We had a little chat time, but now we're going to call the meeting to order. This is um work session of the Southwork Agricultural Commission. It is uh Wednesday, August 27th, 2025. Uh we're calling the meeting to order at
6:03. We do have a forum with myself, Bert Hansen, Deb Humphrey, Jen Dietro, Dan Cook, Zack Barnett, Jess, Jess Parker on Zoom, and two guests, Ingga Hoteling and Sue Barnett
to join us for our farm day debrief. So, thanks you two for being here and everyone. So, What do we think? Good day, right? Nice weather. 90 degrees, but it wasn't raining.
It wasn't raining. So, so really good. Warm underneath the greenhouse. Oh, we got really warm at Yeah. But definitely rain last year. And people are smiling. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I didn't bring it, but I got a nice email from Andrea Bugby today about how that event uh you know generates such you know enthusiasm and you know community spirit. So I thought I meant to bring it but I I forgot but anyway.
So it was really nice. Maybe you want to look at uh open farm day view document that she did today this morning. And you said, Jess, you should have it in your So, what I ended up doing,
we're getting some feedback. You might want to mute Jess from I should Oh, okay. Okay. Let's go ahead. Let's go. Yeah. So, Inga Hoteling, 45 Klein Road.
Um, so what I've been doing is since we started the Open Farm Day three years ago, I've been keeping all the data in this great little farm folder that I created, broken down by the year. I have it, but it's nowhere near as organized as it.
So, I thought this would give us a really good snapshot of what has happened the past three years. So, as you see, we've got the dates and then I just broke down what the weather was like for that day because that could be indicative to some numbers. Sure.
And then also I broke down what the donations were. Hey, Mr. Mlin. Hey, Doug. How are you? How are you? Welcome. There's a seat up here if you'd like to come to the table.
Little recap of the donations people gave to me. Yeah, day. So, what I thought I we could use this as a tool is determining what do we want to do for 26. Sure. Right. and from purchasing passports to
advertising and what we want to do for solicitation for more contributions. So, as you can see, what I broke down after the the weather was what the donations were that we were able to get from our community businesses
for each year and then what the average was. So, I think we've been staying pretty much right on point. Yeah. And our number of contributors have varied. This year we had seven. The first year we had about 13.
So it's really varying. But what I'm finding is that some of our contributors like this year we had a very healthy generous contribution from college insurance from Sabrina.
So that really helped with the um with the efforts. I've also broken down what the advertising cost was. Obviously, the first year we thought we needed to really ramp up awareness within not only our local community, but we also went over the river. Does that include the signs we bought,
too, or No? No. I didn't break down props if you want me to do that, Zach. I've got that data, too. But I'm thinking because we've already paid for that. Yeah, we did that mostly the first year, right? We're going to have probably a good five years usage out of those signs
because we're also keeping them only out for about a month and they made them on a really good heavy corrugated board to withstand weather and this year seeing them go back out for the third year. They still looked cris.
Yeah. So I didn't break that but I have that price if we need to ever reflect on it. Mhm. So with the advertising, as we can see, we went from almost 1,300 the first year for this year, I brought it down to 637. Yeah.
And when we look at our total numbers, we still drew in a fair amount of guests into our community. So that's just going to be reflective when the adcom chooses next year what they want to do for a budget. And that was um seven different ads
versus 600 bucks. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. We did it in a two week period of time. So, and I didn't add in whatever you might have spent for Southwoods. I'm looking at just what I was responsible for because I didn't know if they just
gave that as a Here you go. I haven't uh seen an invoice yet. So, yeah. So then what I've done is from our farms obviously I went alphabetically breaking it down for the past three
years obviously the unique um beast for 24 was second Eden and Granville joined which they weren't there the first year and then for this year in 25 Second Eden dropped and Granville Scoop stayed.
So this is the numbers from the headcounts from the sheets that I've gathered. The only um addendum that I want to make mention if you'll see on 2024 for calib there's a little asterk I could not retrieve the data for that
and I went with an average of 175 and then Jen just gave me the actual number from 2024 of 160. So what I'll do is I'll go back tomorrow, make these additions and send you the master copy B
for you to distribute to the rest of the team. Okay? Then that will be reflective of real data, not an average. Okay? So as you can see looking through the numbers, let's just look at cowards for instance. The first year 127 guests that
we were able to account for. Then we had that rainy day, which I'm surprised that number is not higher because they had the greenhouse tours. But then a big draw for them is walking through the field and the train ride. Train ride was when I was there in the morning, the train ride was definitely draw. We had
little people, little people waiting at 10:00 to go on the train. Well, I was there three women came in. I'm going to say they're had to be retiree age and they got right on that train, right? That's good.
Just as in addition to that at Klein View Stables, our eldest rider on LA that Sunday was 82 years of age and she was a previous jumper in the ecoin industry and she could not stop
smiling from ear to ear. And I I had them parked down by the entrance of the barn because when they pulled in, obviously our eyes tell us things and I could tell that they probably a little bit more mature. I didn't want them to walk through the
field and they stopped and just were just so happy. So, it is amazing what people will do. It's great. So, as you can see, and then back to cowards this year, they've had 104 visitors. But then I also believe,
and correct me if I'm wrong, we did have some issues with volunteers this year. Yeah. And I've come up with a couple of creative solutions for us to look at that that I'll show you this evening. But I don't know if the number is really reflective of the visitors because I
know at Blossoming Acres, they had no volunteers. Well, they had a halfhour break for that. Although they did have someone manning it, manning it because Rachel was my son's girlfriend, was manning it. Okay. Which I don't think she was tallying during that thing, but um Sue was there.
I think the diff Yeah. in the morning Sue was there and then I was at number one. I was at Cowards and then I came over by 1:30. I was over at then we started the count again at at that. But I only counted those people that were act I didn't count everybody.
And I'm not sure that they didn't in the past counted there. I only counted those people that that were had passports or were partaking in farm day because they just had lots of customers. Exactly. So I'm like I don't think I should count the customers. You didn't. You just counted. Right. Cuz
I'm like and but maybe in the past I don't know. The woman who normally does it as their neighbor, the volunteer does it lives next door. Maybe she counted everybody. Yeah. Because I mean there was definitely way more than double the people
right that are still in there as patrons. They were just patrons because you know we would address them but they would you could tell they were just customers. They weren't doing the you know any of the farm stuff cuz we drag them over and some of them would get passports or they
would go, "Oh, that's interesting." But it wasn't that they were coming for that. Um, and that was, I guess, a little hard to tell because we had two tables out there because they were doing cantaloupe as their sampling. Well, they had gotten a ton of cantaloupe and so they were sampling
cantaloupe and then we were over on the other side and so we were people were going to sample cantaloupe, but then they some were doing passports. So, it was a little bit I mean, we would look and target the ones that had passports, you know, because we wanted to make sure we dragged them over to get their
stickers and and whatever, but there was definitely uh that was a little harder to do. I mean, cowards was easy. They're not open. Exactly. But that was also a disadvantage for them. I had probably three or four people that came because they thought they were open, right?
And you know, and they're like, "Oh, are they open? They're asking me plant questions." And I'm like, well, no, but you can ask them the plant questions. They're down there. But, you know, that was a little more difficult. Um, and that's where some some places are definitely more obvious than others.
