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Common Ground Country Fair News
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| This year's Fair poster is available for $10 (plus $3 postage) at www.mofga.org or by calling the Fair office at 207-568-4142. |
Common Ground Country Fair
September 24, 25 and 26, 2010
(always the third weekend after Labor Day)
Welcome to the 34th Common Ground Country Fair!
By Jim Ahearne
The Fair has grown a lot over the last 34 years. More than 700 exhibitors, demonstrators, speakers and artists now participate in the Fair.
Behind all this activity is a remarkable group of volunteers who continue to inspire and create. Planning Common Ground is a year-round endeavor, and all year the volunteers on the Fair Planning Team are tending to their respective patches of the Fair – planning, making connections, sorting arrangements, minding the details – so that come late September, we can all enjoy the harvest of their efforts. These 150 or so Planning Team members bring us all of these 700 participants and events. Without them, there would be no Common Ground Country Fair.
The model of the volunteer Planning Team collaborating with MOFGA staff, volunteers on the Fair Steering Committee and the hundreds of Fair participants to bring forth Common Ground is a lot like the economy of Maine, especially the rural economy. It takes a lot of collaboration, sharing, innovation and hard work to make life tick here in Maine. But it sure tastes great at harvest! This is no more evident than on Maine's farms.
A week before last year's Common Ground Country Fair, an article in The New York Times covered the restaurants of Portland, Maine. At least initially it appeared to be about Portland's restaurants. The story it really conveyed was that of the relationship between the chefs of Portland and Maine farmers. The writer recognized and celebrated that Portland's emerging reputation as a Mecca of first class eateries is built not only on the creativity of its chefs, but with the bounty of Maine farms. Not acknowledged in the article, but deeply entwined in this relationship between farms and markets, are the hundreds of thousands of Mainers who are making healthy choices and make local and organic agriculture integral to their lifestyle and communities.
It's those choices and connections, and the thousands more like them – among farmers, schools, restaurants, gardeners, businesses and consumers – in communities across Maine that we celebrate with the Common Ground Country Fair.
While celebrating, we certainly like to eat well and we have a good time. There's a lot of fun to be had at the Fair, so we hope you enjoy it. Fill your cup with a good contradance and your plate with delicious organic food. Or flex your muscles for the manure-toss (didn't know we had a manure toss, did you?) or with the Unity Fire Department's test of strength game. Perhaps you'll discover something new to you or smile at the reunion with an old friend.
Whatever attraction drew you to the Fair or your connection to Common Ground, on behalf of more than 6,000 MOFGA members, I thank you for your support and wish for you a great Fair!
Lively Rooster Art by Holly Meade
Clean and Share Your Garden Seed at the Fair
Help Organize the Fair!
Opportunities to Help Create the 2010 Fair
Start Planning for the Fair
Volunteer for the 2010 Common Ground Country Fair
Grow Food to Feed Fair Volunteers
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| Holly Meade |
Lively Rooster Art by Holly Meade Animates 2010 Common Ground Country Fair Poster
The 2010 Common Ground Country Fair poster art contest winner is Holly Meade of Sedgwick, Maine. An accomplished artist, Meade is well known for her children's book work – the first in 1992 and almost 30 since then. A number of these books have won awards, the two most notable being a Caldecott Honor for HUSH! A Thai Lullaby, written by Minfong Ho, and the Charlotte Zolotow Award for Creative Writing for John Willy and Freddy McGee. Other books with Meade’s art include Cocoa Ice by Diana Applebaum, And Then Comes Halloween by Tom Brenner, and On the Farm by David Elliot. In fact, Meade introduced the lively rooster featured on this year's poster from her body of work created while illustrating On the Farm.
Meade, originally from Massachusetts, earned a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and later attended workshops at the Haystack Mountain School on Deer Isle. “That exposure to the area is what brought me to this part of Maine,” she says. Since attending a Haystack workshop with printmaker Hester Stinnett in 2002, she has been printing from wood blocks, linoleum blocks and sometimes the two combined. She also makes prints on Japanese papers; does illustrations; and has done cut paper collage for most of her children’s book work. Her art has been shown in galleries throughout Maine and is displayed at her Reach Road Gallery (62 Reach Road, Sedgwick, Maine; www.reachroadgallery.com).
Much of Meade’s work has a great sense of movement and vitality to it – gained, in part, from observing animals at Carding Brook Farm in Brooklin, which is owned by her second cousin Jonathan Ellsworth, and his wife, Jennifer Schroth. “They have sheep, horses, chickens… That’s where I go to sketch the animals,” says Meade – and where she got the idea for the rooster. Meade recalls “the last rooster they called Pecky, for reasons you can guess. In fact, he was aggressive enough to, unprovoked, attack their youngest son, Walker,” to whom On the Farm is dedicated. “So, too bad for Pecky,” says Meade; “he ended up in the cookpot.”
