The Light of Day

I want to start by saying that for some reason of my ineptitude I can't comment on my own posts here, so I thank those who did comment on my last one but that's one reason I post on FB, and don't dialogue here...sorry for that. It's on my long list of things to learn about and fix. My FB posts are public, so feel free to share them if you make sure to either ask me or be sensitive about how you put my words out, as I do not speak for Saturday Market but solely for myself. I sound official but that is not always a good thing. 

My readers will be happy to know I'm writing in the sunlight today and not quite as traumatized by my difficult experience with the PPS report and process. I get what their charge was, their goals, and I can see how they reached their conclusions. One giant part of the problem was that their sample was so small and their timing was so unfortunate. The two days they came to the Market were an August heat wave when we were a tiny market of brave people who could stand the heat, and the infamous monsoon day in October, when Market closed early for the second or third time in history (I remember three)and they were unable to gather useful data at all. I attended many of their info-gathering efforts and every time it was a small group of often the same people driving the agenda, and some of them expressed nothing but fears and complaints. Getting a real sample of creative and amazing Eugene culture was compromised by the frustration with panhandling and the mentally ill people who are forced onto our streets, and it came out as an embarrassing condemnation of the disenfranchised and the public servants who struggle to make good decisions. It was kind of like people saw this as their first chance to really complain (anonymously too, which is of course a factor) and it was a trash-fest. Plenty of people tried hard to post positive responses and you will see if you read the data at all, that even the worst comments were only up to 5% of the responses...so that was 5-10 people and sometimes fewer. That focus cast a huge shadow.

The PPS recommended priorities were first to do social service interventions, then do programming, and then make significant physical changes, and you can see for yourself how that played out to the media and from there to the public. Headlines about crisis, news stories that were alarmist, and the whole over-correction of leveling the Park Blocks were what I saw. But this is public process, and we can all see the parallels in the national situation of playing to fears and serving them above all. World situation, really. We're the micro-microcosm. But do you think that first we will build or even equip a public shelter? Even though there are many people working for that, we kind of had that at the Park Blocks, and we saw how much understanding of it there was. People need places! Instead we get Places for People, but only the right kind, which is a class war that we somehow cannot speak about in America. Positive uses. Like retailing, consuming, and playing games. Leaves out a lot of us and a lot of things. But let's stay open and not fight that class war, because we don't all agree on how much law-and-order we apply and how much basic human rights are protected.

There were a lot of specific recommendations, and there's no chance that all of them will be accomplished now or probably ever, but the one surfacing as the most attractive to lots of people is the Park Blocks re-do. It looks so easily do-able, and the lack of maintenance of the walls of late and the trashing of the landscaping has been a process of the last year and more that we have all watched. The fountain was rebuilt in 2015. Investment in the Park Blocks stopped there. Starting with a clean slate looks so simple, especially compared to filling in the pit at the Hult, or opening the privately owned walls at Kesey. You can see the writing on the walls...yes, those walls are a symbol. I see no chance that they will be rescued, but of course they are the primary architectural feature of the 50s design and there may be some interest from the historical preservation community. I hope there is. I would support that conversation. I personally like the walls, and the park pretty much the way it is, but that is not the popular view at the moment. 

And there was a quick mention of closing 8th and Oak for events. Um, events? Like...Saturday Market? Oh boy. That will be a pitched battle no one wants to enter, but that will be one I will lead.

I personally am caught between a rock wall and a hard place. I feel my duty to my Market is to damp down alarm, yet be realistic, and keep our 600 members informed about what is coming. I have been doing this at a great expense of my time since August, and of course my efforts have not been perfect no matter how diligent. I kind of set myself up for a crash by putting so much heart in it, as we humans so often do, but I do think that despair post was an important part of my personal process. 

The matter of the man I complained about is kind of resolved...we moved past it and are again working together, with caution on my part and with whatever he is feeling on his. We didn't speak about it. I do not think he reads this blog, but anyway I am willing to let it drop and keep in the benefit-of-the-doubt-provide-helpful-information zone. That's not that hard. Personally I have vowed to call out as much sexism and control tactic and authoritarianism I can be aware of in my sphere, as I need to work on those protection skills. But I am always willing to build trust and understanding once I get over myself. I have a lot of resources to share and board training is a part of my work anyway. So not big at the moment, thank goodness. (Trigger diet for me is controlling behaviors, apparently, with a side of intense watch for injustice and unfair treatment, and a healthy dose of outrage at patriarchy.)