Like with Blossoming Acres, Yeah. that's going to be a challenge to, right? you're in the front of the building where everybody is and the cars are pulling in and and you know we were we were really keeping an eye out for like people with passports or cuz by the time I got there it was afternoon and most people had their
passports already so you could keep an eye when they got out of the car if they had one. Um you know but it could make numbers off for sure. There's always going to be that variance, right? But these at least are hardcore numbers from what we were able to tally on the sheets
and I've kept all the sheets from the previous years. Send me a copy of that just in case I need to transfer it over to somebody at some point. It's certainly not an exact science. No, it's not people in kids and you know whatever. But over it's just really good
consistent numbers. So if we go all the way down to the bottom for the total. So for 2023 between all of the visitors at the different farms and the museum we had 1552. If we total it up for 24 with
the day that rained 1204 and then this year 1533 only the variance of 19 from 2023. So and then I broke down the averages. So I thought this would be good data just to be able to reflect on.
Thank you very much for putting it together. Um, once again, make that correction and send it back. You would work for the back process. Send that to you. Right. Right. On my sheet, which I I thought I had lots of time at Coward because it really wasn't overly busy because there wasn't a lot of other customers. It was just
people coming and they spaced themselves out. Um, I had t I started because I was curious to see age-wise what we were dealing with. So on my tally sheet, I broke down instead of just marking how many people, I did adults, children, and
seniors because I was kind of curious what population we were actually addressing. And at different places, I'll bet you the populations may be different. Correct. Some people would have taken their kids
like the ones I had first at because of the train. Mhm. I had train kids that wanted they knew the train was there and so there were little ones didn't have too many in between. But you know with seniors I think they were doing them all because they could
move along quickly with the little ones. I don't know if they were going to catch them all the farms, but that was another thing in the future if we wanted to do it would be interesting data to see age groups, age groups. And so I just simply did if you were, you know, ch I I would put a
total down the side, but I had it broken down like was it families that we were catering to? Was it groups of seniors? Um, you know, for what I saw at Cowards, it definitely was people with young children, families with young children,
and seniors. That's what I had the two biggest things of where when I moved over to Blossoming Acres in the afternoon, it was there was also just adults. There was that group of people that were adults that weren't seniors. There was more of that. And
there were older kids, you know, like middle school kids and high school kids. So, it just was I was kind of curious just to see Yeah. who we're catering to because that makes a difference on what kind of events they do maybe or
Oh, of definitely is because I know I find you stable. Yeah, that would be a different one. We've had so many little people but also um 11 to 15 year olds. that it was their third year coming.
So, as they've been maturing, they want to still come. And their goal, this one, this one family, they wanted to ride the bigger horse now that they're taller. They didn't want the pony. So, well, they might not have been interested in Coward's Train,
right, because of that. So, I just I thought it might be an interesting way to do next year if we tally, you know, just have a little list that we can break it down so we'd know who. And that's an observation, so we don't have to ask them questions about that. No, you could. I mean, yeah, as I'm
writing down the number, I'm going, well, that looks like an adult, adult adult, and some kids and you know, and then I mean, the senior was a judgment, but I think I could judge him being one. I think that pretty well. So, but really good feedback and that's something that the commission can
definitely decide if they want to do that next year. Yeah, I think we should. So, moving on with my stuff. In in the bags that I was reconciling for Ebert, there was $65.8. Okay. For is this donations? Yeah. Calibri.
Seems like the right numbers. 665. Um, it was in the coward's bag. Oh, okay. Oh, I see. All right. Okay. Thank you. There was two jars, but all combined into one. So, I'm not sure where it might have come from, but
I was making an from Papers and gave it to you because you had Right. And my Coward's jar was in the coward's bag. The one that I had at Cowards. I collected it when I went back and picked up all the stuff. So, that was the whole day. And but there was only
like eight bucks or something in it. So, it wasn't the whole thing. So, the back rest had Okay. So maybe this we'll have to double check, but this we were at something like $182. This might make us two 260, you know, or
something. That's great. I had a little boy give me 25 cents because he had an option to pick some trinkets out of our little basket of goodies. Oh, no, you don't have to do this. And he's no, you keep that quarter. So that quarter is 85 cents.
That's adorable. So um just move on the passports. We ended up getting as usual the past three years a thousand passports and I have handc counted all of our
passports that were left over and we have out of a, 689 passports left. Wow. Um so we and I've got a bunch at my house too. Oh,
so if I just go with the ones that I physically tangibly touched and put in the back of your car along with the 69 that Jen just gave me from just looking at those those numbers that means that we
distributed 311 passports. So we have close to 700 what? I think we need to cut that order in. Yeah, I would say. So, I've got a couple of options to present to you folks. Sure. Um, I took the liberty to take the
passport and make some minor changes that can just be a sticker. Okay. So, there' be four stickers required. Mhm. And then if we want, we can eliminate
that and just put a sticker over the whole thing or just put four So, well, it's a shame to waste them because they're really nice. I mean, they're nice and they're expensive. I'm sure they're really I mean, they're when the little bit I don't know if you folks
experience this, but when they come to your table, it's the first thing that they want to do is figure out what's sticker and where they're going to put their sticker. So excited about that. And so, I think if we were to look at scaling it down to make like a onepage flyer, it's not going to have the same zippity doo-dah that a lot of the people
are seeing. It's like a book. adults that wanted their stickers. Hi, some of adults that wanted their stickers. So, I spoke to our marketing director um this morning and showed her my mock layout. And I asked her if we were to
get a roll of say Avery stickers, the plain white ones, or we could get colored ones, we printing with the 2026, the change of the date, the 4th, the 2026 again. And she said absolutely, we
could do that very easily. And then we would just have to have a work session, right? to stick with a ruler and some Xactos and actually slice and pice and slice
reasonable. That's just an option that I want to present to the commission to think about. My concern with that is what if we have a farm drop off or absolutely and with that, Zach, what we could do is when you look at what the the farms are, we can always do a coming
soon sticker and put it right over it. Yeah. So, we could do something to cover it or to add, but I'm just thinking, do you want to lose the money that you've invested in these maybe 700 that are still in our
possession or not? Mhm. And then the other option that I presented to Bert was we were on such a tight deadline to get these passports. Farm day was Sunday. The passports came
on Wednesday or Thursday. So, I would be more than willing to contribute my time to contact some local printers, show them what we've utilized because we we own the artwork because um my assistant and I designed
the artwork, so we own it. and then see what they would give us for a price of maybe say 450 flyers instead of doing a thousand, right? Would the map still be on there? Oh, I think the map is
utiliz that's that's our brand. Yeah. Or your brand. Sorry. But it's it's the brand that's been starting to be identified. Yeah. So, I think it'd be not advantageous to ship and go to
something shorter, smaller, and not as impactful. So, let me know what you'd like to do about the passports, but that just gives you a quick idea how easily it would be to cut and paste and paste
at a work session. any other Oh, here. Yeah. Even if we hung h to them, even if we hung on to them and then could make the decision as long as not too many farms changed out, you know, just keeping them right
in case and and you know, as long as we knew a couple months ahead if we were going to lose a lot of farms or get a lot of new ones, then we probably couldn't do it. But otherwise, you know, we could still absolutely utilize it. Yeah.
