Friday, April 23, 2010

Market Applications are now available!


Hello all,

We're excited to have the vendor applications for this year's market now available. If you are interested, please email us at farmersmarketpembroke@gmail.com or call Matt York (781-293-3339) or Christine Falk (617-293-2480).

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

April Update


Hello all,

Christine and I had a pair of good meetings this week. We met with the Board of Health along with a few interested vendors and they were very helpful in answering some questions that we had. We also met again with the Recreation Department. They agreed that we could have access to the bathrooms at the Community Center each week. That's a big win because it saves us the cost of renting porta-potties which likely would have been pricey (and kinda gross).

A few other notes:

1) I know that some of you had expressed interest in selling baked goods. It's a state law, however, that baked goods can only come from a commercial kitchen and I know that some of you mentioned you didn't have access to one. We were surprised to find out that there is a commercial kitchen inside the community center. We talked at our meeting last night about the possibility of possibly renting the kitchen as a market and believe there's a good chance we could do so at a fairly nominal price. If any of you might be interested in that, please let me know. I wanted to gauge interest before going any further w/ the community center folks.

2) If any of you plan on using scales at the market, I'd suggest you give a call to Joseph Suppa (781-293-3864). He's the sealer of weights and measures for Pembroke.

3) We've had some musicians and artists that have expressed an interest in performing at the market. We have a great bandstand for doing so. If you know of anybody that might be a good fit, let me know. We're ideally looking for fairly low-key or acoustic acts (no metal or gangsta rap...sorry).

4) We're thinking of having a fundraiser/party in June to help pay for any advertising, unforeseen expenses and possibly to be able to give a little money to the artists that perform. I think it'd also be a great opportunity for vendors, volunteers and supporters of the market to get together and celebrate what we hope will be a very a successful summer. If you think you'd be interested in attending, let us know. I'd like to have a ballpark figure interest-wise before we go and try and find a place to hold it.

5) We are working with the state to get the market approved for WIC (women, infants and nutrition program). Vendors that want to be offer WIC need to take a one-hour certification from the state. Once I have some dates for the certification, I'll let you know. It's a great program that you can read more about here

6) Think that's about it. Contracts should be ready very soon.

Be well,

Matt York
farmersmarketpembroke@gmail.com