 church on Wednesdays and we get a lot of the residents that come through the used mobile market. And they were saying good things. Great. Great. Yeah. Hopefully next, next, our plan is, um, to continue it next summer, June until October. So it's certainly going to be needed. Yep. I just wanted to jump in real quick to say a few things. One is that we're recording the meeting. So I've started recording it. And, um, Chris, I made you a co-host because I've had connection issues. And Ryan, your connection looks maybe about as stable as mine. So, so I thought Chris would be safe. Yeah, I have not had issues with Zoom, but I'm going to knock on wood right now for that sake. Okay. Ryan, I'll make you co-host also. So just in case we lose anybody. Chris, would we have the copy of the agenda also post it? Yeah, we can put that up there. Why don't we get through the minutes first? Sure. Chris, do you want to keep scrolling? That's all. Okay. So when somebody needs to make an emotion to approve the minutes. I'll make it. I'm sorry. Who is that? Everybody. Okay. So Masud made the motion. And then we need a second. And then all in favor. I'm going to actually have to do a roll call. Sorry. I realized. So bear with me one second here. I'm going to do it by how I see you. So if you're in favor, just say yes. To approve the minutes. So Masud. Yes. Chris. Yes. Ryan. Yes. Jada. Yes. And Dave, if you weren't there, you should probably abstain just because you weren't there. To approve the minutes. Okay. Great. So we have a four, zero, one. Great. All right. You're going to have to give me a minute, but I can, you could at least start talking, but Ryan, we had checked in and you said you would give an update on the mobile market. So you already started doing that. So. Yeah. Great. So we just fit. So today was the last day we actually in lieu of a mobile market to Olympia Oaks, we were doing boxes in the last six weeks, just having boxes dropped off to people's houses. But our original plan was for 12 weeks from late June to mid September. And then everyone was pretty happy with it. So we tried to continue it for six extra weeks. It was the last day was the last day of and a lot of that six extra weeks was kind of last minute decision making of just of just like continuing the regular tent setup and sales at three of the sites at Fort River butternut departments and East Hadley Road and then delivering boxes like I said, Olympia Oaks. And we have we we did like $10,000 in sales. I think we're all and about we donated about and that was like selling things for less than the usually less than the actual costs. And we did about $10,000 worth of donations to in a time from grants that were given to a lot of some people are just getting free, free shares and then and then a lot of the money that we got a lot of the sales were done through SNAP and HIP. So people are getting reimbursed through the state if they're paying with SNAP. And we had gotten we had had we had had HIP for CSA shares but we didn't have it for just like kind of off the off the table ship off the table like purchasing like all the cart purchasing. So mid summer or a late summer we finally got approved for our market sales for HIP for reimbursement through HIP. So now we have that and we get to keep it. So next year we'll be able to start off in June. And if for people with HIP is basically a state program, it's called the health healthy incentives program. And it essentially when a customer when someone who has food stamps or snap makes a purchase, they get automatically reimbursed when they when they use their snap to purchase food from farmers from like farm rights and such anywhere that's enrolled. So it's it's an incentive to buying fresh local produce from local farms. So it's a huge, huge boom feminine. It helps some fruit that might be able to afford it. Ryan was there anything about like next year and a way that you all as a as a commission could support the market more in some way or I just wondered if you had any thoughts about that based on this year. Yeah, there's anyone that wants to get involved. There's the Mobile Market Planning Committee meetings. And I have to look up when those when the next one is one is the next one. And besides that, I guess you have to probably have to email Caitlin Markey in order to get on it. Must be another one in November, mid November, I think having trouble pulling up. So anyone that wants to get involved in email C Markey. So C M A R Q U I S at collaborative.org. They want to get more information about the meetings. And we'll be meeting rather winter to figure out like fundraising and what will change we may be for next year. And other ways to get involved or help. I don't know yet. But what we did this year worked out pretty well. And so we'll probably continue. I'm assuming we're going to continue as we did this year with without too many huge changes. And the biggest thing is just like help getting. Yeah, trying to making sure people know about it. Especially people who benefit most from it. And but that like a lot like that's a lot of time before that needs to get going again. Are you thinking about expanding locations? Did you say that for next