So, my next shift is volunteers. So, so I know this year we struggled the past two years, we didn't struggle with finding volunteers as desperately as we did. So, I took the liberty to uh create
um a mock sheet. Yeah. Oops. people starting. Yeah. But I think if you start earlier then this could probably help eliminate some frustration. So first a couple of things that I
thought and I only have five. So Zach you can share it with your mom. Okay. Is couple of ideas that I had is we really can't rely on the NHS students because we had none and they didn't even return birds calls or text
or text. So, we can revisit that next year as well as an option. But the first idea I thought is with our farmers, they're in a community, whether it's Sheep Pasture Road, whether it's Klein Road, whether it's Tannery, wherever
they're at. Why don't we reach out to those farmers and ask them who in your local community that's where you know where you reside that you feel that we should tap into to see if they'd be interested in promoting open farm day at
your farm. We know the date already for 2026 and then we can send them a letter introducing Bert to them and Zach and the rest of the commissioners and say we are looking for local volunteers
because for me at Klein Road Klein View Stables, people would be saying because I was helping people park and talking to them and walking towards the barn, "Oh, are you the owner?" I'm like, "No, I live in that red softbox. Oh my gosh, we love that piece of property." And then we would just chitchat chitchat and it
was a community then because then I would talk about how Holly and I have done horse shows for the past 30 years together. It was just a it was more inclusive and engaging. So I think like with even say Dwight Arnold maybe he's got a couple of local
neighbors that might be able to give three hours in the morning and a couple hours in the afternoon and they get to walk there. Yeah. and be proud of. Yeah, I'm a neighbor. I live right over there. Yeah. Well, ask Jess for one. Right.
So, so that's an idea that I think is worth looking into. And also, and that's where this sheet would come into play in February of 2026, whether it's Zach, Jen, Bur, whomever, start attending all the commissions and the board's
meetings. Have that sheet with you. you know the date of when it's going to be and tell them we would love to have you support us with open farm day. We run for 6 hours. We would love a couple hours or an hour, whatever they can
give. Would they want to be on the list? And then right there and then you can capture the way I've broken it down, their name, their phone number, and their email address. Mhm. Mhm. So that we would know going into possibly March what do we have for
volunteers already, right? Yeah. And then we can already be assumptive and look at the number of people that we have and start breaking them down by the farms. Then you've got a better eye of contact when it comes to the orientation at the South Fire Department because
they're gracious to give us that space. It's just going to think make things a little bit smoother so that we're not scrambling towards the end to get volunteers and we know that we've got our farmers covered and we know that we're going to commit, God
willing, and that it would just make things smoother. So, bring it up to the rest of the commissions and see if you want something like that and then I can just tweak it and make it a little bit more user friendly. But it's uh an option to look at.
Yeah. Great. Thank you. And I was thinking about that as well and that we should have um kind of a database of these folks and we can reach out to them at other times too. We could say hey the grandby open farm day is coming up next
weekend or hey the farm parade. So we have more of a connection you know ongoing. Yeah that's where the little addendum that I put underneath here was thank you for volunteering at open farm day. Please provide your contact information below so we can stay in touch with event updates, schedules and important
reminders. Okay. So that that's tool be a tool that you could then start archiving. But that way there we have it in one spot and we can do the outreach from there. Few people responded saying that they
they wanted to but couldn't because they already made plans. So because we were late and they were like they already had plans for the weekend and that weekend was basically the last vacation for people going back to school. A lot of people didn't
it was a lot for that weekend but but yeah so you know doing it earlier defin at least four or five married couples who have uh volunteered for the first two and they're on vacation this year.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, so that was like nine 10 people right there. Yeah. Great. And they regretted not being able to. They really enjoyed it. So we we're going to keep them on the list obviously. So I almost This might be a good way to also archive everything into
Do we not already have a database? We do. We do. We have a it's well it's basically an email uh group, right? Yeah. It's a it's Excel spreadsheet with everybody's Where is that stored? Well, we pass it basically here with in in my computer,
but then I give it to Bert and he updates it and then I get it back and then we share it. So, unfortunately, yeah, Doug, now we have we have an Office 365 account, correct? So, we we have shared storage. We have
storage we can use. Yeah, I think we need to utilize that more. Keep it all there. Yeah, that's connected with Outlook, right? that 360, but you just have to be careful for that kind of stuff for scheduling and whatnot. It's a great tool. It's
just as long as you're not having doing policy discussion on teams law. It's really crazy, but I went to a class on it. It's Oh, wow. It's a thing for planning events and stuff like that. It's It's a great tool for putting
organizing. Yeah. Yeah. And pictures probably too of all the farm. Oh, do you know how much storage we have? That's a great Yeah, I think we need to kind of consolidate everything because we have a website, but we don't really have Sage supposed to be running that, but
yeah, I don't think he's been able to do it as much lately. I think he should be on our I did see Sage in person specific. He he was at at the end of the day, he was at Blossoming Acre and I met his family when I was over at Coward, but I went to your website and the information I was looking for wasn't
there. Yeah, I know. It was I have I have some input from Calib Breeze, but I'll when when I'm called upon I I have a lot. It's good feedback though. It's really Yeah, she has a lot to offer. And they actually made their own flyer because they didn't have the map or they
didn't have the passports. They didn't have But I'll get to it. Yeah. Unless I They didn't have the passports. I don't want to interrupt your but yeah, they didn't have or they ran out. They ran out. They they actually made this flyer. It was really really We had no supplies
for their own methods for their own use. And you were at Cowards initially. So no, I was at Cowards. She was at um and they were handing this out to everybody because everybody was asking them and then they said there was an issue with the website when people
but Facebook it was it said last year's date and everybody was thinking it was the 20th but I'll show it to you guys. That's where I think doing some pre-planning going into 2026 is going to make it better so that when I put
together all the bags with the passports in them and whoever retrieves them from the adcom, they're complete. Exactly. Yeah. Ready to go to volunteer. Right. Ready to go to volunteer orientation. So when you leave, you've
got your sign and you've got your whoever's going to be the point person for that start farm day at that said farm. I I think it would be interesting to know too how many passports each farm gave out because there may be people
that start more people may start at certain farms. So we might need more passports. Oh. Oh, sorry. at Calib right than we do at other places that you know are going to be later on. And that's where the past couple of years, Deb, what I've done is when we've
gotten the passports, I've went off of the previous year's data and put X amount of passports in those bags because the passports for the historical society is going to be one group of 50 right
now. Calibri and for blossoming and cows or beesy it's going to be over 100, right? Have you ever contacted the 4? That's where Holly has the 4 folks there
running the inside arena. Okay. She and I talked about it that following Sunday and we're going to come up with something a little bit more creative next year at View Stables. But they could do they have extras? Yeah, that's where because they have
extras and there should be. Yes, this is volunteer hours that they're required to obtain. So I got there because that's going to build up. Well, there's another 4, isn't there? I went back and watched the farm parade
because I didn't go last year. So I thought, you know, I need to see like cuz I thought eventually we'll be talking about the float. So, I wanted to see what it was last year cuz I didn't go and there were two 4 groups. There was kind view, but there was another 4 group alto and that might be the one to
target cuz they're not already busy. Yeah. Doing stuff. Yeah. Because we talked about one for group and they couldn't do it because they had something else going on. Oh, yeah. Farmers requested which was after some of their seasons was the third weekend
in August. It also is when the Westfield Fair does their agenda too. So that's where I really feel doing the sitting down and talking to the farmers and looking at their local community for outreach for volunteers along with going
to the commissions and the boards starting in February to spread the news and get well we did I talked I talked to Teresa and she's like yeah that might be better on a weekend before or after not being on the Westfield fair because that was
the issue Westfield fair conflicted with some of the people that came in, they they're they're like especially at the end, they're like, "We were at the Westfield Fair because we had to do that this morning and now we're running, you know, to another thing." Absolutely. So that it seemed as though, you know,
maybe farmers would would mind switching it to it. So at least we're Westfield Fair because that is definitely people in our area go to. It's you know, they don't go to everyone, but they do go to
that one. It's also how many volunteers five, six, seven. I'd say we had probably another 10. It would have made a big difference then for some of the farms. I had to talk I
had nobody for climb for the afternoon. I called one of my girlfriends that I've had that has been with me for 38 years and said, "You come over the river and hang out at the table. Well, I sent her your prep, your what's what it's all about and she
became a self weekend like that. So, but it would have been great to have a couple more volunteers there in the afternoon by myself. Yeah, you did the whole day by yourself. She had people over there working sun. Yeah. Yeah.
