Wfm handbook

WFM Handbook

for Regular Casuals & Contracted Vendors

OUR COOPERATIVE

The Wolfville Farmers’ Market is a Not-for-Profit Cooperative. Essentially this means that we are a team, working collectively to benefit from our shared resources. We, the vendors and the Members, made this Market. In 1992 we were three vendors operating for 20 weeks and now we have an average of 62 vendors on Saturdays year-round and 28 on Wednesdays, 7 months of the year. We made and make the policies, it was us who, from the vantage of the parking lot in front of the library, who envisioned having our own home. We

hire and evaluate our Market Manager. Over the years many of us have served on committees to grow and develop the Market, or on the Board of Directors. We raised $850,000 to renovate the deWolfe, building and we decided that our sustainability was strengthened by putting in a sprinkler system. We have a mortgage. We are friends, colleagues, and together we can help grow our businesses. We are not a mall. Our Manager and the staff are on our team. Any problems and opportunities and challenges we face, we face and create together.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT OUR COOPERATIVE • In all of our years of operation, we have only ever been in the red twice, and quite minimally!

• When we started in 1992 we managed a $2000 annual budget and now manage a $180,000 annual budget

• We are in year 5 of our 20 year lease with Acadia University • The average age of the Canadian Farmer is 65; and the average age the WFM farmer is: ____

THE ROLES WE PLAY Role of the Vendor

As a vendor at the Market you are stepping into a Market experience that has been evolving since 1993. The opportunity is to sell your product at the Market using the shared resources of the organization. We hope to share many resources with you to help you do this most effectively. As well, we hope you will share in the responsibilities of being part of our collective.

We hope you will help make your fellow vendors feel welcome, treating everyone as a colleague, and thinking about how to make things better and contributing your thoughts, ideas and sometimes time. You are welcome to join Vendor Committees including the Building Maintenance Committee, the Vendor Promotions Committee and the Vendor Social Committee.

Role of the Member

Members invest $1000 (usually over three years) in the organization and vote on by-law changes to the Market.

Because the Members are invested in the success of the Market they contribute concerns and ideas that they would like the Board and Staff to address.

Members vote for and have the opportunity to be on the Board of Directors.

Role of the Board Member

The Board is voted in by the Membership and is responsible for the strategic direction of the Market, hiring and managing the Market Manager, policy development/approval and budget approval. The Board provides leadership, and they have a responsibility to listen and receive feedback from the Membership and also the vendorship of the Market in an effort to make it stronger. The Board meets once each month with the Market Manager; and runs the Annual General Meeting.

YOUR BOARD President: Richard Hennigar, Suprima Farms Vice President: Jeff McMahon, Longspell Point Farm Secretary: Carla Dunham, Carla Dunham Jewellery Design Treasurer: Terri-Lynn Yeomans, Slice Soapworks Members at Large: Anna Weig, Grand Pre Winery Ann Huntley, Moon Tide Farm Frank Harris, Just Us Coffee Roasters

"We love the culture of the Wolfville Farmers’ Market. It has always been a supportive, encouraging environment where some of our most treasured personal and business relationships have arisen.

- Mike and Amelia, Helen B’s Preserves

The Role of the Market Manager and the Staff Team

The Market Manager is responsible, through the Board, to the Membership, for the Operation of the Market from Financials (Fundraising, Grant Writing, Budgeting, Books) to Promotions, Logistics, HR, Building Maintenance, Capital Project Management, Vendor Services, and Rentals. Our Manager has a team of people who work alongside them, including: Assistant (Sat Events, Promotion, Vendor Bookings and services), Accounts (all things financial). The Market Manager has been doing this work since 2001, and has seen the organization move through many manifestations, bringing experience and a belief in collective wisdom to the position.

YOUR STAFF TEAM Kelly Marie Redcliffe

Market Manager manager@wolfvillefarmersmarket.ca 35 hrs/week

Angela Melanson

Assistant Manager assistant@wolfvillefarmersmarket.ca 25 hrs/week

Helen Woodward

Accounting accounts@wolfvillefarmersmarket.ca 50 hrs/month

Elizabeth Fajta

Volunteer & Rentals Coordinator info@wolfvillefarmersmarket.ca 40 hrs/month

Ariana Nasr

Webmaster & Music Coordinator webmaster@wolfvillefarmersmarket.ca 12 hrs/month

William Roberts

Graphic Designer wrr.acadia@gmail.com 12 hrs/month

Selah Koile

Good Food Hub Coordinator goodfoodhub@wolfvillefarmersmarket.ca Hours change seasonally

COMMUNICATIONS

If you have decided to keep coming back to the Market, the first thing you’ll want to do is join our vendor e-news to learn of new opportunities, what is happening at our market on a weekly basis, as well as how to sign up to participate in Market events. Sign up through the vendor area of our website by clicking on the drop-down menu item” sign up for e-news”.

