little musical notes up by the beak. 

I hope I get more designs done for HM. I have a long list of ones I want to do. So many projects, so little time.

A Glorious Day

 Many of my fellow market members were selling for their last day of the season yesterday. For them it was a great finish, I hope. My sales were high. It is supposed to rain a whole lot in the week coming up so it does not seem like we will experience another day like that anytime soon. I'm still coming every week for the rest of my life if I am able, but I am cut from some old cloth I guess.

Hallowe'en isn't that fun at market, for me. I won't buy commercial candy and have tried a couple of alternatives, but it is candy that people want and they are disappointed by whatever I have tried so far, including quarters and healthier treats (which are too expensive to buy a lot of, unless it is something I want and need to eat, which would mean vegan cookies or something.) Costumes are hard when you bike and when it is cold and if it is rainy, there aren't too many good ways to dress unless you have a rainproof onesie large enough to wear a lot of layers beneath. I'm planning to attend, but probably won't play the game. 

As I said about the Elf Game, I have lost interest in it. We've been doing that promotion for more than 5 years now and it was intended to draw new attention to the first weekend and boost sales. It never did boost sales, though people like getting prizes and searching for the elves. But after a certain time without new energy, those things just get disappointing. Instead of the hand-colored ornaments we used to hand out, in their impressive creative entirety, (thanks to volunteers, mostly Mary Newell) we give out stickers. Yeah, people like stickers. And there are always new people interested in doing the elves, so it's still happening. But imagine if we had new promotions! 

Before the Elf Game, we had a promotion where artists decorated canvas tote bags and we gave those away after displaying and promoting them, and that was good for two years. I set aside my objections to giving away the exact products I was selling, but I was glad it was only two years. Free stuff is very popular but it doesn't pay the bills. Everytime farmers' corporate partners Kaiser Permanente and On Point give away hundreds of bags my bag sales crater, so that happened again yesterday. If I do sell at farmers on Nov. 8th and 15th, I won't bother to bring many bags.

The best moment yesterday was when I remembered to look across at the first maple tree that turns color every year on the Park Blocks, mid-block on the Oak Street perimeter of the East Block, and there it was at peak color! I was mostly facing the other way and could have missed it entirely. My focus has narrowed as I deal with this foot pain. I can only take limited forays so haven't walked all around the blocks in a long time. I suppose I could give in and take painkillers. All of the other days I can stop walking around if it hurts too much, but Saturday I just have to keep going and it is 7:00 am to 7:00 pm for me. I'm learning things about how to cope with these aging things. 

My ex-partner (we split in 1993) had a heart attack which was scary. I refrained from telling him things I know about heart issues and it was a small one with a "procedure" performed to fix it. It was weird to not find out for 2 weeks, but that's my fault for keeping a distance from him generally. I did notice he wasn't at the market but he came by yesterday though he was really cranky! He's scared, I know. Heart things and brain things are the hardest to process. 

Sadly, although probably most of my friends and acquaintances went to the march, only a handful came through the market, as the admin successfully gave our town the message that we don't really welcome free speech interfering with our commerce...so predictably they passed on supporting that, as they should. We are not the center of the universe as we like to think. Commerce is taking a back seat to this world-changing time of speaking out, and while we are not capitalists at the market, this admin has positioned itself to be about sales and not about being the community gathering space. There were barriers on the corners like are used to discourage the X-tians, and they didn't show (thank goodness) but it told the costumed legions they were also not welcome with their signs and opinions. Those people set themselves up across the street on the two north blocks and we just look peripheral and out of step with our community. 

I admit I am at the market to make money, but I am also there to hear about what is going on with the thousands of people I know and have interacted with in the last 50 years downtown. I am there to see the trees and the changes and eat the foods and admire the crafts and creations of so many cool people. I am there to be part of what I live within. The only thing about the protest that would have made me happier is if it came down Oak or 8th Street instead of circling a few blocks away where I couldn't see it (I could hear it.) If I were younger and had more options for income and wasn't fearful about my longterm survival, I might have taken the day off to march. I only get so many paydays though, so my priority has to be selling. So yeah, rainy market or not...I will be there.

I spent the week finishing up the 2019 archives and playing in the gardens. I prioritized the 2019 archives because the market was peaking, though we didn't know it. We were celebrating our 50th season as OCF was too and we had a real, professional manager who could do it all. She knew marketing, and trained the person who ended up doing it, she knew financials and kept us all going and adding to our savings, she got us a 5-year contract with the city, and we were successfully navigating the Park Blocks remodeling project which took a ton of energy. She focused right away (she was hired in 2017) on building up the volunteer sector and we had so many positive and hard-working volunteers in 2019. So many committees, so many task forces, so much member communication and getting things extra functional. She wasn't perfect, but it was obvious that she had what we needed and it was not a surprise that she jumped to a better-paying, more challenging job when the opportunity came by. 