Really didn't if I could have stayed there all day rather than jumping. I mean the other people who were from the economic development covered once they got there they covered done but one person there is adequate one person to be the whole day would be adequate
because you don't have to park people there's plenty of parking there's nothing going on all I had to do was greet people on the porch and send them off where they had to go it's probably the easiest gig of all the farms. So really, you don't have to have I mean, if you had one person there,
it's fine. You know, I'm seeing too is timing. So, Calib um 12 to three was perfect, you know, because that's when they started doing corn and and people kind of knew that
from the year prior. And um we didn't put it on our advertisement um this year because I think she wanted to do 10 to 12 12 to 12 to 3, right? Um because that's when everything was
happening. But I did get a couple people before then, but not too many. Um and then with Firefly Fields, um she said her most people were 10 to one. So after that, because that's her business hours, so she was well after one it just
dropped down. So every farm is different and it varies in timing. So we have to kind of make a note of that next year and maybe traffic. Yeah. So and it it varies with what they have going on and so um it was perfect
timing with you know I showed up at like 10:30 and we were all just getting everything chucking the corn and all that stuff. So it's like you know it was it was it was awesome but people didn't really show up until like Yeah. it stage. You were at Firefly in
the morning, right? And um is that when people came around 10? Right. Right around 10. people literally came um I want to say 15 minutes before we were actually starting and it cut off maybe
maybe an hour into the beginning and then we'd have like a couple waves like every 20 minutes we had another splash of people and I left at 1:00 and it was consistent that way until 1:00 so I don't know what happened after that but
I mean I feel like uh well I've I talked to some of the people that came in. A lot of the people that came into Firefly were new people. They weren't like uh reoccurring. They did have some reoccurring, but most of them were new. I even had some people from Granville actually visit, which was kind of exciting because of how far away that
Granville is from Firefly. Um but as far as as far as it comes, a lot of people said they just they didn't know about the place. They just started seeing the signs and they came over here. So, I I think maybe advertising maybe hurt us a little bit this year. We we usually were
really top on uh advertising, getting the word out, but a lot of people were confused. They didn't even know it was uh farm day. So, I was like, um, okay, that's that's interesting. But that that was my majority complaint was that people didn't even realize farm day was that weekend.
Well, they were they I think it was Donna uh Kyle Bree showed me the website. She said, "Look at Facebook. You go on Facebook, our Facebook page said August 20th, which was the first one. And then you scroll down and that's where you
seen the our current advertisement. So the first thing people saw was August 20th. I had a family come all the way down from Greenfield just for Farm Day because they saw it on WWLP, which I didn't even know we were on that. They came to channel 22
cuz I emailed them and I never heard back. Uh they must have done a little must have done something. I don't know. Watching the news. They said farm days today in South by all the way down from Greenfield. Wow. That's that's pretty impressive. Yeah. Yeah.
It probably was. Yeah. That's great. That's crazy because I again I never heard back from Channel 22 or Western Mass News. I I contacted them this morning. So definitely looking at Facebook and the website is critical for next year.
Okay. And the last thing I wanted to share was our thank yous. I know last year we didn't do anything formally other than send a letter from birth, but the first year we did this as an 11
by17 on a corrugated board. And the farms that we gave it to and the contributors that we gave them to put them proudly in their businesses. And these are for the farms.
These are for the farms and also for the businesses that contributed money to the success of Open Farm Day. What about the volunteers? They got nothing. Um well that's you volunteered.
So about the commissioners. Thank you so much. You too. I appreciate. So I spoke with Martin at Southwoods. He sent over this proof. I sent it to Bert earlier and a few of you folks that um I
was in between meetings today at the office. So this would be an 11 by17 on an index paper. So very heavy heavy paper. And instead of going with the corrugated because the price of that material has gone up,
he would then laminate it and it would be definitely worthy of hanging. So the price, the best price I could get was $7 per sign and that would be a total of 11 of our
farmers or farms rather plus the historical societ. So that's inclusive 11 and then six of the you know six for the contributors for this year's um open farm day. So that would be a total
of $119. So with if you have a quorum tonight which it appears that you do that's something that you folks want to discuss and then let me know then yeah we can take a little bit. I have
one uh one thought about that and to say to to make it to personalize it. I this is logistically going to be hard but could we say to our friends at the launch and then all of us sign on the bottom
but that would change the price though because each one will be individualized. No, I'm saying we we do it ourselves. Oh, we sign that. Yeah. Like a like a Sharpie, you know, but it's going to be on laminate. So that would probably have to figure out was a permanent we get it before they got laminated.
Yeah. Um I don't find out, you know. I mean, just let me know if you think that's a good idea. You know, personalize it. If you wanted to do the personal thing, do that before they laminate it and then
put the but put the name on after they're laminated to to who we're sending it to. who where it goes to like the launch or whoever donated money. If that was on the outside of the laminate, then it could be put on separately or
individually. I'll find out what Martin can do and how that will influence the pricing. Okay. And I can get that to you tomorrow, Bert. They open at 10:00. By 10:30, I'll send you an email. Okay.
I like this. This is great. Yeah, it looked really cute the first year and it sticks with our brand. Well, and it's great that they could put it up as a thank you because not only is it for us for next year, it shows their
support that they're supporting a town event. So, it it it's a benefit equal benefit for both us and them, right? She is public. I'm sure Martin will know what kind of pen we would need to use on
the laminate, you know, or whatever. Or maybe that's not gonna work, but um yeah, let's look at that at least. Okay, we can put a sticker over it. That's true. So anyway, so is this all I heard?
Is this public comment time? Hang on one second. Um, so I want to apparently make a motion, you know, based on, you know, maybe the price going up, you know, a dollar or two, who knows? But so make a motion that we spend up to $150
on thank you signs for our farmers and our contributors. I second the motion. Okay. Uh, Doug, we still have to do roll call votes. I know. Uh, so roll call vote. Bert Hansen. Hi, Zach.
Hi, Dan. Hi, Debb. Hi, Jen. And let's see. Uh, Sage, hi. And Jess, is she still there? I think she left. Okay,
she left. Is that an A though? Well, we'll call we'll call it a good. So um but we have you know a big enough quorum so that's yeah it's a good coverage. Thank you Linga for all your
great and you know I should say you know kind of kind of for the record that farm day wouldn't happen without but we should get one extra of these for her. Yeah,
in your house. We did. I think we did give you a plaque the first year. It's right in my office. Yeah, because we don't get one every year. Every day. Get you another sign to put turkey
feathers in. Putting the white goose feathers in. I'm clean. I got to put these. I I like interrogated thinking. Probably that couple that walks up and down all the time.
