Trying to hang on

 A whole bunch of shitty things happened yesterday but I still enjoyed being me at market and living my life. Connecting with joy is what goes on there every week and it strengthens and rewards me. I got some fantastic cookies and a new kind of bread and enjoyed not having foot pain for the second week in a row! 

The Standards situation might be resolved at their meeting this week. It's so very odd to have a committee come at me for products I have sold for two or three decades. I still have not seen the actual wording of the Notice of Concern, which was anonymous or anyway hidden from me, as is our warped policy. Anyone can write one, even a member of the public, but it's worrying that someone went to the trouble. What was the intention? Were they aware how much it affects any member, even someone who has sold for 51 years, when their products are put on the line? Not to mention the committee members, who have to field the anxiety produced, who are volunteers and are already doing a hard job of trying to protect a hand-crafted market in an increasingly digitized world. 

Do they really think that a hat that says Imagine is hurting the hand-crafted ethic of the market? I don't think John Lennon would be happy about this. My hope is that once they learn about my process and how hands-on it is, how hand-done a printed hat actually is, they will realize the complaint has no merit compared to the potential destructiveness of the correction. I keep a pretty big inventory for each hat, which I offer in five different colors, so if they say I can't sell it, do I get to sell off the inventory before I stop making them? At one hat or fewer per week, it will take a season.

My significant contribution is the design, art preparation, screen preparation, and printing of the hat. That clearly outweighs the commercial item it's printed on, just as a t-shirt that is printed by the artist clearly outweighs the sewing involved in making the t-shirt. I recognize that "significant contribution" is a subjective term, but I am prepared to demonstrate and challenge anyone to come over and do what I do and we can view the results. Can they make a successful screen? It took awhile to get the precise 2 minute and 45 second exposure time right so it wouldn't be over- or under-exposed. It takes some deft brushwork to get that screen in perfect form, with the pinholes and sometimes raggedy lines filled in so the lettering looks clean and sharp. This hat has some thin lines and elegant curves that have to look right. And the printing is hard, really hard. Printing over the seam in the center almost always makes little gaps in the letters or places where there is too much ink, and the hat can be easily ruined. Sometimes I can repair it with a micropen so it looks sharp again. Sometimes it gets thrown in the giant bin of seconds I can't really get rid of. I have boxes of hats in my living room that need to be inspected, retouched, repaired and hand-colored, which I do in the evenings when I have enough energy. 

But the language I have heard so far is that "we have to follow the process" and so on. I sat at the Standards Committee meetings for a lot of years so I get that, and I understand the process. It is a group discussion and then a vote. The people at the table determine your fate as an artisan. It's not fun for anyone.

I asked Bill yesterday how he took the market from 350 members to over 800 in the first couple of years he was manager in the 90s. People don't remember those years, when a lot of members left when a manager made it hard on them. She even ejected a juggler because it was "too dangerous." Bill's answer was that he made it easier to sell. He created additional selling opportunities, such as a program on the downtown mall for selling during the week (which still survives in the Activity Zone permits, sort of.) He collaborated with the farmers and the city to enhance member experiences and helped greatly in getting the farmers more established. He brought us into financial accountability immediately after some $4500 was "lost." He hired the right people (Kim Still!) He worked with a tough Board that wasn't all that respectful and fielded so many problems with good humor and good sense. He was kind, honest, and compassionate (still is of course.) He understood the entire crafter experience and had management skills. 

Contrast that to now, when due to all of the unending fee increases, lack of good promotions, blatant favoritism and poor decision-making, many more members are doing the minimum 12 selling days to keep their reserves or taking leaves until things improve. Every member business makes the best decision for their small business health first, and then thinks about the organization they sell with. When things aren't good, or they don't find it fulfilling or enjoyable, they leave. 

I think about leaving but I have invested my whole working life in the market. I am not going to be pushed out because someone doesn't understand screenprinting or can't see the big picture. I'm not going to be driven to distraction by feeling constantly harassed and lied about to my fellow member business owners. We have always held the utmost respect for each other and how seriously we take our work. We have always built each other up, found our niche and allowed our fellow members to find theirs. We have always been a community for mutual benefit. We have always been supported by staff to do that as well as possible, until now. We are being oppressed by staff and our committees are being weaponized to exclude people who are not in the favored in-group. Targeted harassment and disordered tactics are being used to make people miserable and we are lied to about everything that is happening. We can't see any data, we can't get answers to our questions, and we are told "we can't afford an audit." Yet we can afford to be overstaffed and watch people not do their jobs. 