We have so many giant issues to work on right now to move our progressive American ideal forward, that I want to shift to more learning about racism, privilege, intersectionality (a term that has been around since the 80's but that I had to look up) and bias. I want to strengthen the tools we have to keep on the path of truth and honesty and caring for others. I want to protect the environment and health and simple life and simply survive along with everyone else. So I can't afford to use my limited time on the small stuff, on the complaining, and on the less-than-creative sidetracks that are available.

So yes, back to the Park Blocks, I think it is an over-correction based on fear, but I also see that it seems to be the will of the Council to try for it. I know they don't spend any time there, but neither does anyone else now except the markets in season. I see a few people in nice weather. It makes sense to take steps to preserve the value of the space and increase positive uses. Personally I would make do with what we have and not trash it, but then I am the kind of person who does that. And if you have $5.2 million to spend, you have to think big. At least at first.



And this is the first stage of an articulated dream. I still believe that the remodel is the plan from way long ago, as the Park Blocks Master Plan is never mentioned, and literally no one is speaking up to keep any of it so far. Council responses range from the infamous "Oakway Mall" remark awhile back to the one mention of Saturday Market on Wednesday (to be fair, not all the councilors had time to speak, and they probably assume we know they want Saturday Market to remain intact). The one mention was about being pleased that Market would still fit, based on the map shown in the plan which I have to say, didn't make sense if you compared the maps. (Not even getting to the reality on the ground piece yet.) You can't pick up the Market and put it back down in one piece. You can't redraw the map today and open in April without a huge member buy-in, which means individual conversations with most of the 600 independent business owners we encompass. Here are some bad photos of the plan, as I don't see it posted yet by the city:

There are so many details, like customer traffic patterns, safety issues like width of aisles, accessibility, propane tanks, the fact that you can't really run a restaurant in an 8x8 space, the established neighborhoods and support groups we have within our map now, and the personal preferences of each member regarding the number of sides of display, weather issues, loading issues, scent and sound issues, and probably dozens of issues that I don't even consider from my privilege as a successful elder. I have fears about my own location, of course! My grief is mostly that I will lose control of much of what I chose for all the reasons I chose it, so part of my duty is to reassure us that we will have control, which I can't guarantee. 

Designing the remodel to include the Market and stand alone is a complex, overwhelmingly detailed effort that could suck up most of the money in a preliminary design phase. You can't make it a parking lot, and you can't make it a garden. She mentioned packed gravel, kind of a waterfall and stream for the fountain inside a garden, a central grass area on the east block (for the food circle?) and really hardly any of the concept worked for us despite the thoughtful addition of a possible map. And of course the councilors look at the map and think the problem is solved.

So Market has a ton of work to do to communicate with the city and the public and our members and work through the countless issues before anything is even done. She wanted this all to start in April and the idea seemed to be to tear down those walls immediately and get on with things. Okay, they can do that, but then they take out half the seating in the park (benches fixed in the walls) and virtually all of the utilities which are also fixed in the walls. And we need a whole season at least to allow our members to build up their points for the choosing of spaces, which will be an immense challenge to do fairly, and will take immense amounts of staff time which we don't have (our staff is already busy all the time putting on our big weekly event) and very sensitive member-to-member negotiations and informing processes. We have a population that doesn't even all have email, with many living in the woods in other counties, and so on. Even a snail mail is a poor way to get an effective process going. So if the walls go, we are not going to simply use that found space. Maybe the city budget can include tables and umbrellas to fill those new spaces for a transition year. There will certainly be some transitional solutions needed, and hopefully provided. 

We are a membership nonprofit and we work on a consensus-seeking model of participatory management, with a fairly minimal hired staff and a lot of volunteer energy. I find myself saying that a lot. We are not a business that has a decision-maker at the top who can speak for us. Anytime we fall into putting someone in that position we tend to make big mistakes and anger our population, who fully expect to have a voice and be heard. Anything we do like this is so complex, I get overwhelmed. Lots of people get scared. So headlines about a response to crisis fill us with fears. In many ways, we are the disenfranchised.