Speculating what would have happened if we hadn't had the pandemic is hard but she handled things well through it and didn't leave until mid-2021, which hurt us but we were able to cruise for awhile until things really broke because we had what we thought was a management team but they were not doing those management tasks and were hiding that. We had gotten a moment of relaxation with a strong GM and many of us dedicated volunteers were trying to step back and replace ourselves, but it turns out we didn't have as many natural and strong leaders as we thought we did. I hope to get myself to work through archiving 2020 and 2021 rather soon (it's painful) so people who are interested can see why we are here and what we were doing before to keep us from getting here. 

We spent months onboarding that GM at the time, and she studied us carefully before she changed anything, and tried to be respectful, cautious and to keep everything working when she felt changes were needed. She did a temporary rebrand which turned out to be more or less permanent, with the 50th logo. Promotions and advertising were dynamic and are still being copied now which is resulting in our marketing doldrums as we have no expertise there right now. We look weak and tired instead of being able to build on what we did in 2019. 

We are perhaps in the weakest position we have been in for decades. We're heading into a second year of overspending and being in the red, and we only know that because we have a powerful volunteer looking at the financials. He's doing the GM job for free in that area, while on the outside it looks handled and the GM has excuses for everything that doesn't look so good. Not many people can look at the financials and track trends, though there are maybe 5 of us who do that. It's more than obvious what not hiring a professional manager is costing us.

Not supporting volunteers has cost us the functionality of nearly every committee. Standards has fallen apart and can't get enough people to screen new applicants, so filling Holiday Market is a dream that won't come true. People are deserting the market for other selling opportunities as their sales fall off and they are getting pressured with administrative errors, like lost and misappropriated payments, a lack of keeping up with the weekly attendance so spaces are not sold and customers are not directed to members they ask about. Numerous members have left or are fighting termination of their selling rights for asking questions, trying to give helpful feedback, or persisting in trying to do what they have always been welcome to do. Nearly everyone has a story. 

We are in a bad slump, and with a recession and what is happening globally to commerce, we are really challenged to respond. I worry about it most of the time. In the past I would already have done a few things perhaps in trying to move things in a better direction, as I did by creating the merch that brought market $2000 a year in donations (from me) for the years 2020-2024, which I have now shelved. I have always pitched in before, but I'm on the sidelines and don't expect to be listened to, so I'm not sure how to help. No one seems to remember or value my previous leadership, so like anyone would, I have gotten quiet. 

I handed off the 2019 archives to a Board member yesterday and I will ask them all to spend an hour of their time reviewing them, but I am not confident they will. They think we have new problems that aren't related to previous times but our problems are always the same ones. We are very hard to manage. We are strong and independent people who are used to doing things for ourselves and we are not always forthcoming about our frustrations. We just stop coming, stop participating, stop giving our energy away for free. We find better ways to get our needs met. 

I don't know how much more can crumble without solutions. Driving out the people who try to question and improve things is just the exact wrong thing to do. Tighter control will speed it up. Seeing everyone as an opponent and troublemaker is such a grievous misunderstanding of our members, who are a distinct and complex type of people who know how to be efficient and purposeful with their time. Many of us do have professional skills, but we're not bringing them. Stonewalling people is not a good way to get them to speak up. 

I hope people will hang in there and continue to search for truth and honesty and accountability. I know most people are doing their best, but that doesn't make them right. I'm not insisting I am right. However, I have read (and participated in) our history. Some things are clear as day. We can only thrive with real, skilled, professional management. Every time we have taken the easy way out and hired someone we liked or knew or settled for, we failed. Sometimes it was fast, sometimes easier, sometimes the person resigned when things became apparent. This one is going to be slow. What will be the tipping point? I wish we didn't have to find out the hard way. 

 

Nothing like a Saturday

So thankful for the Portland improv with the inflatables that puts the lie to all of the Noem posturing. You can't stay serious with all of those cartoon characters twerking on the news. We will see a lot of this next week with the No Kings protests. Ecologically, I hate those inflatables, but I guess some things can be set aside for a minute while we get our human and civil rights back on line. Clowns to the left, jokers to the right...