It's a pretty hard and grim time for us. The denial that we are in trouble is scary. Yesterday we found out that the whole inventory of the Holiday Market promotional materials will be reprinted, at our expense. The dates at the bottom are last year's. The unsupervised an untrained person did not get any support in the way of proofreading to discover they had made a serious and costly mistake that should and could have been prevented. Mistakes are forgivable, and everyone makes them. But we learn to be accountable, take responsibility, and build in systems to prevent repetition. Let us hope that proofreading becomes a regular part of publications as it used to be. No excuses or blaming others will take the place of diligence.

What fee will need to be raised to cover these increased costs, what promotion will be sacrificed? When will we get our tracking processes back, our financial accountability, our safety and future security assured? When will we find equality for members again? When will we be able to trust the information we do get?  There is only one way to fix this.

  

August Days are Full of Memories

Last night instead of passing out in exhaustion (thanks to cold brew) I watched a PBS show that was mostly testimonies from the actual survivors of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Hibakusha, who were teens and children at the time of that horrific, unimaginable destructive force unleashed by liars who said they had no idea about radiation poisoning, and offered no treatment, just occupation and silencing, after the fact. I made myself watch it twice.

I felt that witnessing in that small way was the least I could do for these people and their descendants, who banded together to try to make sure no one else suffered in those ways, as well as the tens of thousands who were obliterated immediately or afterwards, in such horrible ways. Of course war brings so many ways to suffer that we mostly tune out as hard as we can to continue to live in this world where people can treat other people with such inhumanity. I tried and failed to read a long article about Gaza and the Palestinian genocide.

Dehumanizing others is the way it must be done, as we have all observed with the many targets of the war machines we all pay for and accommodate but have little influence upon. We see it growing and cower and just hope it stays as far away from us as possible. I'll always push myself to at least witness their truth whenever it is offered. Presently the wave of lynchings across the US has been coming to the surface, equally horrifying on a different scale, which brings the question of how we can scale and compare atrocities as a way to compartmentalize them and stay out from under the crushing weight of knowing people like us (or even little like us) can prey on other people.

Just makes aversion and escape seem more necessary, carving out safe spaces so we can imagine peace. For a short time, mostly. I try to protect Sundays for that for myself but can't always succeed. 

This was not a typical week and I got very little work done. I was expecting roofers on Tuesday so I spent about a week moving things out of their potential workspace, as I knew there would be some heavy use and unexpected damage that I could only hope to minimize. I marked and widened paths through the gardens and put fences around certain plants, and just eliminated as much yard clutter as I could. Everything went very well, with a new roof and a new skylight that even closes with a battery switch instead of me having to climb up there and put a sheet over it in the heat waves. Squirrels would try to steal the sheets so I also had to take bricks up to weigh it down. 

No more! I won't even have to do any moss abatement for a few years and it was a pleasure to see the workers use modern, improved materials and apply techniques I had no idea about when I shingled that roof in 1996 (they saved me the plywood scrap Richard and I signed and dated.) There was some damage from moisture so they had to replace some plywood and there was a chewed spot where the rats got in, as well as many other issues on my old, over 110 years now, house. I was thrilled to find out I enjoyed leaving it to the professionals, so I am hoping some of the other projects I have been putting  on my same old list for years can be similarly released to people who will do a better job, much faster, than I will ever be able to complete them. It took me two weeks to do the shingling back then, with a hammer...and a lot of help on the sheathing and construction from my friend Richard, who led me through the rebuild that took me 15 years. I could carry about three shingles up the ladder at a time. 

I'm so glad I had that life experience, which I have grown to see so differently over the years, realizing what a gift he gave me in not telling me I couldn't do it. I had no skills or tools but a lot of persistence and foolhardiness that let me learn so much. I doubt I'll ever write those two books about the work, that I started a few times, but I have the photos and the research and whomever inherits this house will get the benefit of those. 

I suppose if I live long enough I will complete those writing projects. Like the roof, things get more daunting over time and I have to embrace telling myself no about so many things now. Things across a broad spectrum of experience and awareness. Life never ceases to present challenges that were never imagined. 

Speaking of Imagine, it turns out that I have exactly one hat, that one, that fits what I think was the Standards objection to my hats. There hasn't been any resolution yet to that situation, just me feeling bad at market every week since, as was probably the object of the harassment. I'll probably never know, as the complaints are anonymous and communications from the committee have not been clear so far. Maybe whatever resolution they come to will be clear, but I'm not expecting that. The question still remains if people will go booth to booth and ferret out every product which potentially does not comply with some revised guideline or other, even if sold for decades by some committed member like me. They are not receiving good guidance on this practice, obviously. Moving the goalposts to put someone out of compliance does not constitute good shepherding of a membership organization or any kind of event or organization at all. New guidelines are applied going forward, not looking backward. You'll care when it happens to you.