So that has been good for me, actually, in our micro-micro, because this dovetails with my social warrior efforts. I have to fight for inclusion, be aware of my elder-white-lady privilege and perspective, and work for people I may not agree with at all. We have members who want us to buy a building (we don't have the assets to do this) and people who have wanted this redesign for ever, and we have some who will quit rather than accept whatever option is offered to them, and we have lots of wrinkly things in between that we don't even know about yet. We haven't had the first conversation about a complete redesign of our Market. 

The city doesn't know how refined and complex our layout is, and of course the consultants with their limited view of us have no idea. We can certainly provide lots of help to the city if they want our inclusion in the design process. We are more than stakeholders. We've been there since 1983, in the park. We don't even remember all the decisions we made along the way to get to how we do it now. This is a totally gigantic change for us, way bigger than moving into the park from the butterfly, and it comes at a time when our internal issues are also complex. The baby boomer cohort is fading from everywhere, some desperately needing to be able to stay in the Market for their survival, and the younger groups have new ways of doing things that sometimes don't work in our model. We have the challenges of our own survival and that of our policy, procedures and practices that have allowed us to evolve for almost five decades already, and we are already busy doing that. I can tell you exactly how much time and effort that takes.

So I'm not comfortable yet by a long distance, and also not sure of all of my personal next steps or those of our organization. It isn't up to me, and it isn't up to our manager, and it isn't even up to our leaders, as if that were a cohesive group in complete agreement. You know it isn't. Leaders step up and back according to issues and conditions, as in the macro-world. I'm here today. Tomorrow I am working for OCF, and Saturday I am working on producing the Jell-O Art Show, which will be on Opening Day of the Market (April Fools!) so I can't even go to Market. I am the Queen of the Jell-O Art Realm, which supersedes being the queen of hats and tote bags, so have a good day without me. You know I had no control over that.
  
I'll wrap this up for now because this was not my plan for today, though I am happy I came. It is really so wonderful to have other people engaged in this, as this feels giant to me. I expect proportion and perspective to improve as we go and it doesn't feel like the other crisis that isn't in the news. Big love to my friends, neighbors, public servants, and hard workers. Thanks to everyone.

What I'm Feeling

This isn't going to be fair, or probably smart, but this is personal about me, how I am processing change, which is not something I am good at. At all. Yes, I have a big fault in my character, and because this blog is my refuge, and it is late and dark and raining again, I am putting it here. 

For the space of this hour I am resigning all leadership. Do not follow me in this. Do your own thinking, and be practical and positive, and do your best while I mourn. I earned this. I need this. It won't last long, I hope.

Obviously our country is being pillaged, but I'm past mourning that I think, long into organizing and working together to salvage and resist. Traumatically, my son's leg is one big wound with metal screws through it, looking to me like a board worked on for an hour by a toddler with some big nails and a big hammer. Harder on me than anyone, perhaps, since it's so similar to what I went through and he's not supposed to have to suffer my same pains, the ones I know too much about. For me this child remains a part of my body even after 28 birthdays. He wouldn't see it that way, no one would. I'm not talking about physical reality anyway.

This isn't about those two things. This is about my beloved Saturday Market, which I don't own and I don't run, except for the fact that it is a membership that I am one of, and have been for 42 years, my whole adult life really. But yeah, that's something I serve, and work within, but don't control, never have, never will. I'm a tiny part, my importance being out of proportion to my sense of ownership, my investment. That disappears the moment I don't go, to a meeting, or a Market, and others do what they do. We each have our tiny part, but we don't own it, at all. There's a rich place where reality doesn't match emotional depth. You're in it when you're doing it, and then you are outside it, looking in. I'm still in it, I guess, but it's scratchy and kind of bloody in here. I'm wounded in here. 

I can't tell you the one story, which is mostly about people who don't really know what they are doing, and are trying to do their best, and shouldn't really be criticized for it. I don't want to hurt them back, call the one on his controlling sexist inappropriate behaviors and language, his ignorance, because it isn't really his fault that he didn't get to evolve with the culture like I did, to the place where we don't apply those behaviors to each other. He didn't hear himself doing it. I would actually prefer to never give him another thought, but I spent about three days agonizing over what he did and said, so in my sacred space I will say how angry that made me. How unjust it was, how undeserved. I was exercising my duty of care, but he didn't get that. It's probably forgivable, if some change occurred. There's no indication of that, but let's hope for the best. So, we'll move on, sit across the round-ish table, and work together, I hope. Not sure yet, actually. Might not get enough strength together for everything.