Meanwhile things continue to crumble in our microcosm, and we are seeing the real effects of some of the bad ideas from this admin. Cancelling the two November markets (Nov. 8th and Nov. 15th) means for food booths, who pay $271 for a 90-day county permit to sell outdoors, that they only have 3 weeks left to cover, and for at least two of them I am aware of, it does not pencil out to buy another permit at that cost level, so they will not be selling. Crafters are making the choice in public post after post to say it was their last day on the Park Blocks for the season yesterday. Many are already finished.

Because rain was predicted (though as usual it was much less rain than predicted) many booths were not occupied yesterday. Many. Sales were also low, and we had the X-tians, and the Game Day thing at UO with the 12:30 game. Although it hasn't frozen out any crops yet, the farmers are thinning and it's what we have called "the shoulder season," which means we're between peak tourism and peak Holiday buying. It is when we should be promoting things heavily and with great creativity to encourage people to treasure our outdoor community gathering before it is gone until spring. Sadly we have let the title go to farmers as we won't be gathering for two whole weeks, leaving our regulars out and not holding our own as the destination that is always surprising and entertaining. When we are there, we are those things, but when we are not, it's up to the northern blocks. 

Now many people have indeed taken to quitting market for the season earlier, and October probably doesn't pay the bills. I used to put up inspirational posts for why and how I navigate the rainy days and want us all to remember we have bills to pay, but now others must inspire...I don't put myself in a position of supporting the market publicly, except by my presence and the personal interactions I have there. Giving away the market logo bags I made is delightful and they're almost gone. Sad to see the end of those, but let this admin figure out promotions with the untrained and uneducated staff we have left. I'm not sacrificing myself on the altar of the market anymore. 

The Board apology that has run in the newsletter twice in a row now is embarrassing. Forcing the Board to lie for your benefit should be seen as an inexcusable action, but it is seemingly routine and involving lawyers isn't helping. Why would you want a staff that threatens your org with lawsuits? Or if your members are considering suing you as well, why would you let things continue as if this were usual? You have to really wonder at the people making these decisions, how they keep refusing to see this crisis and attribute it to the real causes. Increased member complaints? You don't trash the messengers who are trying to help you. It's not negativity to point out what's going wrong. 

The apology says there was no cause for the firing and boy howdy, that is a provable lie. It's probably carefully worded to hide the fact that financial mismanagement did happen, there was proof, but maybe it wasn't framed carefully enough at the moment of decision. It was a clusterfuck. Board members resigned and then tried to pretend they didn't, a couple of scapegoats were chosen who will likely see their memberships terminated for having opinions, and a fabrication was spun about the skills of the GM which is demonstrably false but people are now intimidated from bringing the truth. 

Domination and control tactics are effective. People tend to feel safe in a somewhat elevated controlled situation, if they can get up next to the predator and don't feel like prey. They have proven to have little regard for those who are chosen as prey or insist on continuing to have unpopular opinions. It is not okay in our community now to speak anything but praise...which translates to a condition where improvement is not actually sought. More control is...as it has seemingly brought safety. 

This is the narcissism I have been writing about. I still can't believe so many of our members have bought into this. They are stressed and confused and are being manipulated and lied to and don't see their way out. I can't help. I can bring facts and evidence, but I may be on that termination list for writing these essays, so I am cautious about what more I am willing to do. I will not sit in the Board room and be lied to. I will not be angered to the point of losing emotional control in the face of dishonesty and oppressive tactics. 

The type of community building and bringing members together that previous admins did is gone, and we are seeing loyalty and commitment go with it. People find them inconvenient (well, yeah...) and cut their losses instead of wanting to build back what we had. I am just in a holding pattern and trying to keep my own life together while I face the fact that I may not have my means of making a living still available to me as long as I need it to be. 

My products sell, and I am lucky that even on a slow day I can make a good amount of sales, so if I can be there, I will likely still thrive, but only if the public comes out and supports us. The pandemic support is over, and this recession and government collapse situation doesn't motivate people to support crafters or chefs, which is why we have always cultivated the community gathering space concept so hard. We want you to come down, regardless of whether or not you spend money, to keep open the vital center city space where we all can connect. But without constant nurturing that ends. Last No Kings the GM handed out flyers and told people to keep their signs down or not bring them into the market...if someone official said that to me, I would find it offensive enough to not return. They said to the media they thought the protests would hurt the market. They won't hurt as much as early football games do. 

Free speech is still necessary within the market. I suppose I will make a bigger sign this week about that. I think it is important for the market to still be there, even on such a big protest day, and I want to see the market included in the protest. You can't both support free speech and oppress it. I would never have dreamed that the market would suppress it, but here we are.

