2016-03-10 - Farmer's Market Committee - Minutes Farmers Market Meeting 311OH16
In attendance: Paulette Greenberg Chuck Posniak
Larry King Andy Stein
Lea Pinshower Jeff Berman
Peggy Starczowski
Not in attendance: Fern Russell, Mickey Katz, Ed Muldoon, Tess Baker
Meeting called to order at 7.00 pm.
1)Paulette informed the group that we have two new volunteers, Jackie Beegun and
Elizabeth Glazer. She will provide email addresses for both so they can be included in the
distribution list of the minutes.
2) Discussion of vendor applications: Peggy said Swirl Cafe would be back.
Paulette and Chuck attended the annual Farmers Market Seminar in Chicago.
Applications have gone out to past vendors as well to new vendor who have expressed
interest in the market. Possible new vendors include "Bites of Pleasure"which are out of
Skokie. This vendor sells gluten-free brownies, coolies, mandel bread, etc. Chuck thinks
their products are homemade and pre-packaged. Chuck said he spoke with a vendor who
sells fresh fish who expressed interest in the market. There is a new Brewery opening in
Buffalo Grove that brews beer and will offer tastings. Chuck will approach them to assess
their interest in possibly selling their pre-packaged beer at the market and possibly
provide samples to patrons.
Chuck said he has identified a possible new vendor who would sell fresh ground coffee.
Other possible vendors include "Jimmy's Vegan Cookies" and a person who sells organic
soap. Paulette brought a sample bar of the soap for committee to smell. Any new vendors
will need to be voted on and approved by the committee. Paulette said she approached
Toasty Cheese and they declined to return to market stating that they are too busy with
other ventures. Chuck has identified a vendor who sells bread but has not yet received an
application from them; Chuck will send them a reminder.
3)Promotion ideas: Paulette discussed ideas received from the Seminar. One is to ask
customers for their recipes using fresh produce which we could then have available for
patrons at the Information booth. We could also publish a cookbook at the end of the
season. Paulette passed around samples of stickers and cookbooks for children. Other
ideas from Seminar were to ask farmers to have a"seconds" table (bruised or vegetables
and fruits that are not "pretty) that would be available to patrons at a discount. Chuck
discussed the idea of having a raffle once a week for donations from the farmers. We
agreed we liked our current practice of having a larger raffle at the end of the season.
Chuck suggested we consider producing and placing flyers advertising out market in
local stores and businesses.
Lastly, Paulette suggested having an"item of the week" (i.e. strawberries) highlighted on
out Facebook page. We agreed we liked this idea and also liked our current practice of
doing weekly Facebook bios on our farmers.
4)Non-profit/Larry: Larry said he plans to reach out to non-profits in May. He said we
had a total of 19 last year.
5) Publicity: Fern not present and no report.
6) Misc: Paulette and Chuck said they would be out of town Sept. 21-30. Larry and Lea
will work on team schedules as we did last year.
Peggy passed out conflict of interest disclosures. All members must fill these out. These
are due yearly.
Ed not present but indicated through Paulette that he would discuss Facebook budget at
next week's budget meeting.
Paulette said our new shirts are in but need to be imprinted.
Our next meeting is set for April 13, 2016 at 7 PM.
Meeting adjourned at 8:00 PM.