I shouldn't tell you the other, but reread the beginning where I say I am not a leader right now. I am not a good partner, I am not a good girl, I am not thinking about all the ways that I can work with this and make this work and bring my membership along to a brighter future. I'm thinking back to some posts I wrote earlier, last year, I think two posts that were probably quite repetitive about my fears for the Park Blocks. My fear was that this $5.2 million for improving the downtown open spaces was going to ruin what I helped to build. I worried about that a lot. I started a task force and informed my fellows and started going to meetings and taking notes and now have a thick notebook of all of the papers I collected about the downtown developments. I listened to everything they said, and I know I told you all what it was: they raved over how Saturday Market was the best thing going downtown, how it was so perfectly doing everything downtown needed, how great it would be to build on that success as a model of everything that works to bring people downtown, create a wonderful experience, and on and on. I can't tell you how many times that was said to me. I told you about it, in my delight. I believed it, because it is true, but I forgot that it isn't true in the ways that matter in reality.

I thought it was a little over the top, not sure if I mentioned that. I wondered why they were so enthusiastic in saying that, but it was great to hear, and I was lulled. I stepped right up and boy was I helpful. I told them all, city people and NY city people, all about us and how we work, what we value, who we are. I gave them everything they wanted so that they could do a great presentation, could be informed, could see why we were so loved and appreciated by our town. Wouldn't be embarrassed by not seeing us clearly, wouldn't put something out there that wouldn't fit us. I was sure I did that really well, got lots of praise. And when the report came out, it was pretty favorable. They didn't close Oak Street, something we fought, and there wasn't going to be a Starbucks in the middle of Market. So I even told the task force things looked pretty good. But the report is not the plan. The presentation is not the report. There's a different plan altogether, that they were saving, I guess, to make their bold statement.

So today, in our special meeting, in our preview of the presentation, somehow for the very first time we find out that the bold plan, the great idea, is to completely obliterate the Park Blocks we know and love, completely. Okay, some of the trees might live and be saved, people like the northwest look of the trees. They'll put lights in them and balloons and umbrellas and stuff. Art things. But it will be level, without the covered areas (I'd already said goodbye to them) and without the walls, which I spent about two hours last week writing up a detailed analysis about which really makes me look like a fool now. Pride does go before a fall, we know. I felt good about all that work. But they're coming down.

And we'll have our Market, with even more space, more room, without all those walls and grassy areas and what we have now. Benches. Fountain. We'll have a better fountain, and we can probably buy some new tables because ours will look pretty shabby in the new park. 

We even got to see a map with all our booths, perfectly 8x8 and white, in nice rows with a little curve here and there, because we told them we like the varied layout and our neighborhoods. It's a sketch, so no one says they have to all be white and uniform, that's a concept. This whole thing is a concept, you know, an idea, which is what they were hired to present. We can still bring all our local color, and be ourselves, you know, but on nice flat ground surrounded by beautiful new whatever can be afforded and whatever whoever wants to put there because well, we know we don't own the park. We rent the park. All the other people own the park, the whole city, and the people who own the city, who right this moment, doesn't really include me, because right now I have been stripped of all ownership.

First I was in shock, and then I felt sad, and now I feel played. Stupid, naive, gullible, outclassed, and played. Because who didn't see this coming? Even I saw this coming, but somehow I got caught up, and worked with it, and never actually saw anyone coming for my space, my beloved home where I go every week and every year, and place myself amidst my creations and receive my pay and my appreciation from my friends and neighbors and those who want to buy my work. I feel stripped of that. I am going to get a new home. A better home. 

Because I'm so perfect and great, so of all the things that can happen in this placemaking process, of all the possible things that can be taken and made into something else, it has to be me and my life. And my friends and their lives, the ones we have built in that space since 1982. So, progress. The park is shabby and since I'm in it, I'm shabby too. 

I will remind you I am not being a leader right now. A leader would say great, we will find all kinds of ways to make this work for us, this is a wonderful opportunity, what a gift, this will be so swell! We'll all get to choose new spaces, get new neighbors and neighborhoods, and no longer will my customers step in the fountain by mistake and receive a free tote bag while we laugh nervously. No fountain. A leader would be happy about that, and think about the new fountain that might be built using some of those moss-and fern-covered black rocks we love so much. 