Nobody knows where those white feathers are coming from. Well, thank you Eningga for your help during and that's great. Now Sue, you have some Yes. some comments. Um
I've had this explained to me why it can't happen. because the farmers don't want it later. But many many people that came to Blossoming Acres for Farm Day said it
would be so much better if it was later later day. I mean, no, in the like September the calendar or early October. Now, I know you have the Big E, so you don't want to mess with that, but maybe after the Big E because it's
pretty out. Um, the kids are nobody's on vacation, right? And yeah. Yeah, I've been we've been kind of flirting with that idea tonight. And I think, you know, moving the date might
be, you know, and and same goes with the uh with the volunteer orientation. You know, maybe folks don't want to spend two hours on a Saturday morning. Oh, I didn't know in the summer in the summertime, right? Yeah. So, yeah. Maybe it's a maybe a
Thursday evening or something would be better. We could bring it up at the farmer forum if there are any other dates that are possible. Well, I asked as we mentioned earlier, we're to ask the farmers when we're Yeah. with them. And Donna was saying no time
is good for her because she's always every farmer will talk. Yeah. It's exactly didn't have a problem changing. She thought it was a good idea to switch away from Westfield Fair Day. Okay. that too. But it's also it's also fair season. There's got to be a fair every weekend
somewhere. Right. Right. Yeah. But even the beginning of October is still pretty out. Yeah. Solex would like it because they're done haying. It's firewood time. Mhm. Maybe they would they would probably
like that. There won't be any tobacco though. True. Yeah. There some of this is still hanging in October, isn't it? No, it's it's on the last I mean we can do it till the middle of October is still out but it was shade shade I don't know
at the time he's at the last sector right now early September like first weekend of September it's usually in the barns though still in the barn time no that uh September 17th like midsepptember is when it starts
I don't um thinking yeah hang on a Um, right. And we talked about that even before was what should we talk to the farmers and see if a different day would work better?
I was at the end of this day. This is the date. You know, if you give them the choice, I don't want to sound like I'm autocratic, but they're going to say each one's going to want a different date or that that's not good for me, but it kind of
and the the Saturday after Labor Day is always the Grandby Connecticut. farm day. Right. Right. We don't want to conf this weekend. Yeah. This coming weekend is that uh no because Labor Day is Monday, so I think
it's called Well, that's I Labor Day weekend. Yeah. Sorry. No, I Yeah. Um I think I'm pretty sure it's Thursday. That's the six. They're together like a too much. That's a lot. people wouldn't make it to all of it because most a lot of people
said they didn't make it to all not everybody makes it to all 10. It's board members generally does first time he stuck around so for a little while so you guys are hustle.
I mean, technically, traditionally, farm day wasn't meant to be a a race to all 10. It's supposed to be since we know it's an annual thing. You you should always be going to like a couple getting to know these farms very well and then the next year you go to another couple farms. I mean, if you're just going to
every single farm in one shot, you're not going to learn anything. You're going to go in there, say hi, grab something free, and then go literally what you're doing. He's not wrong. So, like the first No, he's not the first two years. Yeah. I mean, I was at cowards for a half hour. Like I said, well, this is
not the plan I had for the day, but I learned so much. He's right next year. I am into most of them all. So, I was able to kind of visit most of them throughout the whole day. But for folks coming into town, say you're 100% right. It's great that people went to three of them. And
yeah, I met all three. Absolutely. The hayride. The hayride takes time. And those were beautiful. I like the hay rides. They're awesome the way they have those. Yeah, that's just the experience to go on that ride.
I wanted to go to that one. I I've never seen that one. I wanted to go at that place. And I think having it I don't, you know, I don't have any expertise in this area as to when you would have it, but I think some of the places get even
prettier the further into our program. in middle of October. It's still nice weather. So, and I even I'm wondering how many farms are open at that time. I mean, they're doing pumpkins or whatever at that thing. So,
yeah. Well, what's what's nice about the idea of October is also these farms have different crops or different things happening in October versus the summer. They they have a whole different process. So, you're getting a whole new experience at these farms. We could have
two farm days every year. Or rotate them. Rotate them like they do with crops. You fill this whole thing out. We'll have enough to do the planting things. It's like Blossoming Acres. It's pumpkins because they do in October they
do the hay rides on the weekend anyways because they're going out to the field to pick pumpkins which is a nice added thing because they have pumpkins at that time of year. Um, cows. I don't remember when they open up, but they do open up for moms. They sell.
I think they'd be open, which would be nice. Although Teresa always says, "Oh, it's about the farm day, not making money." But to me, it would be nice if it was open because there were a lot of people that probably would have purchased stuff if they all wanted to go inside the pretty antique, you know, place and but
it wasn't open because she had her she The reason we didn't need a lot of things is they have they hire help. they have help that comes in, their own help was with the train ride and all that stuff. So, um but it it might suit them because they would be
open and it would generate, you know, business people are going to buy those ponets, right? Pumpkins or plants or whatever they've got at that time of year. It might but I do agree it might change it up some too so that some farms were seeing different crops. We were seeing
different crops which I think if people have gone year after year maybe it would be fun to see something different. Yeah. And I think to your point earlier like at Blossoming Acres they were just busy all day. I mean just she regular customers and the farm day
I was going to say the fall is even worse. I mean she has people that park cars that the whole month of October. It is total chaos. It's always always busy in October. I'm sure Calibri is the same. Yeah. Right.
That's where the only other thing that you'd have to consider about changing the date would be we'd have to order new signs. Yeah. Because our signs all stay. I mean, we could do the some kind of a sticker thing, you know,
farm still be able Well, she's offering to pay for it. [Laughter] these changes. Well, okay. Our new sponsor here. Give her a plaque. What a plastic thing that you buy at
Marshalls. Would Swites still be able to be open or like a tobacco? We can find out. I don't know. I think I know what when we got to
Blossoming Acres and I had a friend with me, there was there were no materials. We need to have at least the phone number of the contact person. I called Zach. He didn't know. I called Bur and he didn't answer.
Yeah. Well, I mean that's over and done with, but we need to have a phone number. Yeah. And usually you just put back the bag. I'm available, you know, kind of a loader, but because of the volunteer situation, I have I just had birth.
I think this number was in the bag. Oh, I had nothing. No. So, it was You showed up at 9:30, which is awesome. So, and I had your number texting. We're 9:15 now. Um, we were texting back and forth. I assume
that you had my number if you needed to call me, but um, but yeah, you I wasn't sure who I was supposed to call. Yeah. And then I think I emailed you the volunteer orientation stuff and yeah,
um but then yeah, they the cuz there was a little bit organizing that um we we got you the bag I think a little bit earlier than we started. I'll make these signs. um where it probably wasn't a problem
anywhere else, but did you find a blasphemy acres because she had the uh cantaloupe table? Yeah. And we had no sign at our table. Oh, so right. It would have been better with a sign hanging.
I think we should have table signs. Yeah. Like this, you know, with our Logan say farm day. We go we're farm day. Right. Right. That's what we do. Okay. The final thing that off but just kind of it'll draw people there.
Sure. I assume that you have um people on a a web everybody's on a you have everybody's website right for email. We have email. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever.
We communicate as a group all the time. But I mean the volunteers you have Well, we do. Yeah, we have all of them. Because I know this sounds silly. Not I really think it's important that you do thank the volunteers. Mhm.
If you want them to come back. Yeah. Yeah. Last year I mentioned having like a little thank you gathering or something. Oh, the first year we were supposed to have a pizza party. That didn't happen. Definitely. And the thing that we had there cuz Bert and I were really adamant about doing that. It was people's
schedule. Everybody couldn't agree. And it got to the point to where it was like, "Well, let's not even bother." And all I All you need is Thank you so much. That's it. That's it. Yeah. An acknowledgement. Yeah. Maybe it could even be an email
with some of this year's successes, you know. Um Yeah. That's what I was gonna ask at this meeting. um if you wanted me to send out to our the original list which now they're you're added on to this year and um
D um and so um send out to everyone again like those who could not make it maybe next year or something and then see who responds and then you know send out a a thank you
with the the numbers like last Yeah, I do have a thought. Uh, when it comes to volunteers, uh, I go to Renfair's a lot and what they do with their volunteers, usually a bracelet commemorizing just like this was Renfair of 2018
or a volunteer. It's just something fun and they get to take with them and they can keep it. And if they keep volunteering, they collect more and more and more and it's becomes a a kind of like a fun little collection. So, I mean, a bracelet, a necklace, and they're very simple, very cheap to make.