So even though I am only loud in this space which is not interactive, I will still keep it going here despite the threat of punishment for calling out mismanagement. We are well into a second year of overspending and deficits, using our savings to dubious purposes to cover the lack of skills in our admin staff. Members can't cover these debts...our costs have risen with the tariffs and increased municipal fees, our living situations are threatened, and most of our members are well below the poverty line and are now selecting whether or not they will attend based on whether or not they might make money, which is speculation based on higher fees and nonexistent promotions. Market is supposed to be our safety net, a way for us DIY folks to make honest livings based on our hard work. The direct connection from us to our appreciators is clean and simple. Our management is supposed to protect and enhance this, not exploit it for their own gain. 

Please let's address this effectively with honesty and research. We have so much to lose. While I am a lousy fighter and am not good at confrontation, I am a good researcher and I can put two and two together. We have to find accountability and make it stick. 

Showing your bra or your underpants to the X-tians is about all our members could think to do yesterday, actions which had no effect on what was happening. The loud bell ringing was kind of helpful, but my choice as usual was to present the market as unaffected, giving the lie to everything the X-tian men were saying. Giving them confrontation is what they want. Getting manipulated by them is forgivable, but pay attention to your body when you are manipulated like that. Remember that feeling. 

It took me a long time to identify that kind of dissonance and the strategies to lessen its effects on me. I will not engage with predators. Their power lies in how scared they can make me. I do not grant them that power. I will withdraw my support as I have done and do what I can to promote honesty, truth, and the courage to make hard decisions and find common values and actions we can get behind. 

Our members want financial accountability. We want to not be lied to. We want market to be the org we have been so proud of for so long, our lifetimes. A community that stands for connection, right livelihood, participation and meaningful commerce. Inclusive values. Fighting for justice. Being vulnerable but strong. Being on the streets in a dependable way so that everyone can be safe on the streets. Opportunity and support. Progressive ways to interact, ground-breaking ways to communicate and govern ourselves. The hippies are right, and the kids are alright too. 

We should be seeing a lot of inflatable frogs next week, twerking away. People on FB are invoking the famous Frog, who died just before the Repubs stole the last election. I think he would be proud of the inflatable brigades. He wasn't the only Frog, but he would have things to say, and even jokes about this situation we are in. Without the market, he might not have been the inspirational community icon he was...strolling the market every week gave him a home. Many will claim him, but he was us, willing to be funky enough to present authentically while still doing the meaningful work.

See you next Saturday. I will finish out the season in person. Hope you will too. 

Rain arrives

 We've been lucky this season as far as the rain goes, with very few even damp days, but this week looks like some real showers. I will pay attention today as the prediction for the two days is very similar, just a little bit of accumulation, so not really rainy...but too much wetness to depend on the umbrellas this week. 

So I will take the popup and the sand bags and less product and more layers for warmth. But I will go. The early game is a "Game Day" one which means people tend to stay on campus and be where the action is, but it is also Indiana U so I think other people will make a point of coming to market. Not everyone who travels to a football game goes to the game. And these will be people who are mostly new to the market, so they will love everything. Everything that is there, that is. Many, many people don't show to sell on the rainy days. It is devastating for the budget, and with the loss of two market days in November, we just don't have much chance to make it up. The ads are already saying we are over...not helpful, by the way. People just see that and say, well, we can go to HM. You still need to promote the outside market as if it were the best thing ever, every Saturday. Full of joy and wonder.

You need loyalty for that. When I was given a Loyalty medal in 2021 as a way to push me toward retirement by pretending to appreciate me, I started looking more carefully at my loyalty. All of my involvement over the years was really steadfast and I tried to be positive and supportive about every administration and Board, despite my real opinions about the skills, actions and direction that was happening with each change. I tried to stay in there and add my voice as someone who "loved the market," which as I can see now after decades of hearing people say they love the market and the fair, does not make anyone special. Thousands and thousands of people love the market. The difference is who serves the market. Service and responsibility is what I thought I was offering, and mostly that was true.

But as we now know in American culture, calling an organization a "family" hides the ways we are exploited, manipulated, and set ourselves aside for the needs of the org and its leaders. When you have actual generous and thoughtful leaders who really do act for the greater good, it feels right to get next to them and pitch in. Having emotions of belonging and being part of something exceptional elevates the personal meaning and value of the service, but largely that is an illusion we like to live in to help us think our decisions are right and we are doing the best we can do. Which generally, volunteers are.