My dear friend Luna, who made the beautiful watercolor art for the HM poster and promotions this year, came back after two weeks gone and saw the postcard for the first time. Staff failed to send her a final proof before they sent things to the printer and she had a harsh day weighing how to handle that mangling of her art piece she worked so hard on. The fact that they don't pay the artists anything (you get a free Guidebook ad) does not sit well when they don't do a professional job that enhances your career, as that is basically the benefit you are supposed to get. When you're not proud to show the pieces and put them in your portfolio, which you are building your art career on, it is sad. 

I know how that feels as I have made a few inadequately skilled pieces in my past, which will never really feel well done, including the OCF poster and a few t-shirt failures in the past, but all of the inadequacies were absolutely my fault and I was always treated professionally by everyone who used them or got the revised products or just accepted what they got and made the best of the situation. I know in detail how many objects I have made over time that could have been done better, including almost every aspect of this house, as I am just a learn-as-you-go person, which has good in it but also a lot of compromise. Improvising with the best knowledge and skills you have at the time gets things done, but it can be reckless. All the noise on the roof and the shaking of things in here just made me remember how I didn't tamp down the gravel in my work site as well as I should have. Gravity and the weight of materials is an example of a universal law you really can't get around, at least in the physical world. Just one of many I have fretted about in my own life. She, however, deserved better. Excuses were given but there won't be any ways to correct the damage. 

As we couldn't get around the smoke intrusions last week. Thankfully the market was not cancelled and Saturday was fine, clear and breezy and not that hot, except in the sun which is burning and relentless. The climate emergency is always a topic of conversation now, though we still don't do much about it. Not everyone is willing to do without a car or air conditioning. 

I did finally go visit my podiatrist, which I'd been putting off while dealing with my wrists and other issues, and as I had hoped, he insisted that I should not be just enduring foot pain. With a couple of small things he gave me an almost pain-free day on my feet yesterday for the first time all season and I was walking with delight. Something to mark and protect. It was my limiting factor. It isn't going to go away, but there are ways to be less limited and he was great. He reminded me that there are not many women my age who would do what I do with such capability and persistence. I need to hear that...I tend to minimize myself and my accomplishments, but of course I am amazing. Not the only amazing person, but just someone who could be a little prouder of myself.

I'm getting so much better at boundary issues and speaking up for my rights. It doesn't change the persistent dynamic of being preyed upon by a narcissist, and her enablers, but it takes away their effectiveness. It isn't upsetting anymore. It's still a fact, but now I can work to help others deal with it instead of being defeated by it, and laugh at the escalating tactics that are so predictable as part of the pattern. They look so ridiculous in their posturing as powerful people, when they have extracted all of their power from others, attempting to destroy what was built in order to put their gilded palaces on top of it. Like the Hibakusha, I won't be silenced, though I may suffer. Evil doesn't get to win.  

It may look like it is winning for awhile, but it's important to keep hold of the belief that truth and justice are always working hard. Done by the good humans, who outnumber the predators.  

In Case You Were Wondering

I quickly decided to resume writing the blog, but realize some background info would help new readers figure out how I got to here. Not sure why I thought I could stop commenting on things in a semi-public way, since there is still plenty to comment on. I mainly wanted to extend the relief I felt as I got out from under the market atmosphere and into the Fair one, which is close but so different. There I am allowed to still be the person I have been for this whole time. Somehow at market there is a personality operating that is called me, but is a construction of people who want to see me dead and gone if I'm not going to serve their purposes.

It is now two years since I have attended a Board meeting. I separated myself from it as I felt like the only person in the room doing any work, and I was not only providing a clear and comprehensive public record, but keeping up all of the checks and balances needed to guide a largely uninformed and unskilled group of people who were veering off into the unethical due to terrible leadership. It was overwhelming.

I had resisted being pushed out, stubbornly, since I knew my service was holding the market together, and as the Board progressed into blithely terminating two memberships of food booth owners because those two correctly identified the lack of professional skills in the GM, the Board members basing their unethical actions solely on her gaslighting and the collusion of a couple of her sycophants, I had to step away rather than be accountable for that. I was telling myself to get out of leadership for months, in great distress, as I was discovering how manipulated and controlled I was, along with all of the members. Targeted harassment was setting people up to get kicked out because she couldn't control them. We don't even know how many people were encouraged to leave for various reasons...it's largely secret.

One of the hardest things in extracting oneself from a toxic and predatory situation is that you have already been complicit in many ways that you will be unpacking for months or years as you try to forgive yourself for not stopping it somehow. I still struggle with that, of course. However, I know I was doing my best.

