Porterdale, GA:  Available for pickup Saturday Jan. 28th

Hi everyone-
I’m going to keep it brief because I literally just got back from the sustainable agriculture conference in Little Rock, Arkansas. (It was great!)

Since I was away I didn’t add a new vendor this week, but I have a couple in the works and will do a two-for-one in the coming weeks.

Sadly we are losing one of our favorite vendors this week. Ranger is leaving us for a lucrative position in the oil boom in North Dakota. Everyone will miss the pastry chef skills that he shared in the form of cheese straws, pies, and peanut brittle, but those of us who spent time with him each week are going to really miss his wry sense of humor and great talks about good food. Best of luck to you, Ranger!

Thank you all for being a part of this market, and please forward this to anyone who may be interested. Anyone can sign in, get the emails, and see what is available each week with no obligation.
Remember – ordering is open until Wednesday at 9pm and the pickup is from 10-11 on Saturday at the depot in Porterdale.
Thanks-
Helen
770-788-9120

Athens Locally Grown:  Availability for January 26

Hi, all! I’m currently sitting at a truck stop just inside the Georgia state line, on my way back from the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group conference that was held this week in Little Rock, Arkansas. I’m not going to make it home until midnight or so, so I’ll go ahead and open the market for you now. I’d said that I’d tell you about the standards our growers have to meet to sell at Athens Locally Grown, but I’ll push that back to next week.

Thanks for your continued support of our market and all of our growers. It’s because of that support that we have the amazing variety we do here in mid-January. Only a few years ago, it was impossible to buy locally grown food during the winter, and now there are over 1000 products listed from several dozen growers. Happy eating!

StPete.LocallyGrown.Net:  Market NOW Open - January 23, 2012 - EXPANDING VEGGIES

Fresh Harvest, LLC:  Fresh Harvest for January 22nd

Hello,

One more week until Tally is back. Haven’t heard from her, but I assume she will return to the states. We have lots of carrots and greens for stir frying this week. There is a wide selection of pasture raised beef, chicken & pork. It’s always good to know that the free range meat products are free of hormones & antibiotics. Eggs, bread & honey round out the items available this week. We’re happy for the mild winter that we have had thus far. Let’s hope the weather tonight will be peaceful for everyone.

We truly appreciate your support, and look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!

John and Tallahassee

Link to Fresh Harvest: http://freshharvest.locallygrown.net/market

Email us!

JohnDrury
john.drury@att.net

Spa City Local Farm Market Co-op:  Weblog Entry

MID-WINTER MEETING January 21, 2012

About 15 people, members and friends of the SPC met at the Art Church. No growers were in attendance. Although the turnout for the meeting was low, prior to the meeting Karen Harbut conducted a survey of volunteers and several responses were turned in via email and communicated to market managers at the market on Friday, Jan. 20.

Taking all the comments together, the effort has been worthwhile, with many ideas for improvement and new opportunities for volunteering other than on Friday afternoons.
Many thanks to everyone who gave comments and suggestions.
- SPC Market Managers
Karen Holcomb, Nan Cameron, Denise Marion, Hannah Seewald, Julie Alexander, and Karen Harbut

The question: How can we improve member and grower participation?
*Changing market dates to coincide with the Downtown Farmers’ Market? No *
• The overwhelming response from our members and growers was not to change from our Friday markets. Many of our growers have established routes to deliver to us on Friday, taking advantage of our proximity to HSV Friday market. Volunteers are unwilling to work on Saturdays, especially at 5 or 6 a.m. Moving to a weeknight market would not benefit our growers, and the HS Farmers Market has not tested a night market.

New hours of operation on Fridays? Yes
• In order to make delivery easier for growers, and pick-up easier for members who get off work later in the afternoon:
• Growers can deliver on Friday anytime before 2:30 p.m. (Door will be open – plug in freezer if it’s not on already.)
• Pick-up from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m.
• Separate volunteer shifts: First shift of volunteers works from 1:00 until 3:30 Second shift from 3:30 to 6 p.m.

Form a Promotion Team for advertising, promoting, and marketing? Yes
• So that is will be easier for people to find out about us: we are currently “invisible” in the community.
• This will also provide volunteer opportunities for members who can’t volunteer on market days.
• Kay Brockwell has writing and publishing experience and volunteers to help with promotion
• Denise Marion volunteers to call each member to recruit a Promotion Team
• Ideas for Promotion are:
o Advertise at fitness clubs, health centers
o Request friends with websites to ad our link on their, e.g. fitness clubs, growers, farmers mkt., beautification commission, crafters, etc
o FB page
o Send in articles about our growers to local newspapers.
? Each vendor could send in “my story”
? Arkansas Times, Mature Arkansas, Natural Awakenings
o Start an on-line newsletter
o Join the Chamber of Commerce
o Have a presence at the Downtown Farmer’s Market – Denise Marion volunteers to coordinate
o Ask other Downtown FM vendors to participate
o Coordinate with farmers to arrange farm tours.
o Participate in March 3rd Seed Swap
o More, better signage
? Have another banner made, new flyers –Karen Holcomb volunteers
o Terry Menefee – more visibility at Art Church – moving to a more visible studio.
o Educational events
? Bob Nagy volunteers to teach
? Rotary presentation
o Outreach to seniors who have trouble using computers (from Burns Twice)
? For seniors who are learning to use computers—some assistance from volunteers may help walk-them-through the market procedures. Perhaps we could approach the instructors with a flyer (printed on postconsumer, recycled paper, of course!) with our website information to get them some practice.
? The local libraries’ computers could be used for ordering from the market. The handouts in (2) could be provided to libraries.
o Place flyers on bulletin boards or on paper racks wherever they are allowed.