I found a chilling line in an "old" document (from 2016), minutes from a task force on the Code of Ethics and Conduct, as we renamed the Code of Conduct. We were formed to help the manager at the time who did not have adequate skills to get member buy-in on rules and tried to use control tactics and dominating positions, which were just ignored by the members having a dispute at the time. About half of the participants in this dispute were manipulative bullies who had always succeeded with their domination tactics and they all kind of met their match. We went to mediation and some of the people involved went to the Weekly and the public got called in to testify in letters to the editor about who loved the market more and who could bully the best. It was not a truthful set-up but we did get through the layers in mediation and kind of established some peace for awhile, though the issues were not solved. That manager resigned.

Another part of the task force's work was an actual assault that had happened by another member, whose victim wanted some action, which needed a stronger policy recommendation. The manager wanted the task force to give some policy language that was stronger than we had. As it is now, the policies had not been designed to deal with real toxic behaviors. We had always weathered toxic people somehow and kept them in the membership while they learned how to respect other members more and moderate themselves. Members would usually quit when they failed to dominate with angry encounters, or just give up when it was clear they weren't going to benefit and just be members.

So we strengthened the policy language for a manager who didn't have the skills. The line that chilled me was "If there were ever the situation of a GM who did not handle things well and/or manipulated the Board, an independent Grievance Committee would be the place to discuss the issues more neutrally. It could either be a standing committee that met on demand, or an ad hoc committee that was formed when needed." This was 2016, and maybe we were naive, but we had never had a GM that manipulated the Board. We did not recognize it, if we did. I feel we have trouble recognizing dishonesty, and we have not prepared ourselves for it. 

The Personnel Committee, which handles grievances, is all Board members, so if the Board is being manipulated, the PC can't be a safe space to handle situations of grievance. We need a more independent body, like the proposed Appeals Committee, which has been proposed. It takes the GM out of disputes and lets the Board members do their jobs. When we have a lot of member issues, like we do now, we need a better and safer structure to handle them, with more options for solutions, and this was recommended back in 2016. 

Didn't happen then. Really should happen now. Member dissatisfaction is high and it is hard to disagree with things without retaliation for not "being positive." The "family" structure often demands loyalty and unity and rejects "negativity." What we have now is that every effort for improvement is seen as negativity and people have generally stopped speaking up. The members' FB page is silent. We don't have a forum for discussion. The unofficial page was declared toxic and bullies descended as they did on the official one, so discussion wasn't possible without fear of retaliation. 

I don't think now that my years of loyal service were as healthy as I believed when I was performing them. As an officer without a vote, I often deferred and kept silent when decisions were made I didn't agree with, and I usually could have tried harder to express my opinions, but I felt that the majority had some wisdom and was the "buy-in" needed from the members. I felt compromised sometimes but mostly things went in acceptable directions, and were correctable. I quit when I couldn't ethically find a way to support what was happening, and my voice was not being heard. I didn't want to blow things up as I didn't have the energy to apply to fix them, which takes months of meetings and a lot of effort. I had helped fix things a lot of times. We always do messy things that need fixing. 

The messiness was an important part of members having a say and some power to make the org what we collectively want. It doesn't happen clean and pure. Most of us have imperfect skills and not much awareness of our past mistakes and how we fixed them.

I've been trying to pull things out of the archives that will help the present situation. I personally feel that everyone currently serving needs to read the archives from about 2015 on, to see how we got here. I've been trying to make those available. The myth is that things were "lost" with the poor management periods and the pandemic, but nothing was lost. People just don't seem to have much interest in what got us here, but I hope that will change. 

For instance, just looking at all we had in place in 2019, our 50th season, would help newer people see how strong we were and how many of us were involved and productive. The contrast is striking. But archiving takes time and I have been trying hard to wrap up my house and property for winter (now seemingly having arrived) and get my printing done as I can't do it as easily in the rain. Have been feeling overwhelmed. 

When I do read back, I see how much the org depended on my keeping of the public record. Reading the minutes of the Board and many committees and task forces for which I kept notes so effectively is kind of depressing. I don't think we have that level of records now in any sector. Information and the truth presented as objectively as possible was so important all this time. I feel a lot of guilt for pulling out my energy, instead of a great sense of satisfaction for keeping us on track, for so long. 

But I was that good daughter, the one who just kept working while other people did other things with their time. I wasn't the only one, but I can see how that wasn't as healthy for me as I was imagining it to be. I keep trying to pry out ways that I was controlling or not quite as honest as I believed myself to be. I tried. It helped so much that there were other people watching. If I had said something untrue in those documents, they would have been corrected before being approved. We had teams of people working together. We had so many diligent volunteers.