A leader would be so thankful to the consultants for their genius and bold daring, to make the change that is so needed for our downtown to be successful. A leader would be generous in lending expertise and in fact, lending the future to this concept, which will surely succeed, because when has development made something worse or ruined it? It always makes things better, right? This is proven. Why, that downtown mall was a terrific concept, and people really liked it. And Whole Foods? Perfect in every way.

I know this mourning and grief isn't going to get me anything. It's entirely feelings, and as we all know, feelings aren't facts. I know I'm not going to go to the City Council tomorrow (actually today now) and say anything about this. I will probably smile at the councilors who greet me, smile at the consultant, and at the city staff I worked with. Probably they are all smart enough to not ask me what I think, because I think they know they played me. I think they knew they were going to, because when I think back to things they said, and did, it was all there. This is what they want. They think I can handle it.

They think Market can handle it. They see how strong we are, but they don't see how fragile we are. They don't see me looking at my ruin tonight. I know, that's overdramatic, but I'm mourning here. I'm mourning my sense of control, my trust, my willingness to work with them for our mutual goals, forgetting whose goals were going to dominate whose. It's not reasonable to think we could preserve the park with our love, when it's so shabby and so dangerous and so perfectly placed in the center of the city which is not mine, and can't be mine. 

A leader would say Market can handle it.  I expect we can. We'll spend the gazillion extra hours leading ourselves through it, making a new map, getting in line to choose spaces, making the best of it, learning to love all of the delightful new features. We'll show up and do it because we have no choice in the matter, because it is our lives. We'll smile. We'll put on our show. 

But I get to say tonight, that this is fucked up and I hate it. I hate it almost as much as I hate the political reality of the moment, which is the biggest hate I have ever felt. And unlike the fear I have for my country, I don't feel fear about the Market's future. I feel grief. Because it will be broken, the one we know now, it will be thrown away. We'll have a new one.

And lots of people will like it. Probably everyone, with a few exceptions, who will be marginalized and labeled the traditionalists or obstructionists or old hippies or whatever. I'm one I suppose. Call me anything you like. I'm fucked, so I don't care.

I might get to like it. But I won't forget that what we had got broken with one hand while being held up as perfect with the other. I don't want to pretend this isn't grief I'm feeling. It's going to take me some time, maybe all the time I have left, to recover from this. It feels like the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

Not only the change, which as I said, I don't do well, but the playing. I don't think of myself as a chump. I had a lot of self respect built up there, and only a few days ago, too. I thought I was doing pretty well as a leader, with my thorough research and my diligence and all the countless hours I have given to this effort to work as a good partner for all these months, and to work as a good officer of the Market and do my duty of care and my duty of loyalty and my duty of self for all these decades. To work for my integrity and my honor and my honesty. 

And now I have to write to my task force and explain this somehow in a way that will be helpful, won't criticize, will be hopeful and present all the benefits and make promises about how we will do this together and it will be wonderful and we will get a gift we didn't even know we wanted. And I will try to make this live up to that expectation. You and I both know I will do my best with that, starting in a few hours when I will begin by smiling.

But when I walk across my spot on the West Block as I always do on my way to the courthouse, I will have to try not to cry. Because that is not mine, and is not going to be mine, and never actually was mine. I've got nothing.  
 

Counter-anxiety techniques: I need some.

Witch Hazel

We laughed about politics at a meeting last night. It felt like the first time I laughed about it in months. I might be right about the death of the patriarchy. It's certainly flailing about in throes. Thank you all the powerful women for stepping up to equality instead of deferring. It's a lifetime struggle to bend culture but for sure it has bent. And thank you to the many powerful and important people who aren't women. It's probably even harder for people who encounter less oppression, because they have farther to go to feel the pain. Of course they should get over it asap because their privilege is hurting us all. My privilege is hurting us all. I'm working on it.

Not that we who care so deeply can stop fighting like hell. Everyone I know is doing everything they can, not without plenty of personal cost. I read that a volunteer hour is estimated at $300 in value. Many of us have spent at least the last month volunteering. I know my work income has been about $200 since the first of the year. That's partly by intention, of course. I really love a kind of vacation when I'm not retailing, though it is  an illusion that I'm relaxing. I'm catching up, more correctly, on all the things I set aside during Xmas and getting ready for it. And in practically no time I will be back in the shop. There are a few piles out there already waiting for me.