year? I haven't given it too much thought. I don't know yet. So yeah, I haven't I haven't attended any of the planning committee since the spring, sadly, but because they're usually on days that they're usually on Thursdays when I've been most than the most busy. I don't know yet to get a bit. Oh, this is an update. We so through with healthy Hampshire's help. We also got a big grant to buy a van for the use for the use by the mobile market. So there's also just like so that that's that was a we were using that my farm truck in a trailer before and and that's like the vehicle the farm relies on heavily. So it was nice to nice to have a another vehicle that was more exclusive for use to the to the mobile market. And right now I'm actually trying to think of ways to use the van throughout the winter that would benefit people from the community. So it's trying to think of a way to like basically start lending it out to people who need it. Maybe if a car breaks down or if someone wants to make a trip to the grocery store to buy groceries for a few people, three households. Yeah, maybe they could organize like a van pool like a certain, you know, every other week or something they could do some kind of a each complex could do a van pool to a grocery store. Yeah, because like that's that was something I saw. So Caitlin's already Caitlyn at Hampshire, healthy Hampshire is already starting to write up grants for next year. And one of the tidbits of information I remember seeing in her proposal was just like that Amherst has a very high percentage of people without vehicles. Yeah, so make use of this van that that we great that we were lucky to get. And Dave, I know like you also work with some of the kittens, etc. Like if there's if if in your time there you find a use for a big cargo van, like there's this basically many hands has one and it's available for for use that anything that helps feed people we can make use make use of it. Appreciate the offer Ryan I think I may have some ideas to take you up on that. Great, great. Was there any talk about doing any kind of like even just once or twice during the winter to do a winter market? Not yet. It's and it's difficult to the logistics of that. So one because like so basic I'm tapped out on vegetables and I'm going to other farms to resupply for my winter share. And the other one is just like the the inclement weather every like I'm like I'm really glad we stopped this week because like what it's 19 degrees on Saturday like I can't imagine many coming out in the morning. There's there's so many logistical hurdles like I could imagine like packing boxes and such but it's could work and you know some kind of delivery but that's it's a bit of a logistical nightmare. And I kind of I definitely personally need some time off but again that's something that like I'm happy to help time off but yeah if people start talking about it I can definitely help with some of the like planning and logistics of it and make resources available. Yeah I haven't heard anything and Lord knows you deserve time off so it's been it's just been nothing but great feedback about the mobile market this year. Really amazing really amazing. Yeah it would be great to something happened in the winter but it's it's like the vegetables like they are definitely the least like already the things that are mostly available in the winter are the least popular for sales. Yeah I don't know why you know I love to cook in it they just feel like there's so much work. I think that's why people shy away from them. So do you have anything else about the mobile market specifically? No I don't think so yeah it was a pretty successful year. We had the added boom of getting that that cargo van it's like a 2018 Ford Transit so it's plenty of room and and it's a and it's we're looking for opportunities to use it this winter if anyone has any I need and and then next year's like planning for next year's gonna take get underway in November so. I had sent everybody a link to a food policy meeting that happened today I don't know if anyone was able to jump on or not I know you're all still probably pretty busy right now. Phoned in from the greenhouse it was awesome. Oh great excellent I'm so glad you were there I had a horrible connection. Sure and I'm sorry it was so last minute I realized I should have sent it out to you all last week so I apologize but glad you could make it Jada do you want to maybe talk about that a little bit? The part that I was a little bit late calling in and it was a lot of zoom logistics. The part that I heard but it was it was talking a lot about like getting the group organized and going I missed the first presentation again so I can't speak to that but it said I think the take home was that the the governing circle was actively researching. Governing strategies and organizations to decide how best to organize the governance of the group moving forward that was my take home I don't know if you had a different take away from that. No I had such a horrible connection I kept getting dropped from the meeting so I at one point I finally just gave up. But it was to end like you weren't alone in that yeah they were having a lot of issues at