You just got to uh work on uh where you're getting your source and just do it. And this is what Renfar's do. So, why not us? I think that would be for next year because you can't house and get over, right? Well, that's good advice.
Exactly. Just to address one of your concerns, sir. If you had had your bag at Blossoming Acres, you would have had this as a signing sheet. that would have had Bert's cell phone number on it. Oh, there you go. As we've had the past three years.
Yeah. Okay. So, I think things just got a little loose this year for those were all in the bags. I think we need to communicate to the farms ahead of time who's going to be there and when.
Yep. It's not an excuse. Um, Lenita had no idea she was coming, but that means she just didn't check her email. Yeah, she had she had a table. She went down to the table. She said, "I didn't know you were coming."
Oh, she did all the scheduling emails. up. Yeah, that that's where the last comment that I want to make and then I'm going to sit to the left would be um as I find even with what I do professionally, I'm finding that everybody's being so
inundated with noise your emails and I just had this conversation with the president of my company on Monday. I still have I still want my phone. I don't want to just rely on my cell phone in my office. I want to be able to have a landline that I can pick up and call
people. And I've been able to be tracking how effective that is in today's world to pick up the phone and call someone. Yeah. Because Lenita is going to be buried. Holly will be buried. Any of our farmers
are going to be buried. So if I can just as a outside volunteer make a couple suggestions going into next year. That's nice. Let's get our volunteers in order ahead of time. Let's talk to our farms ahead of time. Let's come up with a plan so
that we're not scrambling at the last minute so that you go to your farm and you walk in with your bag that has all the tools in it for you to be successful. Yeah. Along with some open farm day signs that you can put by your table, right? Because that's why we have all those.
And I think with like you said this year at the vol the orientation I wasn't able to make it but you had what five people show up. Yeah. So then that means none of those bags are being given to you who's going to be
starting that farm. The signs aren't going to be walking out with you. So that's for next year for us to do a robust make sure that all our volunteers are happy about okay I got my toolbox here I'm all set the vol the bank or not
the bank the the farm knows that I'm showing up and it's an engagement like we are wanting to do to our participants that are coming to our community to enjoy that experience another source of volunteers because
it's no longer just a retirement community. What they call it American in is now Southwick Village. Yeah. And um a good friend of mine just moved in there and she would definitely be interested in in this. So if somehow you could get word over there.
Yeah, we have a contact there. Okay. And that's for like even with Jen doing the senior cop is that's the name of it. Some of these seniors that are mobile that They're all over. So they can play
pickle ball. They can drive to a farm. She's all over the place. She was pretty awesome that that actually put a posting up, hey, if you are interested in going on the on the open farm day, the bus is available. We
can get a driver for it. And she they didn't have a sign. No one signed it. Probably because I went to the did the farm hop. That's where I would piggy back that. That's why I think it's going to be important. And and believe it, don't kick this telling you what to do, but maybe starting in February, go to
all the commissioners meetings, board's meetings and talk to them. Don't email them. Don't send them a message. Literally go there and say, "This is what we want to do here. We would love
to do it." Because personally myself, even though I love Holly Mix store, I would love to be able to go to Bside Farm. Yeah, I'd like to do it somewhere differently. Yes, I enjoyed being celebr
asked if I could have a private tour and he and Karen said yes. and I brought one of my recent directors that I placed in out of New York into my organization and we went for a private tour. I want to go with her.
Well, but you just have to pick up the phone and ask. Yeah, it it comes down to just having good communication with the other entities to try and rally. Yeah. Because I've seen none of them except the two now that I've worked at. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, and that's why we went from that's why we started having shifts, you know, for the volunteers. You know, three hours here, three hours there. You can rest of the day you can go where you want. Didn't work for me. Didn't work for me. Oh, that's okay. Thanks for coming. No, thank great job
by all you guys. Fantastic event. Take care. Thank you so much. Uh, anything else? No, I think I'm all done. Yep. Thank you. Any Danny, you have any particular thing to share about so I had a good time.
Okay. Did Andrew sell all this honey? Can't you tell? I just I have a good time with them guys because we have a background of dairy farming and we talked a lot about that's nice.
I brought I actually brought a uh the book when we sold all of our cattle back in 1977 and handed it to Mike and the boys and we were all looking at the different Bedigree houses. Wow. It's kind of cool. Yeah. Cool. I got a relationship with them so I kind of can't wait to that day.
Yeah. It's nice to go hang out there. Oh, that's nice. And they made it so welcoming looking with the Oh, yeah. That was awesome. Yeah, that was Oh, yeah. They did. I got a picture of them all standing in front of it. The dog right
at the something, but I know the passports that we have used up until the past three years all had on the back cover uh Lenita on the hayw. I think it'd be cool to sponsor a new picture on those every year.
And that one there might be a home run band. Oops. Yeah, it was good picture. Soak has consistently had my number. I don't know if you guys you can see this stage. No, the day really was fun. It was my handsome son.
So much better than your hands. That's my youngest one. Okay, so by pull the highlight a different farm of the year on That's a good idea. Next fall even if it'll have to be a sticker. Girlfriend is expecting December 1st.
He's my last one to have kids. So the third he's a baby or maybe different this will get to be complicated but maybe different passports have different farms like from Vanity Fair magazine comes out there's
three different covers you know before I forget Amanda was my other one I guess they were a little upset that you included on the original flyer oh the flyer yeah I don't know if you've talked to them or not we might want to reach out Although it's
Mike and Jimmy and they were talking about not even listening they do it next year I guess. Oh um but they have to do but looking at the numbers they they huge numbers compared to last year. Yeah. Yeah. So
that's the one we go up high. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one we all have a pride one on. We haven't seen about milkshakes. These the milkshakes when you get on the ride, they give you little cheese and crackers and pepperoni.
Oh, yeah. I mean, the people raved about these guys and t-shirts. Yes. So, the whole family, there's plenty of family, but I guess the grandmother, she's getting she was really tired, I guess. And Oh, yeah. That's a good one, too. Give him a little extra special
attention. I've been It was an honest mistake. Apologize. I did I did I did update everything on the website and on Facebook once uh it was realized that they weren't on it. So at least we did actually get them on there.
It just wasn't initial and the passports had them on there. So once someone went to one farm, they they saw that they were on there. So it I mean the numbers show that it worked out. You know, they had 165 or whatever, which is like almost three times what they had last year.
Well, and people that when I was talking with people, that was one that they wanted to make sure they hit because they hadn't seen it in the past and talk about it. Yeah, that is definitely Well, they're they're also known as one of the farms that are not open to the public, so everyone wants to hit them.
Thank you, Sue. Appreciate it. Thank you for coming. Thanks for helping us. Thank you for helping us in the mail. We appreciate your input in the back of Zack. Thank you for the help. Definitely.
These I had their best year ever. 156 the first year was only 105. So I forgive 2. Okay. Were up there and there was family and I went I remember they said that they the ones that also own the office. They thought they might get like 25
people. Oh yeah. Yeah. And they got 25 the first half hour. Yes. 25 cars pulled in there in like 10 minutes. But you know what? This year it was like there was always a steam all there was 10 people 10 minutes when
there was nobody there. Then we had someone from Germany together. That's awesome. Came just to go to the uh tobacco far because he worked there as a kid. But now he he's retired army or whatever. He has a whole family over in
Germany. Is he American? He's American. They're all German. Like they were all dressed super proper and Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Up with you tomorrow with um the pricing on it. Y Thank you very much.