Grower specific comments• Growers would like to buy from other growers
o Growers communicate with each other to determine when they will deliver to us
o Can mgrs facilitate communication between growers – emails letting them know they have access to grower contact info on grower web page.
• Growers need to have their products on-line ready to go on Saturday morning so buyers know what is available.
• Growers selling products with more than one ingredient should specify what other ingredients are in the product. E.g. casing of sausage, venison & pork
• Growers request feedback – buyers should be encouraged to communicate directly with growers.

Market management suggestions• Standardize operations:
o Sometimes members don’t know what to do when arriving to pick up orders—seems different to them each time or a "little chaotic.”
o Managers have different ways of doing things, so sometimes setting up the orders is a problem—the process seems to change each time.
• Communication improvements:
o Put website and email address on every internet message.
o Market managers could remind growers mid-week before opening market to update their product list.
o Publish manager contact info for growers in case of an emergency and they can’t make delivery.
o Make sure all market managers have each other’s complete contact info.
o Get cell numbers for all growers.
• Change membership fee to one-time instead of annual.
• Reduce Grower fee from 10% to 8%

Submitted by Denise Marion
January 22, 2012

Upstate Locally Grown Greenville:  Order Now for USLG This Week.

Hello my friends.
The ordering window is quickly coming to a close for this week, and I see that many of you who usually (faithfully) order haven’t yet this week. So, just a quick reminder, in case anyone has gotten caught up in a wonderful weekend and lost track of the USLG timeline. We want to give you the opportunity to take advantage of the delicious, crispy fresh produce, baked goods, dairy, eggs, and health and beauty products which are being grown for our market and you. Many, (though not all) of our products are pretty much exclusive to Locally Grown.net members and not available anywhere else, or else have a very limited availability at stores who specialize in local foods.
Your ordering habits will determine our future decisions about how USLG products are offered, how often, and by whom. Your purchases go toward operating this market without any outside support (besides Putney Farm and our Market helpers. You are the ones who vote, with your food dollars, whether our efforts are going in the right direction. If you like what we are doing and want us to continue in the same vein, let us know by choosing USLG as your local food source.
We have had some excellent responses to our call for market helpers, and we thank you so much for your enthusiasm. We have some of the teams almost complets, and might have room for your special talents and winning smile. Please hit “reply” on your email if you would like to know more, and add “market Helper” to the subject line.
Thank you for your prayers and good thoughts as Lenard and I face health challenges and life changes.
Market will close at 9 on Monday morning. Happy shopping and hjealthy eating! :0) ?,
Donna to go to USLG click here putneyfarm@aol.com 864-901-2692 Feel free to contact me at any time before 8 pm by phone, and any day but Tuesday and Wednesday by email.

Madison GA:  Madison Locally Grown Product List for 1/25

The market is open until 7 p.m. on Tuesday. See you for pick-up on Wednesday between 2 and 4 p.m.

Patty Lay
Market Manager
(541) 914-5183

Conway, AR:  Community Fund Awards and SSAWG Conference

The market is open for ordering. To place an order, visit Conway.locallygrown.net/market Please make sure to hit the checkout button. You will receive a conformation email once you place your order.

Your votes are in and this round of Community Fund Cash Infusions go to Falling Sky Farm’s GMO Free Grain Project and ABC Greenhouse’s Green House Restoration Project. We will award the cash infusions this week.

We’ve already started raising money for our next round of cash infusions and are excited to be in talks with Little Rock Locally Grown looking for ways that we can partner-up and increase the size of our Community Fund Micro-Cash Infusions.

In other news, the Souther SAWG conference was held this past weekend in Little Rock and was a huge success. With over 1300 hundred people in attendance, the streets of downtown Little Rock were teaming with sustainable farmers and food advocates. Many of our CLG farmers and market managers were in attendance and I’m already looking forward to next year’s.
Here is an Ark Times article on the conference and it also features Falling Sky Farm.

We Need Volunteers
We depend on volunteers to run the market each week. If you are interested in volunteering please let us know and we’ll sign you up. Volunteers are expected to be at he market from 2 to 6 P.M. on the Fridays they sign up to volunteer and receive a $20 food credit each time they volunteer at the market.

Alternative Monday Pickup
Don’t forget our alternative Monday evening pickup at La Lucha Space for those of you who can’t pickup on Fridays. La Lucha Space is located at 2035 Prince Street, the white house located on the South East corner of Prince and Donaghey. This alternative pick up will run from 5-7 P.M. on Mondays. If you are planning on selecting the La Lucha pick up, please use caution when selecting items that will not perish over the weekend. If you have a question of wether a product will perish over the weekend, please email the grower to find out.

Have a great day and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook.

Cody

Conway Locally Grown

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Swainsboro, GA:  MARKET IS OPEN

Market is open. Look below to see what the farmers have to offer.

Russellville Community Market:  Opening Bell

It’s market time again! Be sure to check out the Featured Products and Newly Listed products!

See you on Thursday!

You can now follow RCM on Facebook! Check out our new page for great info on local foods issues and upcoming events. RCM Facebook.

Check out the “Featured Items” section as well as the “What’s New” section at the top of the market page for all the latest products available.

To ensure your order is placed, make sure you click the “Place My Order” button once you have completed your shopping. Remember, you have until 10:00pm Tuesday evening to place your orders.

Happy Shopping! See you on Thursday!

www.russellville.locallygrown.net.