I confronted the narcissist about the manipulation as a control tactic. She was proud of her skills to "work on people" and get them to eventually appear to agree with her. She was quietly putting away all of the past lessons carried forward by our natural leaders and saying that everything from the past was "lost" as she made  no effort to learn about the membership-driven culture that had served us well for fifty years. Her plan was to change everything to fit her needs and to cover up her lack of professional management skills as well as make sure her family had access to all of the resources our system of honesty and trust failed to protect. We knew we had vulnerabilities, but we had not employed anyone before who would proceed to exploit them. 

Tactics I witnessed and experienced included lying, framing false narratives to change perceptions, blocking people from volunteering who didn't serve her purposes, ignoring policies and pretending they didn't exist, and above all, forcing people to do the tasks that were in her job description by learned helplessness, hiding things, and exploiting volunteers who did have skills. I was doing a great many staff tasks myself as we were in a transition but she assumed that I would continue to do that indefinitely at the same time as she was cutting me out of my oversight and participation roles in several ways. She didn't want anyone in the room who was willing to contradict her on anything or object to changes she was making and strategizing to make. She only wanted to work with people she could control or dominate. Playing the victim is so common all of the staff now does it as a response to everything difficult. All of our wages are substandard and all of our members are mean...oh wait, that has been revised: only three members are mean. Our wage levels are great for jobs that are service jobs in a nonprofit. Our gold-level health insurance, paid at 100%, is far more than nearly all companies pay these days, and we have other benefits. We've always worked as a team, members, staff and volunteers, in mutual cooperation and valuation of each other, until the false narrative that people are mean to staff and don't appreciate them, and no one cares enough to volunteer. Why does no one question these lies?

Now a few years later we see all of our fees increased, no financial accountability, and a structure of enablers who won't ask questions, won't examine their assumptions, and have completely accepted the false narratives. While three people who were doing their jobs could hold down the operational tasks, we now need five to cover what is the same amount of work. The false narrative is that we have more members than we ever have, but in the 90s we had over 800 members, so the 500 we have now should not be unmanageable. People repeat this false story to justify how stressful it is for staff to do their work. 

The reality of current volunteering is that she has to keep recruiting new people as people melt away when they are not welcomed, trained, or their time is not used efficiently and their contributions honored. We've gone through four Treasurers as she has refused to allow any of them to do their jobs, instead insisting that they have to agree with what she wants. No one wants to be Secretary when the Board is untrained and dysfunctional, so the public record has not been well-kept and all of the oversight functions of the officer position have been stripped out. We can't get volunteers to do the most basic of tasks, but no one really wants to connect that lack of energy with the treatment people have objected to before they left. 

We barely have a membership nonprofit, a mutual-benefit corporation, anymore. Member rights only exist if the members are in favor with the power structure or too tough to dislodge. She keeps working longterm strategies to manipulate people into reacting to her little torture techniques and then when they do react, she has grounds to remove their membership or sanction them into jeopardy of losing their membership. She uses the charm offensive to put people in place to carry out her plans. Creating drama is the method for putting the false narratives into action. 

Hardly anyone has the pattern recognition skills to see the simple repetition of the abusive tactics and carry those memories long enough to believe me or others who have figured it out, so there is a framework of denial over it all and everything looks fine on the surface. Lies are told about why former employees left, and repeated. The official version of a lot of occurrences is repeated using the same phrases until it becomes the history everyone is encouraged to believe. People unknowingly repeat these phrases as if they were true. Anyone who tells the truth is berated for being negative or complaining or whining. 

It's pretty easy to frame every member who has been involved for a long time as "from the past", out of touch with the current realities and sometimes mentally ill or ditzy or just too old to have a sharp observation or intact viewpoint of some better way to do what we're doing. New is not better. New is just new.  

It's impossible to refute every lie or misrepresentation and the Board is captured. Most people do not even know when they are being manipulated or lied to. I used to ask things like "Why would you want a manager who fights with the members?" but I rarely bother to try to enlighten anyone now. Saturdays are generally just as lovely as they have always been as market rolls along doing what it has done well for decades and most people are fine with just enjoying that and not rocking the boat. 

I could go on, but this in itself is tiring and people aren't seeing a way out. There is only one way out, and that is to hire a real manager who will work to elevate us, strengthen our organization, empower our volunteers in real ways, and act ethically and honestly on our behalf. Someday we are going to look back at this time and wonder just how it happened...and history doesn't lie. 

I hope I'm here to enjoy that renaissance. 

 

Staying Silent is Just Not in My Nature

Well, my desire to retreat and stop commenting on market life didn't last long. After fifteen years or so the Sunday morning essays still call to me to exercise my fingers while I still can.