We have diligent volunteers now, so I try not to criticize them, but help send resources their way. I believe in the truth. I think people prefer it and will demand it when they are not treated honestly. Might be wishful thinking. 

Guess I had better work. We're having some sunbreaks today, so that's encouraging for tomorrow. The prediction keeps getting better, so there's hope.  

"See Something, Say Something"

 It's getting harder to write positively when things are still progressing in authoritarian directions, but I owe it to myself and my readers to keep trying. Certainly just because misinformation is the norm is no excuse to stop trying to counter the false narratives. I loathe seeing the title headline in the newsletter every week. It is taken from a warlike, paranoid playbook and really offensive when all the info in the paragraph is really just providing the info that we have paid Security and a number that you can call to report things to clean up or address. It's drama. 

This week we hear in the newsletter that "there are many more complaints than ever before" but although I agree that this is true, I find them legitimate, and don't want to dismiss them. "The amount of vitriol exhibited by members, old and new" is noticed, but what is not addressed is why this might be so, if it indeed is (I don't believe it is.) The suggested remedy is to join a committee and expect people to not agree with you, but keep offering solutions. "Keep in mind that your problem, and solution, may not be what the group wants."

True enough. What's left out is our current reality which involves power dynamics of control and domination, a lack of transparency, and dysfunctional committees where volunteers are not wanted unless they are compliant with the top-down official program. Efforts are continually made to recruit new volunteers while those who have disagreements and persist in bringing them into the system are pushed out, shut out, not listened to, not responded to, and threatened with termination of their membership. They are even named personally by officers in negative election campaigns. I don't know many people who would persist in trying to volunteer in that atmosphere, whether they are being shut out, or being pressed to be the ones to do these authoritarian tactics against their fellow members.

What I see operating is that because the macrocosm is so horrifying, with the demented Prez and his power structure that is focused on loyalty and compliance, most people are having to tune out to a huge degree because it is so unbelievable and so destructive. So when it comes to our microcosm with some similar difficulties and trends, it is impossible for our members to see and admit the systemic things that are happening to our member-driven market. We don't want to believe that things could get that far from what we think we are doing. But I am here to say that some people lie, and are able to charm others into supporting them in actions that are highly destructive and nothing like what we have ever done before. Our atmosphere of trust is gone and people complaining is not what has broken it.

Speak to any older member or any former staff and they will say "We don't terminate members." We never have in our long history, unless they are egregious in not following rules or break the actual laws. I remember we did have to kick out one guy who was caught dealing pot and caused a bit of a riot when he asked his neighbors to defend him against the police. That was in the 90's. Another guy got kicked out for being actually violent. Generally people would be suspended for a year, asked to get some training in things like anger management, or just left alone to right themselves and make amends for straying from the norms. We find it in ourselves to welcome people back and let them have ideas and opinions of their own that don't agree with ours. Membership is voluntary and we are equals. No one should be put into the position of fighting against another member, and there should not be an atmosphere where dissenters are seen as enemies. That truly is not who we are. 

But one thing that is different now is that we have no stable structure when it comes to what I consider the vitals: a dependably honest public record that is diligently kept, and an overly cautious and responsible financial management structure that protects us from insolvency and provides the place where our many vulnerable members can exist. Our mission to be a business incubator includes the unspoken component that many of our members can not thrive in the regular mainstream business environment. That includes old people, disabled people, neuro-divergent people, people in various social and personal transitions, as well as those trying out new careers and businesses hoping to get a foothold that will support them. This component of our membership is probably a lot larger than the part that is financially successful. They're not always the type of people who are the easiest to deal with...they can be frightened, easily discouraged or confused, insecure, or young and passionate with great ideas that are new to us.   

The members have a level of interest that is sparked when things happen that bother them, and fades away when they are satisfied, doing well, and looking forward to more of that. That's the surface dynamic, but we are so much more complicated than that. We are easy to manipulate with false narratives, and we see the disturbing trends, but we are also generally unwilling to spend a lot of time volunteering that we need to be putting into our own lives and businesses, which are not hobby-level for the most part. Most of us don't want to or can't spend even 50% of our time volunteering and putting in a few years on a committee that doesn't welcome us or listen openly to us is just far too frustrating.

I personally was spending 90% of my time volunteering since our manager left in mid-2021. I was keeping the public record and archiving the historical record and working in the office with the managers and acting managers and whomever on staff needed support. Obviously that was not sustainable for me but I had skills the market needed and I gradually left my OCF volunteer positions to focus on SM, the KF, and other things I do in the community. At certain points I had to let go even when I could not find someone to replace me, and now I can see how scary it really is to not have an accurate public record. Having someone who values accuracy and honesty in that position is something everyone would support, but that is not where we are right now. 

