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.