the point where and I kept getting dropped. So I was like right in the middle of their technical challenges so I didn't hear a lot of content. Just too bad. But I think you know it seems like an opportunity where somebody you know and made it maybe Jada if you have interest maybe I don't know how often they're going to meet but maybe you could be some kind of a liaison to what's happening with that group to this commission because oh yeah I'm definitely excited to stay in touch. That's great because then maybe there's a way that you know you can loop in efforts the way Ryan is working with the mobile market. Maybe there's things that this commission can do to sort of support that effort or you all can start brainstorming ways you know maybe in the next meeting more ideas will be coming forward. That'd be great. So right now I sort of feel like I've been stepping in as coming up with ideas but this is really your meeting to chair so I don't mean to be leading things well should we go on to the should we go on to the next one is there anyone have anything else to add. Oh I had a couple questions about the mobile market Ryan now is an okay time for that. Definitely so cool. Thank you first of all thank you so much for doing that that's really great and important. Secondly so is there was there like a limited funding for that is there still available money to keep something going or are we done. No we spent that we spent all the money we have and there's like we're applying for great where are you applying for grant for next year and we but we actually did the last six weeks without funding. I'm not sure I'm not sure I whether I lost money or made money on that yet. I probably it was it was probably close to breaking even and but it and it definitely for next year we're looking to raise $20,000 to $30,000. I think it's the goal and then I've also heard from from somebody that I've worked in the past that they got they're connected to a family trust that has that has money to donate and that they're looking at the mobile market as a as a place to donate to so there's I think there's there's there's good hope there and and I think that something could even without like we'll run it we'll try it we'll run it for next year even like no matter what the funding is it's just a matter of like do we do it as bare bones as possible if I have one person kind of do you know working 20 hours a week or 25 hours a week doing everything or have a person 18 hours behind the scenes and then having two or more people or two people at each market so either two people or or you know two different people at each market running each each one and kind of being more inclusive and having more going on so it's it's and and whether we rely more on whether we whether we rely more on volunteer help or not or or whether we continue to like basically I was trying to be like the dollar store of organic vegetables so most things are priced at a dollar unless they were like pretty big or just generally more spent like really expensive so so that like that model of of having things price as low as they were would also change depending on the on the funding but I'm confident that we could we have something in place next year regardless of funding. Right I'm just curious too about the the boxes the box delivery that you were mentioning about in Olympia folks. That might be a really nice resource to have but I assume that it would require additional funding and I wondered if that was something that we would need to pursue or you all would need to pursue to make that happen things like yes but regardless I'm glad yeah to like make it happen. You mean or for next next yeah well the winter would be ideal but yeah next season. With that it's it's it's also who yeah it also is like who could who would do it right. And so it's it's yeah would be it would be it would be like a little bit of funding a little bit of of personnel and who's who's organizing it who is time to organize it and yeah and then and then the logistics of making it happen throughout you know no matter how much snow we get or what I would have you and how things get delivered because one of the one of the ways that it's worked at Olympia Oaks is we've got an amazing somebody we hired is like you know a few hours a week. We hired people at each site to kind of help do various things and that different people did better some people did better some people did worse as part of their involvement went and we had one really rock star person at Olympia Oaks who was like willing to say yeah I'll take those 28 boxes and I'll make sure they get to everyone's front door. And so one of the one of the difficulties with continuing it in the winter is that like getting things to people while they're home because we can't can't necessarily leave things on people's steps if it's below freezing out. And so that's one of the that's one of my hesitations for doing something in the winter because like I think a lot of time we're just leaving things like people's door while they're out and so there's just been a yeah so so for me it's it's for not not wanting to continue something in the winter is there and the logistics of that and feel like along