Feet, not so much. I keep failing to master the right combination of socks and shoes and padding to allow me to stand and walk all day, so I limp and look like the old woman I am. I do firmly believe that standing is good for my sales, as the hats and I are at the right level for the satisfying interactions customers expect and find easy to navigate. A lot of my sales are quick ones as I let people browse without necessarily interacting with me. Making people comfortable to shop from us intimidating artists is a big part of success. While many of us are uncomfortable with selling, and in our "sales personas" all day, we have to make it easy for people to buy things if they are going to do their parts.

There are a lot of tiny factors in play. I like studying traffic patterns as they change in response to weather, other booths, the streets, the crowds, and our infrastructure, and after so many years I have a lot of observations. I will only rarely make suggestions to other members but there are things people can do to enhance sales for others...eliminate side walls for greater visibility, pull back from the pathway in tight spots, arrange their "hot spots" to highlight their best products, and so on. It's not simple but experimenting with it can be fun. Good signs help...of course showing your personality for that connection (as the new Assistant Manager reminded us in the newsletter) is essential. People who can't do what you do want to know more about how you do it, so they can get closer to being who and what you are that attracts them. With a market as intimate as ours, it is all about connections.

And we have so many of them, all day, something that is different every week and really feeds my soul after a week in mostly solitude. Summer is here for me at last and I have a lot of summer projects in the garden and on the house that I want to get on with. Once Lane County Fair is over and my neighborhood gets quiet again, I will continue with trying to lessen my yardwork in various ways as I get less able to do it. I get hand cramps now after just a few hours of pruning and my feet are a problem every day. I don't want to talk about my neck. I remembered that the surgeon I consulted said that there are many people walking around with what I have who don't even know it, so I want to go back to being one of them and not think about it. But of course the body lets you know what you have to do next, so this is just a brief attempt to have a summer on my own terms. I know it can't last. The sun is already moving south on my horizon. 

I haven't met the new AM, by the way. I am on full no-contact with staff and have told them not to use me in promotions, due to the bullying I have received and their non-existent attempts to stop doing it. I assume he got the memo as he has not even looked at me as he passes by. I don't know what I would say to him. Don't believe what you hear? I hope you are able to find the real community that does exist here despite attempts to destroy it with targeted bullying of those of us who carry it the strongest? There's a lot I could say but he needs to have his own experience. 

During the last, intense week of work right before OCF, I apparently received a Notice of Concern about my hats. I got an email from a former Board member with some vague information, as we are not allowed to see the Notices and they are anonymous. It took a lot of inquiries from me to the Standards Co-Chair to get the real information. What I first heard was that I sold a hat that said NO on it (I have no such hat, though I used to have one that said YES) and gradually it was revealed that the rewritten text standard said my hats with one word in a "recognizable font" were out of compliance with the standard.

I was there long ago when the text standard was invented, and it was aimed toward a person who wanted to sell t-shirts she was not printing, with the intention of getting her to do a little more work on her products to make them handmade. I believe it just said they needed to be individually approved like painted objects were...by the full committee or something. I will have to go back and find it. They wanted her to use some art or image that looked like more than a line of type. 

Always in the past when standards were going to be changed, people doing that craft were invited in to consult to work together to make the best standard that worked for the most artisans involved. Anyone who was left out or had a non-compliant product when the work was done was accommodated somehow. That is how four of us got exceptions to the hat standard...we were already making art on commercial hats, so we were given exceptions for the life of our membership. Two of us still have those. All of the hats I was making were approved at that time, and the assumption was that I could continue to do my art as I intended it, though going forward I attempted to put more work into every hat so that it would look more hand-crafted, in the artisan spirit I have lived within for 51 seasons now.

So this Notice, as gradually explained to and interpreted by and to me, was referring to hats that had one word, in a font that was recognizable. I had already written a full explanation of my art-making process and my hat-printing process, as a quick defense as I assumed Standards would be meeting soon after Fair and I wanted to take care of it so I could not have to worry about it during the time I make like half of my yearly income. I do a lot of pre-Fair custom printing and I was not finished with that, not packed up for Fair, and not finished with my own inventory production for it, but I spent an evening jumping through what I thought would be the hoops necessary to avoid a Notice to Appear, which is the next step in the Standards process according to the guidelines. I looked all of this up on the website, as well, as no instructions came from the Committee on how to navigate the situation. I sent that letter to the Co-Chair and found out that she didn't even know about the NoC, or the four Notices rule either, (an easy way for you to get kicked out by getting only four anonymous Notices about anything) which is something I have been concerned about since we entered the Consequences and Punishment Era with this admin.

I spent a whole evening on this when I needed to be working, before I realized what it was really about. I have exactly five hats with one word on them. Two, Eugene and Oregon, are in a hand-lettered style I drew myself, so those two meet the standard. Two others, Geezer and Curmudgeon, are my first two hats, so decades old now, and that lettering was from my stash of 80's press-on letters that you cut out with an exacto knife, press onto a clear carrier, and make a screen from for printing. That's a lot of handwork to make art. There is one, Imagine, that is in a currently recognizable font that I probably did print out from a computer to make into a screen. It used to have an ellipse but I took that off.  As I mentioned,  I don't make a hat that says NO though I want to now.