We also love to hear from you! Be it your feedback, your news, your ideas, how you did on a given day. We also do at least one Vendor Feedback Survey every year to get feedback on a particular issue or to get general feedback!

VENDOR GATHERINGS

We like to spend time getting to know each other and have numerous ways to do that: • We hold an Annual Vendor Day every winter which includes a chance for Vendors to meet and network with one another, to share a potluck meal, talk about ideas and strategies, issues that vendors would like the vendorship to consider.

• The Vendor Social Committee hosts Wine Downs after Market about every two months where vendors can share a drink and some snacks together, hear announcements and try their luck at a 50/50 draw.

• The Annual General Meeting is the business meeting of the year. At these meetings amendments to by-laws can be made, there are reports by the Board and the manager, financial statements are shared and approved, and Board Members are voted in.

VENDOR COMMITTEES

There are three Vendor Committees and any vendor can participate on any committee.

(1) The Building Maintenance Committee helps with Spring and Fall Cleaning, one-off requests for handywork or help, and some regular maintenance like filter cleaning.

(2) The Vendor Social Committee organizes our Wine Down (after-market socials that happen approx 4 times/year), the Vendor Day Potluck, and helps coordinate our assistance when a vendor is in need.

(3) The Social Media Committee helps spread the word about our awesome market.

VENDORS SUPPORTNG EACH OTHER • We encourage food vendors to purchase ingredients from fellow vendors, and all vendors to take time for their own Market shopping. Many vendors will email fellow vendors ahead of time, or have standing orders, or shop first thing in the morning before the customers arrive or after they have left. Many vendors show off another vendor’s product at their own booth (ex. a wine cup made by an artisan at a wine booth and vice versa); or if they use Market ingredients, they will name the vendor in there menu (ex. Egg Sandwich made with Jordan’s Natural Acres Eggs, Longspell Farm Bacon, and Fox Hill Cheese on Boulangerie Bread) • Many vendors offer fellow vendors discounted prices. It’s a lovely way

to support one another.

• Sometimes a vendor is in need of support when going through a major health or personal crisis.

Through our Vendor Social Committee and Staff, our Market offers a few things: 1. We will share a letter written by the vendor that articulates their situation and their needs with the Vendorship 2. We will help them set-up a Go Fund Me Campaign 3. We will create a raffle basket with contributed vendor products and sell tickets 4. We will offer the Community Room for free for a fundraiser put on by family and friends of the vendor.

MARKET EVENTS Events are about promotion through celebration - highlighting the best of who we are that makes you and this Market special and unique. The primary goals of events are: to feature Vendor’s offerings at the Market, to give us content for promoting the Market beyond our loyal customers, to helping us increase our e-news subscribers.

Events bring in new people, tourists and also those customers who tend to come monthly. Our customer index is always increased during our events.

Events, therefore are a great way for vendors to try new ideas and to introduce people to new products, services and ideas while honing in on customers specific interests. These new products are highlighted through the promotion of the event. For example, during Maplicious at the Market customers can try new foods that incorporate maple syrup as an ingredient or discover business which create products out of maple.

Please take a look at the Annual Events calendar on the Market website, which lists each event (often monthly) with the a brief description of the theme.

When you get your email asking if you’d like to participate, please sign up by filling in the form right away.

There is nothing worse than having to ask people over and over to participate. Okay - there are worse things, but please indulge us, we are trying to help you!

PROMOTING TOGETHER Our market staff spends a lot of time promoting the Market, its vendors and events, but the Market gets more bang for its buck when vendors work with us to help compound our efforts.

What Staff Does

• We promote our events on: • novascotia.com • valleyfamilyevents.ca • valleyevents.ca • Monthly Posters, distribution of 100 from Wolfville to Berwick & Monthly Tent Cards, for Market tables and the Acadia Dining Hall • Monthly Grapevine Page: Any vendor can contribute recipes and contracted vendors can be featured • Monthly Atheneum Ad targeted at Acadia students • Weekly E-news, with a distribution of over 1500, which includes a list of vendors coming each week, monthly features by Vendors, and news from Vendors • Facebook: Staff share vendor posts on its site, creates posts about three times each week and boosts approximately two posts each month, creates Facebook events for our special events, and invites friends to these events, shares the weekly e-news on Facebook.

• Twitter: We tweet about twice each week, we retweet vendor tweets and ask that you also retweet our information.

• Monthly Features: We hand out 300 leaflets to our customers as they enter, listing our monthly features.

• Photography: We hire a photographer approximately once a month to take photos, usually around a particular event. We use these photos for e-news, promotional websites, and promotional material.

• Events on Wednesdays and Saturdays: We try to enlist all participants, be they Market Vendors or community participants, to share the information through their networks.

