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.