But it is Jell-O Art season and it is in full swing. Our group the Radar Angels meets weekly to plan our performance, and those of us who do art also envision and begin our pieces. I plan to write about that on my other blog, Gelatinaceae as soon as I get a chance. I also plan to create a persona page for Queen Gelatinaceae of the Jell-O Art and post on it, and so many other things. I have an idea for my piece and have dutifully put up a big table and spread out some dried pieces, but there are still those other piles...the taxes, the printing plans for the first part of the season, the many sets of minutes to type, the dishes, the floors, trying to remember to eat well.

I still want to read obsessively, but it's getting easier to navigate the many Facebook posts that are so compelling. I'm reading about climate change via Naomi Klein. I truly think that is a place to focus that is a bit outside politics in a way, but certainly as critical. I think it's the biggest issue that connects to almost all, if not all, of the others. We are out of time on it. I know it's too frightening to stay in with all of the time, the same as our national political scene. We have to remember to breathe and eat. We have to remember to keep it possible for us to breathe and eat. That we can do.

The City is about to reveal the recommendations from the NYC consultants, and I'm on the edge of my seat. I find the Council meetings entertaining, and like feeling a part of the process. I take notes like a reporter to report back to my task force. I feel a little bad that I bring so much self-interest, as I would like to be a person who has this much civic engagement for altruistic purposes, but maybe when I have less on my plate I will be able to expand my scope. Really I'm overwhelmed with how much I am carrying. I have to work to limit it like I have to get rid of things in my possession so I can have more space and freedom. It's good to have goals. Things do change and I will be able to step away from certain things at some point, or I'll be forced to by health or some other reason like most people. Don't want to add stress by thinking too much about it.

Spring is near. Flowers are blooming, and the weather is supposed to improve for a couple of days so I can do laundry and get to some of the pruning. Winter slips away fast enough though no one knows what's next and we've had snow at Market as late as April 21st. Photos of the flooded Fair site remind me that I need to work on the booth a bit this year...aargh. Always hard for me. Then there's the home improvement scheduled for post-Fair...why am I loading myself up here? Must feel that I'm unloading. Like making a list.

I've tried a new list-making technique, using a daily planner to write everything including things that pop into my mind. The hope was I'd transfer the items along until they got accomplished but of course that isn't really working. Still, I'm better off then when I was trying to manage with lots of little pieces of paper. It's amusing to still be refining my systems at this age...part of lifelong learning I suppose, to think we can always improve. Counters that slippage of getting older when your underlying sense is that your life may not always improve. It does, in some ways, and that would be a great attitude to cultivate. 

Cultivation is coming into season too! Maybe this will be the week to plant peas and get some starts going. I have to get another daphne, as mine died. None of my immediate neighbors have one I can walk by so I will have to remember where they are in my neighborhood. It's so lovely to be strolling along and be ambushed by that intense citrus. And oh, my next door neighbor has a witchhazel I'll have to check on. It's the little things I love the most. I saw an owl the other night!   Edit: the Witch Hazel is blooming!

Okay! A chatty, non-anxious post. Now I can get back to work. I won't feel bad if this doesn't get more readers, as it's more for me, to counter the intensity of what's been happening. It's still earth, we still have life, there's still plenty of room for cynicism, and I plan to fully ignore Valentine's Day once again, even though I love quite a few people and can still eat chocolate. Maybe I'll send a Valentine to Elizabeth Warren. Or Melissa McCarthy! Presently counting on Rosie O'Donnell and waiting for SNL. Wait, I thought I hated celebrity culture. Maybe not totally.

Scribe Tribe Will Feed You

I want to encourage a few of you to step up and try out scribing for a committee or taking on the Board Recording Secretary position. Let me relate how it improved my Fair experience. I’ve been a boothperson for about forty years, and did my share of complaining. I was a crafter way before Facebook, and complainers rarely had any listeners, so my complaints never resulted in anything but a mounting dissatisfaction on my part, which culminated in extreme frustration with my forced stay on Monday night of the Mud Year. I got stranded on site with my giant wet pile of goods and no one really cared…but like all Fair experiences, it had a silver lining. I spent a lovely, quiet night camped out in my bare booth with my dried fruit and the minimal amount of things I was willing to unpack, and I hope you all have Fair moments as sweet as those. After I wrote my incensed letter to “them” which I knew better than to mail, I got to work thinking about how to shift my Fair life to one that fit better. I knew some volunteers, so I had a clue that maybe we had more common ground than I thought.