My main point in explaining my process is that I thought maybe there was someone who didn't know how old-school screenprinting works, which as I do it, as I have for 40 years or so, is a fully hand-done process. I always try to assume the best about volunteers and I know there are a lot of new people on Standards who might think it is their job to scan the market and make sure everything sold should be sold...and getting all of the little guidelines to be consistent over the variety of products has always been a discussion that is worth having. I sat at the table taking minutes for many years and I appreciate the work of the committee and the many difficult discussions they have, working for all of us. As I've said many times, I support volunteers and try to understand their work and support it as well. So I thought telling them about me and my process might be helpful in a greater sense. They might not know that each and every member who gets a Notice takes it very personally. It's highly significant to have the approval of your peers and feel a part of the common efforts for the success of all of us together. It stops people in their tracks to get called up on Standards and I've sat on that side of the table too. 

 My process is as hand-done as it comes. I print on the hat with a little squeegee, and it is hard to do. I waste a lot of hats that come out crooked, off-center, or messed up when I print over that seam in the center. I have to retouch almost all of them with a tiny pen or markers. My crooked hands could show you just how much hand-work I do. Screenprinting is making an original print every time. If there is someone who needs that education, I am happy to provide it, but after the initial parts of this process played out, my main question was, why do this? Why examine and sanction products of someone who has sold for 51 years at your market and has always participated in the most helpful, supportive ways possible? What has changed?

Well, it's obvious. The mutually supportive, all for all culture we created and nurtured is being changed by people who are competitive, possibly mean, and have some notion about what their jobs are that seems counter to the big picture of our mutual survival in the world where there are booths on every corner every day and a whole internet of handmade things fully available all the time. We as a market are not assured we can continue with all the outer conditions we have no control over. So to shift to some kind of internal controls that are punitive and exclusive and after some type of "purity" that doesn't exist is a huge mistake. We are both an entry level market and a place where masters of their craft can sell until they are able to retire or have to. We are so lucky to have both of these levels of craft and everything in between. Our attraction to the greater community is huge but still needs to be nurtured and protected and enhanced, as the public can be fickle and doesn't need us as much as we need them.

Everything that is done that restricts us internally and drives people away is adding up to our eventual failure, as we can lose it all faster than you think. Operating at a deficit for years on end (something we have not done since the 80s when we figured that out) is killing us and the high fees as a solution are resulting in many members skipping more and more markets and trying to just pick the profitable ones. Nobody is studying the factors which make them profitable, though, (the job of good managers who track trends, what is happening around town, and target promotions to those factors) and nobody is trying very hard to do anything to promote more sales for us as individual members, so we can afford these egregious fee increases. I know what good management looks like. Just look at the 2019 archives and you will also see it.

I myself am only doing four HM weekends this year, for the first time in my history. That bill for the whole show was just too high. Skipping the first was something increasingly common, and I decided to skip the last block as well. I sell well on those two days, but the sour taste of being bullied on the last day, and being told by staff I deserved it, makes me want to finish my season without that ending moment that we all used to share happily. No one ever apologized for that incident or even acted like it was significant, but to be bullied by the staff whose salaries I pay was just too much for me. To take that home for Christmas and sit with it all winter had a profound effect that just cost the market $500 I would have paid if it hadn't happened. No one deserves to be bullied. 

I love the market with my whole heart, but I do not support bullying and this targeted harassment and punishment of members. Members have rights. Membership is voluntary. I do not support restricting selling rights or terminating members unless there is some serious lawbreaking from them. I see our community at a crisis point, maybe a breaking point, and I will not stay silent and watch it happen without expressing my opinion. Here. It is what I can do. 

Now that I have your attention...

 I took a break from posting here to write in some other places as things for me at the market just continue to get worse. It's astonishing to me that after giving and giving for 51 years, my experience and expertise is a target for destruction by a very few individuals who are willing to treat my productive life as something they can and will destroy as a game.

Harsh reality that a lot of people would like to dismiss and blame the victim for bringing it up. Refusal to recognize the patterns of a toxic narcissist doesn't prevent the damage and so much has been lost that most people don't even believe it was different not very long ago. It's tragic that so many members do not even know what good management and promotions would look like. I implore you to go look at the 2019 archives if you want to see some ways that the market could be thriving instead of fracturing itself with constant loss. They're in the office and you can see just what professional management frees up and makes whole without the need for coercion and silencing dissent. 