with along with other money like issues of personnel and funding can everyone still hear me? Yeah, be happy this evening happen in the winter but like I said the root vegetables it's like even interesting things to do of like the my customer base for the winter is about what it is for the summer and I find that people like people eating the root vegetables or not it's always like the things that people want as much as fruits and greens and so I'm not sure how yeah I'm not sure the whether yeah I'm not there's some difficulties with the winter with like continuing deliveries to the winter that it's not something that I personally want to take on but I'd be willing someone else had wanted to step up and do something I would probably have you to work with them. Yeah, I just think like what you were saying about so many people and Amherst not having vehicles and the winter coming and COVID still being very real but I absolutely understand dude take your take your time this like absolutely not the gut thing that you have to do all this. Yep. But thank you for everything. No problem. Yeah and it's and it's difficult you know because produce the produce that we're getting is like yeah it is it is expensive when we're buying organic like and so I don't know when you're buying organic local produce and it's coming out of premium and that's what that's what a lot of the money that from the grant would come from like more or less basically we got we got we had like $30,000 to do it this summer and half of that was to for more than half of that was to labor and and a lot and like almost half of that labor was people in the fields growing stuff. So when we were so in essentially the grant was paying to grow the food to to sell at the market. And so and then in addition to like money we spent on buying produce from other farms which the like the food the farm the money we were getting from our farm was much or the produce we're getting from our farm we were able to sell at a much cheaper price than produce we're getting at other farms because we had that labor input. Yeah. Any other be having to update people about the the there's not as much to report on as far as the community garden goes. We had we only had two gardeners that I met that showed up to garden at Amethyst Brook. I think at least one of them took over two plots and I think the second one might have also I can't quite tell or one and a half plots kind of and they had they're pretty decent looking gardens. They seem happy with it like I was I wasn't able to be as involved with that as I had hoped to be with everything else that was going on. But it seems to work out OK and then I was I have the the unused plots were cover crop this year. So they're in good shape for next year for anyone that wants to garden for next year. Ryan any any problems with irrigation. Yeah definitely I mean that was the I had a 200 gallon water tank and so people were you know in the past at that at that look at the other the old community garden people would have to go to the river with buckets to water their crops. So I had about a hundred feet away. I had a 200 gallon water tank that I'd fill up periodically from from my irrigation pump. And that was so they were so they were able to use that which was you know difficult but but it wasn't but I think it was a slight another one hadn't happened before. Any other questions. Yeah I was getting I've heard a few more. There's been some some more interest in it but I think like from the notes from before I think there are more people had applied who I never had had expressed interest in like people that I know that I see weekly expressed interest but they never ended up following through. So it's something that like like with a lot of things I think it might take time to develop the culture and get people. Well there was COVID this year too. Yeah that sort of throws a wrench in everything. Yeah. Although I Stephanie I don't know if you've you've probably heard people grumbling about this but there's there's there's always I always hear a lot of anger from people about the mowing that happens late in summer at Amethyst Brook. I think it was like September or something and so there's a lot of there's a lot of families that I know who go out and collect monarch larvae and such and and a lot of people are like I guess there's I guess there's a specific time like their last hatching or whatever or their last the the last generation of butterflies that come out of their cocoons that are the ones that that travel south for the winter and that there's like a I guess I guess the town Moe's Moe's Amethyst Brook and all the milkweed that's there like kind of at a sensitive time. So I don't know if you've if you've gotten any complaints about that but I've heard I've heard people express a lot of grief over over over that and it looked like some patches had been kept on mode. So I was I was wondering if there was some some thought to keep some milkweed intact. But I was wondering if if it was possible to Moe like you know to Moe now wouldn't would probably would cause no harm and ultimately have about the same effect. I can make a note. I mean my guess is that if there's a patch of