Good night. What was I just going to say? Stage you had the people that I had from um it was a college, right? Um the kid from um uh that country uh was it Saudi Arabia? Yeah, Saudi Arabia. Oh no, that was at the historical society. Oh, the historical society had that.
We had I think he went to all of them. Oh yeah, because he got a tobacco farm. Oh, he didn't. Okay. No, I didn't hear him. Cuz he was saying I know he mentioned on the text that uh he visited over there, but he was saying that he was just wanted to get away from the city. That's perfect place.
It was I was like, "Wow." You know, it was great. Okay, great. That's awesome because I gave him a passport, you know. He did. Oh, he Yeah. They uh he and his father were just driving down College Highway and they saw at the historical society. They had these antique uh engines running,
three of them, and the father said, "Wow, I got what are those? I got to see those." So, they came in, they're looking around. So, I like you do with new people. Oh, where are you from? We think he's going to say awam. You know, it's Saudi Arabia.
Yeah. That was cool. That's very cool. Yeah. Awesome balloons. And we had people from England. Yeah, we had some UK people. Um, pretty cool. Pretty neat. Yeah. And we had some I had some people that
like South Hadley. Um, but most of the people that were from elsewhere said they were related to somebody from town. like the grandparents lived in town. So a lot of cuz I was asking so you know
the ones when I first handed out the passports how did you hear about it and most of it was not advertising. it was family that they had heard from a family member who worked at the town hall or, you know, drives through town or something because I did have a lot of
people that were not local um in the beginning coming to Cowards. But it was interesting that it was um they said it was every one of them answered. It was somebody they knew that told them a family member told them about it. So that's
I think most of mine were others when I I just wrote fam on mine because then I'd know that it was I think we need more codes on that. Yeah. How many others? I wrote signs 22 times at least. They said they saw the signs and they
went two years ago. They went last year and they saw the signs so they decided to So the signs helped out. We had a lot of people that worked there as kids and came back just to see Dwight. Oh, okay. Really? Nice. When I was like 15 or whatever.
Yeah. Excellent. So, well, in the interest of time, uh, and not to rush, but it's part um, Jen, I think you have a a lot of input for us. Oh, well, no. I think I said it along
the way on the Facebook page. I was going to send a screenshot to everybody via the text cuz they were saying that people were coming in and they're like when is you know they were saying that they looked on Facebook and all they saw this August 20th you scroll down and
then it I you can actually look it up right now. So why is that still on there? Erase it and put just which Facebook page is we have multiple Facebook pages too. So we need the newest one wouldn't be on top. sharing what you think.
I thought I the one I did I thought I pinned to the top. And so they made these um which is awesome. They made their own thing. Yeah. For the Calibri. Yeah. They made um I don't know if you can see that Sage. Yep. I see it. So, um it was pretty cool. So they had
to do something and then they and then I gave them a bunch of these beforehand, you know, from but it didn't have BI on it, but I just gave them so that they they could have them to hand out because a bunch of people were asking and then um she said the time wasn't on
the brochure, but it is on the on the passport, but it is the 12 sue them copyright thing. But then um they used they used our Donna also mentioned that she
want it so much of of probably not doing it next year because it was too much for her. But then she was like I was like after the success that they had um with the visitors, I said, "Would you be able to reconsider and stay on?" And
she's like, "We're going to have to really can we make it easier for them?" That's what I asked. I said, "Do you need volunteers to help you with your area to put it together?" We had cornhole boards and they were a hit. She had a pumpkin for the kids to put the
bean toss through the eyes of the pumpkin and it was a hit and that's all they had. They didn't run. So, they're selling stuff. So, yeah. But they, you know, they gave away the free corn which was awesome. It was really good and the ice cream. So,
I had corn delivered to me. It was good. That's awesome. Oh, yeah. I met your family. That's right. Yeah. That's awesome. It was great. Yeah. So, um Yeah. So, and she was really, you know, it she said it wasn't really a good time, but then I asked her what time of
year would and she's like there's no really good time for her cuz they're always she was back when I visit her before open. She's out there washing the vegetables herself, you know, and packing them herself, you know. She's doing all the the work. I definitely think we need more volunteers for sure.
Some of these places that need more help like even you know the day before. Yeah. And that she's like no we'll we'll put it together. And I'm like I don't know if they don't want us there or they want us there or what. But we we we I put that
out there. I said maybe a couple of us can come out and help you, you know. And she said that Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I just want to say is one thing that happened this time around that wasn't on the last two was it was excessively hot. It was
and it was making people tired. So I mean technically if you take it out of context I I think people really didn't realize how hot it was how dehydrated people were getting. So this was kind of like it was a big toll on everybody. Even I was feeling it. I I
couldn't even stay there for long. I had a big bottle of water. I couldn't even finish it because it got so hot. Cooler. I had a cooler. Cooler and like three drinks. Yeah, I had a cooler. But yeah, I didn't keep my water. I just kept the water on the table sipping it.
You're right, Sage. As we were talking about water and he's sipping his water. Water right now. I was in the greenhouse section. So, yeah, I was Oh, yeah. You must It was I was growing. I was
it was it was definitely warm underneath that area. Everybody's used to be I'm outside every day. For me, I was on a porch. Yeah. In the field. I thought it was fine. I'm like not that, you know, but for some people they're
not accustomed to heat. Yeah. Good point. I just go like this. But yeah, I think that was it for them that they, you know, some of the spots though some of the spots though having a parking sign with an arrow on it that might be helpful. Yeah.
What parking sign parking sign with an arrow? Not for every spot, but we just had a few. Oh, that's a good idea. Just people know where to go when they pull in. That might Yeah, Howard's it was because there's parking and then at Blossoming Acres, people have been there. It's a public
place. You know where to park. But if it's a place that isn't public, you would question where to put your car. Like Fireflies, how is the parking? Um, do you have issues with the parking? Surprisingly, it never got past her actual normal parking spots because it
was so um so spread out. Um, but she she's seasoned in this. She had signs for parking of where to go and stuff. I mean, she she really has it down to the point of where we shouldn't have like a neighbor coming at us anymore. But then again, there's also none of those guys
around. Thank goodness that one moved. He's But yeah, no, that was that was rough that time. But I I mean, it was definitely a lot better this time around. Uh again, the only downside was it got so hot she had
to actually put the horse away. She did pony pony rides in the beginning, but then it was just too hot for the horse. Oh, okay. Good. Yeah. My husband took over um after after you left. He said there wasn't that many more people after that. So um
they kind of shut it down a little bit earlier than 3:00. Yeah. Yeah. I would say people pretty much stopped coming around a little right around two little after two. I say like probably that we still had people at blossoming acres up right up until about five and four.
Oh, you're you're on the main road too. Well, it's also a shop. Yeah. Yeah. I mean they were coming specifically for the hay ride. There was people with passports still coming. So they had targeted us late I guess which was there was a lot of late starters too. I
heard the families were out late a little bit later than they wanted to be. And I do know that the known farms that are usually open to the public and they know their hours, they'll wait at last to go there because they know they'll still be open. Sure. Yeah.
Yeah. Right. They're they're planners. They're they're starting to plan this thing. It's awesome. I love it. Cool. Well, there's another thing I wanted to bring out that um next year we should be sure that most of the farms do this, but that that they do
something special. You know, it's not just the only thing they did at Granville Scoop is they opened an hour early. They had pretty lower attendance it looks like. Yeah. So I was scrap you know Cal has the corn and the ice cream and the video and you
know beside us the whole had a nice bee right teaching the bee. He had a nice little bee where you could see the bees inside demonstration hive. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Granville Stew could do like a little petting zoo or something. I can't they
have it there. I was going to say they're all they're all cleaned up. Maybe come in pet a pig. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. No, they always leave. I was just going to say they've always had walk around and look at the Lindsay has the kids go into the cages, right? Like when Firefly
Lindsay keeps them inside because we don't know if there was going to be a mob of people like the two back ears. So, she doesn't want to overwhelm them. That makes sense. But, but we do tell them that you can come back when on normal hours to go in there the next time they come. But uh we
they come right to the fence. It's not like they can't pet them and feed them and they still get to ride a pony. They got pigs running around and um they had bunnies that were, you know, they were fenced in but in a fence. They could actually come in and actually just go there and hug them.