I decided no one “saw” me, and that was my own fault. I read a call for scribes and that fit my skill set, so I volunteered, trying a few positions out until landing at Craft Committee. A whole world opened up that turns out to be endlessly fascinating and completely satisfying on so many levels. What might sound like a thankless task is indeed a rare opportunity to serve in a sacred manner and show your love for Fair through right action.

The scribe’s duty at a meeting is to witness and describe with honesty what occurred and what was decided. This can be as simple as you like. Often minutes contain only the most vital info such as the motions passed and who showed up. It is not necessary to include all of the discussion and who said what to whom and how that felt. You put yourself in a position that is in the meeting and of the meeting and try to portray the meeting in a helpful manner. You learn to frame things neutrally, be clear and concise, keep your emotions and opinions and perspectives to yourself, and serve the best interests of the committee and of the Fair.

This is super training for many areas of life and while it takes a little organizational skill in some ways, the most necessary part is that you don’t have to do the work of the committee (although you can choose to pitch in if you want). You don’t have to vote or even take a position. It’s better if you don’t. You do have to attend the meetings, and that’s a commitment, but I’ll bet lots of you are pretty interested in what happens in some of those committees, and here’s your chance to get in there and find out. You would be intrigued and amazed to see how much does get done, and how expertly and inspiringly it can be accomplished.

We at OCF have the most stellar community activists and thinking, feeling people who come from so many areas of the bigger regional networks. Powerful, loving, incredible people come together in these rooms and try to solve problems, look ahead, heal breaches, plan for improvements, and do the work of the organization and the event. You don’t have to work during the event, but it keeps you tuned into the Fair year round, and you will be really important in a small way that will benefit you and others.

Being a witness to group process is endlessly fascinating and you can help the committee function by being an organizational tool. You keep them aware of what they did at the last meeting, and the one last year, and what is coming up in the yearly round of work. You track their work so they can communicate it to others, and you document progress so we aren’t always spinning our wheels. You have a calming force as a witness, and functional behavior and cooperation will increase. The Chair will not have to be the only one with tasks, because your minutes will record the assigned tasks as people volunteer for them, and remind them of what they said they’d do. Phrasing the business of the committee in neutral, clear language takes the heat out of many discussions and gets to the meat of proposals, conclusions, and solutions. You might be amazed how much more work the committee will be able to do with your assistance. We will all move forward in much healthier ways!

At Fair, we do have a detailed style of minutes that serves our membership organization, but it doesn’t mean you have to write down every word and then type it up. Technology rules. I use a voice recorder to supplement my notes, and it’s easy to type notes and construct the minutes from them as you go if you have a laptop. I personally like a lot of detail, but that’s a style choice and many committees would appreciate a less-complicated report, so you would work with your committee to tune your work to their needs. There are tons of resources online to help you with the structure and content of good minutes for a membership nonprofit. It is required that a public record be kept, and you will be serving an essential legal function for OCF, which will make many of us proud of our professionalism.

You do not need to be able to spell these days, and if you can’t type there is probably a work-around for that too. Maybe it would be a great idea to learn to type better, and this will help. Maybe you really don’t think you have the skills, but I’m guessing there are several people among us who could help with that, Randy being high on that list. You don’t have to start from scratch in an organization that is almost fifty.

The Board has explored the idea of their being some kind of reward or exchange for this service, but I’m here to tell you that it is its own reward. You get thanked a lot! The office staff and the Board and your committee grow to love you. Everyone who has searched the website in vain for what is being done here or there will love you too. You will be pitching in with a most meaningful, continuing task that will only require a few hours a month. Think about it.

Attend a meeting of the committee you are interested in serving. Try taking notes in your seat and see if you like it. I find it helps me stay interested in even the longest repetitive discussions, because psychology, human relations, group process and consensus building are laid bare. That person who always talks about herself, and goes off topic? Your meeting framing can help her focus too. You can say cool things like “There’s a motion on the floor,” if the Chair forgets to say it. You will learn things you never knew you wanted to know. I think it is my favorite thing about going to meetings, to frame things in a helpful manner for forward progress. If I weren’t doing it for five different groups, I would take Randy’s job myself. So if you can read and write, this is your chance to step in. Let this be your formal invitation and your permission to be part of the glue that holds our community together. Take a bite of the Peach!

Thank you to all of the scribes, ordinary heroes.