it that's left then that's the intent is to like leave some of it and sort of try to meet dual purposes out there as best they can. But if you know I mean I can it's not my decision. I can just say you know this is some feedback and give it to the land management staff and they'll do with it what they will. Yeah and if it because I don't know if it makes any difference why I figure they must be less busy like at this time of the year since so much less grass is growing and there's no snow yet but like this might be a if there's if there's no perceivable difference between mowing in September and mowing now might as well wait two months. Yeah yeah I mean there may be reasons why they had things timed the way they did I I'm not aware but this is at least feedback that I can share so I will. Yeah I think I think there was like a cleanup planned and that's about when they mowed which they said they might have had it correlating to the cleanup. Yeah. Okay. Great yeah I made a note. I think you have we kind of skipped over the item about the announcements at the beginning. Oh yeah. What was the was it about the announcements whether anybody had anything to share. Anybody. I don't have anything on my end no. I mean. Well I and relating to the mobile market. Well tying the mobile market and the community garden together there there was somebody who I met through the mobile market who had been renting land in Northampton who grows a lot of different Asian vegetables. She's she's podium and she I guess she's tried she sells tries to sell around here but also sells them up in New Hampshire. She's being charged too much in Northampton and she's been looking for a parcel of land in Amherst that she could rent and I was wondering if there was and so like if the plans for the Fort River garden area had been solidified at all yet for next year. That well yeah we're we're working on it we've got we talked to Sarah Bankert and because we're partnering with them to sort of do outreach to the community about it. So we're working with Hope Gardener. Do you know hope. No I don't. Okay. I forget who she works with but she does a lot of community education around things like community garden. So we're working with her and we don't have a plan quite yet but yeah what am I trying to say so she so there's no definitive plan but I think that I know that particular woman I believe reached out to me a while ago and there was it was a pretty sizable area that they were interested in that was more than just like a garden plot so we couldn't just provide that. So yeah it was tricky because their operation doesn't quite fall into like it's too big for a community garden plot and yet they also don't want to you know farm like a whole big parcel so you know I it was really hard to figure out where to put her but I don't know maybe you all you know maybe we can talk about it some more with Dave and try to figure something out because I know she came to us and I tried to help her as best I could. Do you know what size she was looking for was because had heard ranges like she would do she would deal with like 20 but my 20 feet but she was looking for like a half an acre or an acre. Well that's what I was what I heard was like half an acre to an acre. So that was and they never there was nothing ever proposed to me about like 20 feet. It was all like half an acre to an acre and it's like that's more than we have available. So for you know for just a community garden plot it was obviously something bigger and she'd have to like I don't know we'd have to identify a parcel for her to farm. So if she wants to do a community garden plot though I mean I'm sure there's a way we can accommodate that if it's just a 20 by 20. I mean that might even be I'm at this book might even be you know available for that right. So yeah definitely and was there I don't know if this was my idea that I just get stuck on or if there was any thought to this or if I'd heard it from somewhere else but with the Fort River farm because that's that fenced in area was that three quarters of an acre. So that's about it's more like half an acre half an acre yeah. And yeah and that's sort of transitioned to at one point there was going to be like a sharing garden but now it's going to be and I know you had talked about maybe doing like half of it could be leased to a farmer and half of it could be plots but I think now the whole thing is probably going to be plot plots and there could be some that are shared plots you know again like a community sharing and then there could also be some that are for families some that are for groups. So I think we're trying to think a little more creatively about who uses those spaces and how they're designed. So we're about to follow up soon so maybe we could report back out on that at the next meeting. Yeah because if there was room for like a big plot maybe that could also I might have space for her on one of my fields where I've kind of an awkward area that that I don't get to manage very much so I might be able to have her work there if it's large enough but. Yeah that would be that would be great. There was something about there was another challenge and I don't have ever all the