I found it impossible to carry that weight when information was being withheld, controlled, and gates were being erected to keep members from seeing the reality. The whole secret termination effort directed at two food booth owners was shocking and wrong in so many ways. Sure I complained, but minds were made up to follow through with a false narrative and being on a committee would not have made a single piece of difference in having my complaints be effective. In fact, things I tried to do were subverted and blocked, long before I resigned. I was an officer, and I had no influence, so one can see how an ordinary member with no power would be easily frustrated and resort to complaining. 

Members who go through that type of oppression take a long time to admit they are being manipulated, because we value trust and we like to assume people are doing their best and sharing our goals as an organization. I am here to tell you that we aren't there right now. We haven't had any type of retreat to discuss goals and common values since about 2018. We lost all of the tracking efforts we had in place to monitor our financial and members situations so for years we didn't know what we were able to do or how to be wise about things. Some financial tracking has been restored, thanks to dedicated volunteers on the Budget Committee, but their recommendations are still not regarded as informed directions for our operations. We're spending savings that took decades to put away, on things that used to be in place, and are fully restorable, and we are not drawing on our considerable human resources for our continuity and accountability. People who try to bring such things forward are dismissed as complainers and told to volunteer more and longer and expect others not to agree with them.

That doesn't sound like a membership of equals. Now that the bylaws have been changed to allow staff to be members, are they acting like equals to the rest of us? I don't see it. What will that actually look like? Would our equal members have decided to cancel selling days and spend savings without consulting the rest of us? Would they be keeping things secret so we won't know the truth or their plans? I don't think so. However, we apparently have a board that supports these actions and we don't know about most of it except if we hear it as rumors, while being advised to just support whatever the power structure does. I do not support spending savings to cover for lack of financial management skills. I do not support cancelling selling days. Those are our paydays. 

Involving members in real ways can be messy. We have people who get angry and people who will fight hard for what they see as justice. It's not that hard to take them down one by one, shut them out and take away their rights. It should be harder to do that. I think if we weren't in such a toxic macrocosm, we would have more ability to protect our microcosm.

The financial picture for ordinary people at our income level is dire. All of our costs are rising, some unimaginably, and we are going to lose healthcare, access to vital services, and support from the federal, state and local governments that we have little ability to change. We have this one way we can protect ourselves from all of this, our community, where we can use our values to support each other, shore up our systems so we can still survive and even thrive at our economic level, and work together to preserve this precious opportunity we built over the last 55 years. 

We can't be fighting with each other. We can't be shutting out everyone who is inconvenient to deal with. We can't be kicking out members who have an aversion to authoritarian tactics and are obviously distressed and vulnerable. They need our safe place, they need our income opportunities. They need us to work with them and for them, while we work for ourselves.

We saw the X-tian proselytizers return this week with the students. What I saw from my space which was not right on the corner in the midst of it, was a market stubbornly refusing to be ruined by it. We didn't stop doing what we do best, and even just a few spaces from the corner we showed that we were a safe place by the many PRIDE flags and political signs we display in our spaces. We didn't let it become our fight, and to my mind this was because the top-down drama we have been seeing was on vacation. This is not our fight and we do not have the resources to make it our fight. We need to focus on our own issues.

We do need to pull together, use our maturity and experience to solve our recurring issues, and not panic. We have the ability to do whatever is before us, and have done most of it before, many times. There is no crisis that can't be managed. If people feel they cannot manage this without panic, secrecy and things that may not even be legal, much less sensible, than they should step aside, resign or replace themselves or just stop trying to fix the wrong things. Our problem is not our members complaining. It would be a bigger problem if they stopped.   

Knowledge is needed

I'm just going to post my letter to the Board since it wasn't put into the Board packet as I requested. 

 8-13-25

Dear Board of Directors,

I am writing to request that access to the digital Board Packet materials be returned to me for archiving purposes. The importance of a digital archive in this time period does not need to be explained. As paper archives become less complete, I have been carefully saving member email notifications and all documents shared digitally to paper, at my own expense, but to not be able to save and make available digital files takes away a great amount of usefulness from any archive.

For those who do not know me personally, I have been a trusted, solid volunteer for nearly all of my fifty years of membership. From serving in many roles, including as Secretary and Board Chair beginning in the early 1980’s, I have been involved with and contributed greatly to most of the organizational efforts to date. I’ve supported every administration, including this one, with my skills. I’ve often been the person to explain concepts such as confidentiality, most of the parliamentary procedures and structures we use, and most importantly I’ve been able to find and share historical information that has been vital in decision-making. I am committed to the archives and would like to continue to be.