What Vendors Can Do

• Retweet and share our posts including our enews.

• Contracted Vendors will be asked monthly to share any features they have as well as any news they have about their business that they would like to share.

• On Facebook, we would love to compound our effectiveness with vendor help. If you could share our posts on your page and invite your friends to our events, that would be grand. If you could comment on your fellow vendor’s posts and help each other out that would make a difference too. @wolfvillefarmersmarket | www.facebook.com/ wolfvillefarmersmarket • For Twitter, we ask that you retweet our information with comments that connect this info to your own thoughts, products or vendor neighbours @wolffarmmarket

• Take photos of things that you love at the Market and share them with us using hashtag #wolfvillefarmersmarket. Take photos of what you buy and use hashtag #wfmmarkethaul • If you go to trade shows, or have another place of operation, you can pick up WFM Shelf Cards at the Info Booth and use them to promote that you sell at our Market.

ENHANCING YOUR BUSINESS Professional Development Booth Ideas for Casual Vendors: Opportunities for Vendors • Consider a tablecloth that works well with your products, in both colour and theme • Consider a tiered effect on your table: Use boxes or other items to create multiple levels on your table which is pleasing to the eye.

• Business Signage: Have a sign which has your Business name on it which customers can easily recognize over time.

• Price: Include an easy to read and find price list at your booth. This isn’t a requirement, but keep in mind that this is something customers often complain about. They really don’t want to ask you for your prices.

• Acadia Centre for Small Business and Entrepreneurs: www.acadiaentrepreneurshipcentre.com/ • Centre for Small Farms: http://centreforsmallfarms.ca/ • Perennia (Bio-Venture and Innovation Centre & Food Safety): www.perennia.ca Perennia works with farmers, fishermen, processors and food entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. They have a seasonal magazine called Pivot.

• Farmers’ Markets of Nova Scotia has free training for vendors to develop business skills specific. to the Farmers’ Market Sector. http:// farmersmarketsnovascotia.com • If you subscribe to the Vendor E-news (through the Vendor area of our website) you will receive information about many professional development offerings.

Local Sources for Promotional Materials Acadia Print Shop

Print Materials & Signage printshop@acadiau.ca Wolfville | 902-585-1129

London Rubber Stamp Company Rubber Stamps www.londonrubber.com Halifax | 902-423-8411

Auto Trim Design of Nova Scotia Ltd. Signage (902) 678-2208

Capital Paper Products Packaging www.capitalpaper.ca Toll Free: (800) 565-5008 Local: (902) 678-6767

Other important contacts • Food Safety Specialist: MacDonald •?

Tracey

Farmers’ Markets of Nova Scotia (FMNS):

The Wolfville Farmers’ Market is a founding member of the FMNS which offers some fantastic services for all vendors of our Market: • free business trainings designed specifically for the Farmers’ Market Sector. In fact FMNS is the leader in developing and delivering educational and skill-building workshops for farmers’ market vendors and personnel. Visit the online event calendar.

They run three distinct methods of training: 1. A number of customized and comprehensive training programs, each 40 or 60 hours; 2. An ever-growing series of half and full-day workshops; and 3. An annual oneday conference for the Atlantic Canadian farmers’ market sector.

• Insurance Options through the Co-operators: Here in Nova Scotia, vendors have the options of purchasing insurance through a group program organized by

FMNS, and offered through The Cooperator’s Group Ltd, a Canadian-owned insurance company.

For vendors, there is a short list of eligibility qualifications (such as a maximum of 10 employees) and three coverage options available, based on the annual receipts of the business. For vendors with annual receipts of $100,000 or less, “Vendor Option A” would be available to you – and according to the details of your particular business – would likely be recommended. Vendor Option A is a $350 annual premium. From there, two other coverage options are available, each offering increasingly robust coverage at a higher rate. For details: http:// farmersmarketsnovascotia.com/insurance-2/ • Numerous resources for you to explore from marketing ideas, booth ideas, marketing trends in the sector and more. http://farmersmarketsnovascotia.com/resources-2/

WFM POLICIES: A Coles Notes Version Booking

Casual vendors book one week at a time and are not guaranteed a spot or a particular location vs contracted vendors who commit for a minimum of 5 months and have a guaranteed booth.

Attendance

If selling a primary product, a worker owner must attend the Market (unless the principal owner is at another Market on the same day). If selling a secondary product, a principal owner, worker owner, family member, or knowledgeable employee may attend the Market.

Note: Primary producers grow and/ or harvest raw product (farmers), and secondary producers use raw product to make something (ex: bakers, chefs, producers of a food product, and artisans)

Cancellation

If you have a semi-permanent booth, you need to cancel two weeks in advance and remove your booth to avoid paying fees. All other vendors need to cancel two days in advance.

