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.