Uh they had chickens running around. I mean, they had animals running around. So, it's cool. Okay. Well, that's good. That's great. Okay. Any other um you need to vote on anything?
I don't think so. We voted on the money for the signs. Uh we have to vote to adjourn, but that's you know, I'm bringing back all my signs today. I'll put them in the garage or the shed. Okay. I have like from Firefly Fields and my area. Oh, this is a detail. But speaking of
science, so we had those four signs from the economic development commission. You know, the QR code, you know, dine here. I didn't have a single person looking at one. No. No. And they they I'm not sure how this happened exactly, but I ended up having
the signs and taking them to very So I think EDC if they want to do signs, they should do them. They do them. They should I had one of theirs and I did it at Cowards. I had brought the sign myself there. Did Greg volunteer this year?
Yeah. Okay. So Greg and uh Serena Fuller, another another commission member. She was there. Um but yeah, we definitely need to get more solid volunteers. Yeah, I like her idea of going to the commission meeting to do that sometimes.
Go to starting February. That's a good start. You know, definitely have to start it earlier this year, but Febru someone's going to go Oh, yeah. You going to get No, exactly. They can't commit. I think we should get on their agenda.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Ask first. I think we just put them on the list and then they could say they could commit later. You know, would you be interested? We'll put you on our volunt. We need to get names and then we can contact you and see if you're available closer to the date.
And if you do a farm hop, get all the people that get on the bus. Can I get before you get on the bus? Yeah, it's for anybody that um I was thinking how much how much time does it take because I watched the
the um farm parade uh because I wanted to see what what it actually consisted of. I I think I went to the first one years ago, but I'd never been to one since. You're committed now. So, well, I got to look and see what it is so that I'll I'll have some, you know, something to I
a memory of it. And you know, how far ahead do we have to plan for that? I mean, it's November 1st that and we're almost at September. Yeah, we'll probably start talking about it at the next meeting. Yeah, next. Okay, we're doing it this year. I want to go
vote on it, but yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think it's $100 entry fee or something. No, it's like 20. 20. Oh, that's awesome. Maybe I'm thinking of like Christmas tree thing. Yeah. Yeah, the Christmas tree thing's expensive. Yeah, they said 20 and the money went
goes to last year to the animal shelter. Is that Oh, wait. I don't I don't know if every year it does, but last year they announced it cuz uh Chris from the garage, Chris Allen was narrating it, which I think he did the year before because I think I caught the year before
YouTube. I wasn't able to go. You can watch it and he narrates it. So, um I just didn't know, you know, but I thought, oh geez, that's I mean that seems like kind of a big thing that we have to It's later than normal though, right?
Usually it's at Halloween or the trunk trunk or treat. Yeah, it competes with trunk or treat. Which is probably not a good idea, but this might work better being November 1st trunk or treat should be done the week before.
Yes, they're different weekends now. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. We did do a trunk or treat once. Uh it was actually great. We we made number two. We were second place. That was fun. I was Sage
definely Sage and the family. It was great. Yeah, that was fun. Well, I'll get in touch with the Priies because we use their flatbed trailer and they're we have the biggest float ever. I saw that. I saw that. I mean, when you said it was a trailer and then I look and it's, you know, it's being driven by
like a semi thing. It's a big truck driving it. I'm like, we want to put a different tractor on it this year. Um, White has some tractors maybe. Or or one of the tobacco carrying things. I don't know. It's just an idea I had.
Oh, that's cool. That's not a bad idea. I know. I was think I was thinking about the things too and it's like because some of the farms have their own they're in it themselves. So then I'm thinking, well, if we addressed it as
the egg commission, so what what would exemplify the egg commission? So I thought that was what we should sign and Well, that's what I'm thinking is maybe we should have more things about what we
as the egg commission do. It could be decorated nicely with agricultural looking stuff, but I'm down the road. Yeah. A sign that says looking for I want your name.
But I was thinking of that if if we were truly exempl because husband had a tractor in it. Parker. Yeah. Yeah. She had a tractor. bad because I was watching who was in it, you know, and I thought instead of promoting any
farm, promote us as a committee and we could even have looking for new members on a sign and we could have so it's what we do open farm day the
forum the farm hops um more advertising us as a thing to maybe to stimulate some thinking about maybe people who might want to be on the What does the egg commission do?
Please. Sorry. I thought we did that on the trailer. We put signs. Oh, we do. Okay. Thank you. There's B. We have banners last year and it just says Agriculture Commission, you know, you know, promoting South Farms, you know, since 2006.
Not specifics like your I chickens on there. Yeah, your chickens. To be fair, that trailer is so long, you could probably do both. Yeah, it's huge. It is huge. We could have dancers and everything. That would be cool. I like that.
It's so funny. Zach's got these chickens on there in a dog crate. And even my people on the side of the road, chickens, chickens. And I think what? Every other house has chickens here. Yeah, a lot of people have chickens. And I have 16.
Wow. 16. That's awesome. I got 27 now. You guys are new to this. Like here, right? What can I do that one? I have eight. That's awesome. 10. Very cool. 21 20
26 chickens and three ducks. And four pigs that are going to slaughter soon. Oh, nice. I got a guy I got a a mobile guy I found. He's calling me. He's calling me at 8 o'clock on my phone to schedule things in. I was so excited when he's like, "I've done a pig once
before, but he does chickens and a lot of poultry and stuff." Uh, uh, the one from Firefly, she's the one who gave me the name. That's awesome. Uh, Lindsay. Lindsay. She knew this guy and I had asked her, so I'd written it in my notebook when I was interviewing her and I'm like, "Oh, this guy." And sure
enough, he Very cool. Awesome. He does it. So, I'm just like, "Oh, I can't wait. Enough of the pigs." I mean, they're well over 200 pounds. They're probably closer to, you know, get closer to 240 or so and I've had enough. Yeah, that's them.
My husband's had enough. It's what it is, too. He's had enough. I'm like, "Yeah, let's get these guys in the freezer." Can you put them on the on the trailer first or No, they are huge. Huge. Just to get them up.
Yeah. 200 lb. That's a lot. Yeah, they're big. They're big. So that's the excitement of farm day when this is really great input you guys. Yeah, absolutely. Lots and Enga again. Um
she does a lot of work. Yeah, I I was thinking we can do like a maybe a volunteer party and have all of us be part of that party because we volunteer our time. Well, but we'll talk about it. I think you know anyone know scheduling we were gonna do a pizza party. I would
just do it on our normal said. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Do it our next meeting. Yeah. Have pizza. You want to show up? You want to show up? Come get pizza. Otherwise, we bring pizza home. Invite anyone to the town. Then we can get their name and number
next year. We also need more Well, we need more commissioners. That's the other thing. That's why I keep thinking about us. I think we need to find someone who's wants to do social media. Yeah, for sure. Yep. Who loves Who loves to We had Angie. Yeah, she did amazing.
I wish we could pay her to come. Yeah, I know. She did something. Yeah. Yeah. She did amazing with that. That was great. Every week she had you sticking.
So, uh I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I