For new readers, maybe come speak with me in person going forward, as I'm tired to my core of experiencing these patterns and being tossed about as if I were a toy. Refusing to engage is bringing me the needed strength to weather this era and we'll see how my future unfolds. 

The moment I drove onto the OCF site I started smiling and didn't stop for over a week. I was seen there, as my real self, the person who gives and supports and brings skills and knowledge that are needed and appreciated. I had so many wonderful interactions and reaffirmed that my life is awesome and I am so content and strongly aging and ready for all the challenges. I did something new and gave 10% to the JHVF to suppport the five nonprofits that will be funded, including the Kareng Fund, whose Board I sit on as Secretary. It made me happy to share that much, and know that it will be effective for a large number of recipients. True community comes when we work together and honor each other, working for the best we can imagine and do. That is how I used to feel about the market before it was captured by the current predators. 

Still digging out from the dusty stuff and organizing things I dropped to be ready for the week in the woods. It was worth the work. I do hope to slow down and enjoy the waning summer a lot more in the next months. 

Sorry to the loyal readers who want to see things revealed here. Maybe I'll mount up again at some point. You can still carry on with your own observations and efforts to protect and restore what the community has built and still treasures. Some of it cannot be destroyed.  

 

 

Life and Death, Right Next to Each Other

 Just a quick word to say I am too busy to relax and reflect this week (month.) I am almost done with my custom work but still lagging on my inventory, so will be working today despite my knowledge that I need rest. I'll go at a slower pace determined by my foot, my neck, and all the other things.

We lost JoAnn Siner, who sold every week for so long, and then could not get enough help to continue. There wasn't any information, no booth bouquet table (and her space was empty yesterday, too.) I miss our traditions. Misy Hansen also died this month, and she wasn't even old. She was our Treasurer at a pivotal time and was a fucking ray of sunshine as her FB says. 

Yesterday was one of the emptiest markets in a long time, and as often happens, it didn't really rain. There were a few small drops. I carefully took my popup and weights instead of my bandanas, but it worked out okay except for some additional physical efforts. My sales to all of the tourists here for the Savannah Bananas were good, but it would have been good for market if someone would have told our members that there would be an additional  120,000 people in town for those two sold-out Autzen events (one yesterday and one today.) The crowd was much like the football crowds, new to us but not buying much, as they already spent a fortune on tickets, lodging and transportation. Informing our members of reasons they should try to show up would have helped yesterday. 

Surprisingly, we had no counter-protestors to the PRIDE march so we got to fully enjoy ourselves with that and the many customers who shopped and surveyed us before and after going over to the Fairgrounds. I took my homemade PRIDE flag and held it up roadside, making wonderful eye contact with so many people I did not know, trying hard not to dissolve in tears. I've only been willing to be out for the last few years, just preferring to keep my sexuality to myself, so I recognize the ways of the closet and the freedom of the declaration of that little aspect of my life. It's never been a big factor for me, so I'm not being particularly brave, just proud of everyone who has been much more out and confrontational over my lifetime so that I can have this bit of safety now.

There were a lot of reasons why people did not come sell yesterday: the show circuit, OCF prep, the lack of real weather predictions we can trust, and fear of the counter-protests, but I know the hike to $25 plus 10% was also a factor. People have told me they are cutting their losses, just choosing the reliably good days to attend. I expect next week to also be half full, as holidays are not reliably good. It depends some on what else is happening. Fortunately the farmers do bring us customers now, expecially when they close at 2:00. The wandering public comes right across the street to wander us. It's sad when we are not very impressive. I wish we still had the member loyalty we carefully cultivated over the decades. 

We'd post on the FB members page about why we come on rainy days, we'd share our enthusiasm for our new products, we'd build community hard. Those of us who have been pushed out of leadership into silence are still carrying these cultural habits, but we're not acting them out. It's a huge loss to our community. Across from me yesterday was the CDR booth, promoting mediation and reconciliation services, and I felt another loss from the access we used to have to that as a tool. I've participated twice, but the last one was sabotaged and when the parties aren't committed, it can't work. I'm grateful to have that skill set that maybe I can use again someday. 

I keep trying on the phrase "My time is past," but you know, it really isn't. I gave my thoughts on closing at Hallowe'en for the year to two Board members, one who had no comment and doesn't speak to me (they're not hostile, just obviously turned against me by the false narrative that I hate the market) and one who did talk to me about it and other areas that we agree on, or are at least willing to dialogue on, and that affirmed for me that we are not all the way broken. I'll say again that there is no part of me that hates the market and it seems impossible that there ever would be. I used to say I helped build the market and the market helped build me. I'm not fully finished yet, and neither is the market.

It's still different every Saturday. It's still delightful, with a warbler of some kind and some turkey buzzards and those who have moved on and newly entered. I bought a cookie from a young person who just might start building too. 