information in front of me but there was another challenge about how they were setting it up that again it wasn't like easy for the town to just say oh here you know here's a space you wanted a greenhouse space to maybe that was it she wants a greenhouse because we can't just put a greenhouse up. Yeah unfortunately so yeah so unfortunately there were just so many challenges with what she needs it's so specific and we just couldn't accommodate it. So I mean if so you know if you or somebody else you know other another farmer in town weren't you know had some space and were willing to maybe even lease it to her you know inexpensively maybe that might work. But you all have those connections I don't so so I don't I. Look Glenroy just came in says Glenroy do you have any announcements you wanted to make. Not really listening has been fun. We're just happy to see you. Oh yeah I'm finally got this zoom thing together. Yeah it takes well and then even when you do it doesn't work. Yeah it's true all some of my my zoom would just drop right out drop right out. It was the connection. And yeah so we're we threw all the agenda items. I think so do you want to talk about your next agenda or something you all might want to work on or maybe this food policy thing I don't I'm just throwing out ideas. Yeah does anyone want to add anything to the next agenda or have any ideas for the next meeting. No I don't. Yeah I guess. I missed the previous email about the policy council meeting but that's definitely something that I think would be a good place to try to get involved or at least see what the potential type of involvement with them would be moving forwards. And how often do those meetings happen. Do you know Stephanie. No I today was the first one. And I got dropped before the end of the meeting. I finally had to get out so Jada did you stay till the end of it. I thought I did but like I said I was I looked like I called in from work and I feel like I got dropped right at the very very end and I didn't when the next meeting was unfortunately. That's OK I'm on the list. So and Jada I'm going to make sure that they have your email address and Chris I can make sure they have yours to Ryan I know they have yours. But I can forward it to everyone as well and you all can you all can reach out to Caitlin and let her know that you're all interested in getting information about the next meeting. So actually why don't I do this. I'm just going to send her all of your email addresses unless anyone has an objection. And that way you'll get notifications about when the meetings are. Sound good. Awesome yeah thank you. And then I guess the questions raised do we need. Do we need to have a meeting next next month if we don't have. If we don't know what if we don't have any items put on the agenda or is that something maybe we can stew and think about for the next three weeks or a couple of weeks and decide decide the week before. So you need to post it. Yeah I need to post it. Technically only 48 hours before the meeting but usually our meetings are on Tuesdays so I have to post it on Fridays but better to post it on Thursdays before. So we'd have to have some idea before then. Yeah and this meeting is really pretty late so then probably the next best time to meet at the early the earliest time to meet would be December the second Tuesday in December. Yeah I mean right now you're scheduled for November 9th which that's only a few weeks away so that seems too soon so December meeting would be December 14th I think. No I'm sorry 15th. Is it the 15th? No sorry let me look again. So we could yeah so we could have a light plan to meet then but I guess that would be conditional based on whether or not we have anything to discuss so we'll we'll just have to if anyone has anything to discuss make sure Stephanie gets it for the agenda the Thursday at least the Thursday before. Yeah so Chris so Brian just so you know that it's Tuesday December 8th is when the next meeting is scheduled so you all would need to let me know maybe good to make a decision by Wednesday December 2nd you and I could check in. Yeah that was good. And my guess would be that there will be some kind of a food policy meeting in the month of November I would think so I will just make sure Caitlin has your information and it could be that maybe if there is a meeting you all want to follow up after that meeting to talk about it and to see how you could get involved. Yeah and I guess thing something based off of this meeting that you think ideas for how to continue like distributing food through the winter in some way like or or also like how to get more people to sign up for community garden plots and to actually use them. So if anyone that would be two things to think about between now and then that sounds great. I'm writing it down to but as always if anyone knows anything else they'd want to work on. That's also open for open for all that. Okay unless other people if anyone has final thoughts we can probably sign off and say goodbye. Say good night. Yeah. Okay. Nice meeting all of you. Bye. Great seeing you all. Take care. Definitely I'll send you the notes. Great. Thank you so much Chris. All right. Take care all.