This applies to bad weather days as well. We understand that vendors will on occasion cancel the day before (or the day of) the Market due to unpredicted weather, however, our policy adheres and is based on the principle that our Market manages a building and has fixed costs which do not change with bad weather, and

that all the vendors rely on the Market managing its resources effectively and so this policy is one of the costs of having a building.

Products

You are invited to bring product you have grown or made (in a product category for which you have been approved); but you can also offer product from others, that is in your same product category, as long as it represents no more than 25% of your gross sales and is made in Nova Scotia. Produce vendors are restricted to bringing only 5% of approved product from others during peak season (July-October), and to get permission from the Market Manager when doing so. Products are to be honestly labelled, with prices listed and easy to read.

Booth

You need to have signage with your business name and prices (readable) for your products. Please keep neat and clean up afterwards (we have mops and brooms), return borrowed chairs and tables. Take all of your garbage home with you. Work with your neighbour to make sure you share a space to get outside your booth.

Enjoy Yourself!

Okay - this is not a policy, just a very fine suggestion.

TIPS FOR MARKET DAY • Introduce yourself to your Market Neighbours • Make eye contact with customers (we highly recommend not reading a book or sending emails but to engage with the community who have made their way to the Market on this day) • Smile and say hello (Customers will respond to your kindness with a smile and will tend to ask questions when they receive kind body language).

• Share a story about you and your products (customers will remember you by engaging with you and your products/service through information that you share with them).

• Consider doing a feature at your booth where customers can sample a product. You might also want to have a “feature price” (ex: for today “Your smile is your logo, your personality is your business card, how you leave others feeling after an experience with you becomes your trademark” - Unknown

only the price is $__; buy one, get the 2nd ½ off; offer a coupon for future purchases; or simply offer customers a pamphlet of info on your featured product.

• Consider making products or packaging your current products for certain times of year: Valentine’s day, Thanksgiving, Easter, Solstice, Equinox, the beginning of each season, etc. Customers like to see your creativity not only in your product/service but also in how you tie in certain themes or seasons to your offerings.

The Market is happy to feature your themed products/services and is happy to share your facebook post on the Market’s Facebook page.

OTHER TIDBITS

Market Money The Market has $5 and $10 denominations of Market Money (funny money or monopoly money) which customers can buy as gift certificates for gifts, and which we often use as prizes. All vendors receive this Market Money as if it is cash from the customer and then redeem it with Market staff (whoever is collecting vendor fees that day).

Market Suppers During the Wednesday Market Supper, we charge $10 for the Market Supper and give each customer $10 worth of $2 coupons to spend with vendors.

People who buy the Market Supper get a complimentary serving of bread and salad. You are given a baggie and a sheet to record how many you receive, which is collected at the end of the Market and redeemed on the spot.

Rentals at the Market The Wolfville Farmers’ Market rents out its facilities to its vendors and the community. There are details on our website, but people rent out the Community Room, the Good Food Hub Kitchen or the Whole Building. Our facilities get rented out for Cooking Classes, Festivals, Dances, Dinners, Fundraisers, Weddings, Community Meetings, Artisan Craft Fairs, Anniversary Parties, Retirement Parties, Church Services, Belly Dance Classes, and so much more. When we rent out the whole building all the vendors wheel there booths to an assigned area by the garage

door windows, and we pull down a barn curtain which hides the booths, leaving a blank wooden canvas. It is a beautiful space!

We use this rental income to pay down our mortgage and contribute to the expenses of the building itself. Despite numerous capital improvements, vendor fees have not gone up in five years, in large part because of rental income.

Cooking Classes and Demos at the Good Food Hub Depending on whether we have co-op students helping us or not, we may also be offering Cooking Classes monthly at night, or product demonstrations during the Market at the Good Food Hub Kitchen.

Vendors who are interested in sharing their skills through a cooking class, or their products through the Demonstration Kitchen can let staff know.

The Building we call Home Our building is known as the Dewolfe Building, and started out as an apple storage warehouse for valley apples bound for europe via the now abandoned tracks on our North doorstep. In 2010 we signed a 20-year no cost lease with Acadia to use this building, but back then, it was a building bound for the scrap heap, as the foundations were rotting! Our amazing little Market raised $850,000 and renovated and expanded the building through the initial design work of Pier101 Architecture and the construction management of Roscoe Construction on time

and on budget (The Project Manager was then President, Angela Patterson). Since then we have installed a Commercial Community Kitchen, redone the basement with insulation and vapour barrier, and installed a Sprinkler System.

There are many aspects to keeping the building healthy, safe, heated and well maintained. In the near future we hope to be adding solar panels, and installing a commercial ware washing facility, perhaps heat pumps. And then it will be time to redo the roof. Our building is old and beautiful and needs plenty of attention.