A toast to JoAnn. Sorry I can't find that photo we took at HM a few years back, when you were surprised that you had people to defend you about something or other. I don't remember what it was about either, just that I was surprised that you were surprised you'd be defended. I remember how you were framed as impossibly needy at the end, and more or less forced to retire.

Now that is what I expect for myself...unless we get a chance to restore our community before it is fully gone from our memories and culture. You are in the archives. I still have that one button, "People Not Profits" from that other time when we had a manager who valued our payments more than our persons.

 

Another Compromised Election

 I am no longer the Secretary. It has been very hard for me, though, to not carry forward the amount of my duty of care and efforts that I made in those 15 years to bring the role of leading the members' legal and parliamentary efforts in always positive and inclusive, and legally compatible territory as that officer of the corporation. I'm that officer for the Kareng Fund/Caring Fund and have served as Secretary for most groups I'm involved in, as I actually like to take minutes and do that kind of organizing words. 

I do not have a copy of the current bylaws but it was always clear that the Secretary was in charge of the elections. Mary was Head Teller for years and we wrote the somewhat too detailed election Procedures and Policy document that we always meant to go back to and simplify, but it was better to have too much detail than too little. All of us knew exactly how to do what we were supposed to and there was never any question about the accuracy. I wasn't there when they revised the document in November 2024. 

It was the first election after Kirsten left when office staff didn't read the bylaws and surprised Mary and me at the HM by not only making Election Day the whole weekend, but publishing the ballots and having them available two weeks before, not just to those who would vote absentee but to everyone, many of whom dutifully picked them up and filled them out when the election was two weeks off. The ballot box had not been inspected and re-locked and neither of us had been consulted at all. We laughed nervously and decided a two-day election at HM was an okay idea, but insisted that the ballots not be ready for general distribution. Two weeks before the election did not give any chance for write-ins or anyone else to campaign. 

We wrestled it back into compliance but it was just a battle from then on to be included in the communications about it. The Head Teller is supposed to be Board-appointed every year, even if it is the same person. We were always playing catch-up despite giving everyone the election procedures and copies of the bylaws. It didn't occur to me then that I was already the target of disrespect for my efforts and gradually over the next few years I was cut out of every communication loop that I needed to be in. This was a general campaign to move out the traditional older leaders of the org in favor of new and younger leaders because of ageism. I was doing so many tasks I was even told, at a Board meeting, by a staff person, that I needed help and an assistant Secretary should be appointed. An officer, from the staff.

The tasks I was doing were all about trying to hold the org together in the transition after Kirsten left. She was always most respectful of me and my leadership, so I know it wasn't until after she left, and I know who the people were who wanted me out. I stayed in for the members. I would be there still and in my heart I still work for the members.

Every election we have had since then (December 2021) has been off in some way or another. This just got worse over time until we clearly have corruption from the staff in trying to control what the members want and need. We saw the unethical negative campaigns against the few members who still tried to use the system in 2025, and this time we saw no support for write-ins despite their public statements and name recognition. They were also volunteers seeking to serve, just like the so-called "official" ones we know are hand-picked and recruited by staff. Staff is never supposed to be involved in member elections in any way. Now we see they have been deemed members (no clarity on whether or not they pay the membership fee...) and presumably all vote for their bosses. 

The ballot language was misleading enough that a new one should have been issued as soon as the mistake was discovered. Since they were prepared two weeks in advance for absentee ballots, why was it not discovered? Was the Secretary consulted? He is brand new so may not have been informed of his role, though I sent him the Election Procedures and the former Secretary Job Description from 2023, before it was stripped down to something more vague in a recent Board motion. I knew he might think that was inappropriate, but legally he is held to what the law is, not what the stripped down job description says. He deserved to know what the role of the officer is in a membership nonprofit. They haven't quite succeeded in taking that designation away from us yet.

And then they ran out of ballots and turned some people away, until one of the candidates, or so I heard, forced them to go make more. Did those disenfranchised potential voters get their chance? Who knows? Would it not have been responsible to go make more copies before running out? Was that active or just passive voter suppression?  

As the link for the Policy and Procedures document doesn't work and neither does my access to my portal, I do not have many current documents, unless they are included in the Board packets as they are supposed to be. Changes to policy have to be approved by the Board. I have no idea what the Sec was told about his responsibilities, and in any case, I don't hold him responsible for what happened yesterday. Anyone could have proofread the ballot but we do not have a staff who proofreads. 

There hasn't been transparency for some time, about who the Head Teller might be, or the vote counters, but I believe it is the right of any member to observe the counting process if they so desire. 

If we don't have honest and legal elections, what do we have left for member rights?