However, I am not asking strictly for myself. As a mutual benefit organization or even as a hybrid c-corp and not-for-profit, our members are shareholders and must be active participants in the decisions made with their assets and in their interests. They keep informed by reading the minutes of the Board and Committees, the newsletters, discussions on social media, and by networking with their fellow members. Many more people stay informed than can be served by the newsletters alone, which are curated by staff with selected details in limited space. It isn’t possible for all of us to attend meetings, even with zoom, which provides only partial understanding due to the technical difficulties. It’s imperfect to just listen to neighbors during the busy day at the Park Blocks. Members need all the available sources of information, sometimes repeatedly, and in context, to perform our own Duty of Care. Gatekeeping and controlling the primary sources of information keeps people in the dark and does not encourage participation.

We are experiencing a drop in volunteer energy and part of the reason is the lack of trust and open communication from the power structure to the members. Not being able to see financial reports, discussions of vital changes in policy and operations, and complete reports of actions erodes interest and trust and creates dissension. Board minutes have always been comprehensive to include discussion points so interested members can know if their particular concerns were part of the decisions made. Communications with the members have traditionally been more inclusive of detail than those of other types of businesses. It’s a tremendous waste of staff time to have to explain things repeatedly one-on-one when our newsletters and board packets can convey information to many members at once.

The analogy I found most useful in group decision-making was that there is an elegant solution in the middle of the table, which can only be revealed by the careful crafting of individual members contributing without reservations to the whole. Members have to feel safe, welcomed, and important to the group process. An atmosphere of trust has always been operating in our organization, which sometimes does require courage but is always worth working on.

Restricting the Board Packet and free access to the business of the organization is shutting down the possibility of the elegant solutions we need. We can’t stay current, we can’t be helpful, and we can’t participate when we can’t freely access the details and have the opportunity to make informed feedback before decisions are made. Please restore transparency and trust to our organizational operations. We would not have survived this long without this vital aspect of our culture.

Sincerely,

Diane McWhorter

The reply (not from the Board itself...):  

Hi Diane,

I am sending you the digital copy of the Board packet from the August meeting. I understand as the archivist, it can be frustrating as this new Board settles in and finds their footing. The information was not being withheld from you, the Board just needed to figure out the direction in which they wanted to distribute the information electronically. I was always planning on getting the documents to you after a decision had been made by the Board.

I am sure you remember a time when if you wanted to see the P&L or the Policies and Procedures Document you had to come into the office to view it. It was not distributed and copied like it has been. I still aim for transparency but also must temper that with the organization’s safety in mind. I apologize if this caused any inconvenience to you.

The packet was sent a month later, so it was withheld. I do not know if it was restored to anyone else. As far as I know, the issue was not discussed although the minutes might show some discussion...I'll have to wait for the minutes like everyone else. For the record, there was never a time when the intent was not to share the P&P document with the members...there was just no staff expertise on google documents for a couple of years. An editable version was shared and of course that had to be restricted...anyone could change anything in there. When we didn't have a GM it was not widely available to anyone, because of that edit aspect. It took a long, long time after Kirsten left to keep our policies and procedures safe. There was a link in every agenda for members to go and look at it, going back to when it was created, but of course you had to see the agenda to find it. Now the digital versions are in a format that isn't copyable and the link doesn't work. You have to ask for it. Gatekeeping.

The willingness to share financial documents changed with GMs, according to their feelings of trust and the surety of accuracy. There were times when dozens of copies were made so that anyone who wanted one could have one, and when the financial statements were offered monthly in every Board packet. Generally out of respect individual staff salaries were not shared, but the total staff wages and benefits was in there. There are some number of us who do understand how to read and analyze financial statements, and every new Board got a tutorial on how to read them at an open meeting so everyone could learn.

And the whole discussion of what our legal status is was part of every Board Orientation. If people believed me, there would not have had to be months of  confusion and anxiety about it. It's public record. I used this template for a few years to orient the new Board members.

Just go to https://data.oregon.gov/business/Active-Nonprofit-Corporations and search for Saturday Market.

Drama and panic that didn't have to happen. It is so important to keep our experienced members in the organization. 

I did notice that a Board Orientation document was finally created, which I hope is accompanied by some discussions about the things that aren't easily documented but more about experience with Board and group process. I hope that will be one of the tasks of the Governance Committee. Knowledge is power.