Meade also gets certified organic produce and other foods from Carding Brook, now that her children are grown and she no longer gardens.
Meade will be signing posters at the Common Ground Country Fair. Please check the schedule of events in the Sept.-Nov. 2010 issue of The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener for the time and place.
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| Jean English photo |
Clean and Share Your Garden Seed at the 2010 Common Ground Country Fair
September 24, 25 and 26
This year, again, you can share your seed with the rest of the MOFGA community. Let some of those onions, hollyhocks, Echinacea and other seed-bearing plants stay in the garden after they flower and make seed heads. Bring the raw, uncleaned seed to the Common Ground Fair and have it cleaned. You can then take the cleaned seed home with you or donate it to the Exhibition Hall seed swap where the Exhibition Hall staff will package and label it for distribution to other fairgoers free of charge. See the Sept-Nov. 2010 issue of The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener for the seed swap schedule.
The seed-cleaning demonstrators at the Fair will be able to process dried seed heads using a belt thresher to thresh dry-seeded plants; a desktop clipper to clean chaff and debris from small seed; and an air column to clean chaff and debris from small and large seed. We will also be able to process fleshy fruits such as melons and tomatoes.
The seed cleaning exhibit/demonstration will be open all three days of the Fair. For the location, please see the map of the fairgrounds in the Sept.-Nov. 2010 MOF&G. You may leave unprocessed seed at that location.
Place your seed in a paper bag labeled with the name and type of seed (heirloom/open pollinated, etc.), date it was harvested, whether you want it back or are donating it to the seed swap, and your name. Give your labeled seed to an attendant at the seed-cleaning demo area; it will be cleaned as time permits.
Contact Adam Tomash at 207-582-5248 or bluemoonmac@roadrunner.com for details.
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| Love the Common Ground Country Fair? We’d love to have your help organizing and running it! English photo. |
Help Organize the Fair!
Would you like to help coordinate some aspect of the Fair? The planning team has opportunities for you. We have openings for volunteer area coordinators, assistant coordinators and understudies in various areas.
We are looking for coordinators of several speakers’ tents, including Livestock Speakers and the audiovisual presentations tent. There is an opportunity for someone to help coordinate the media exhibitors at the Fair and for someone with audio, video and computer skills to record presentations and workshops for broadcast online. And we are looking for help in the office during the Fair – coordinating the lost and found, helping with phones, etc. Plus, many areas of the Fair with well established teams are looking for new team members or, in some cases, understudies. Compost and Recycling, the Common Kitchen (where we feed volunteers), the Children's Area, Parking, the Country Store, Camping, Safety, Sign Distribution, Set-Up, Volunteer T-Shirts and the Truman Games are but a few of the areas looking for new volunteer coordinators.
If you would like to take a leadership role in producing our big annual celebration, please contact the Fair office at cgcf@mofga.org or 207-568-4142.
Opportunities to Help Create the 2010 Fair
The Common Ground Country Fair is unique in many ways, but perhaps most of all for the leadership and contributions of its volunteers. More than 2,000 volunteers help set up, manage and clean up after the Fair. In addition, the vision for the Fair comes from fairgoers, exhibitors, demonstrators and vendors who have volunteered their time, imagination, talents, leadership and work to design the Common Ground Country Fair. Almost every facet of the Fair is the creation of a MOFGA member or volunteer who saw an opportunity, or the need for help, and stepped forward to get involved.
If you have any interest in joining our planning team volunteers to help plan the Fair, we would be glad to talk with you about the Fair's needs, your interests and where your contribution would fit best.
Every year offers numerous ways to get involved, and many present unique opportunities for volunteers to make a lasting impact. Here are a few:
• Transportation and Parking: As the Fair has grown, so too has the burden automobile traffic places on the Fair experience, on our neighbors and on our environment. Opportunities exist to expand alternative ways to get to the Fair, and many ideas, from the train to busing groups, carpooling, park-n-bike and even park-n-run, would benefit from thoughtful leadership. Having more help managing our parking lots in the afternoons would also improve traffic flow tremendously.
• Organic T-Shirt Sales: For as long as many can remember, two couples, Dennis and Nancy Merrill and Roy and Lisa Miller, provided the leadership that made the Country Store at the Fair so well run; and thanks largely to these four volunteers, the Fair T-shirts are made with 100 percent organic domestic cotton. The 2009 Fair was their last year leading the store. This presents us with a tremendous opportunity for volunteers with retail inclinations to manage this important operation.
• New Media: Did you know that the 2009 Common Ground Country Fair had almost 750 talks, workshops, demonstrations and performances? Nothing beats being at the Fair and being able to experience that abundance in person, but many of these events would be valuable to those who can't get to the Fair if we could make the material available online. A blank slate of opportunity awaits the right person(s) who can help present the Fair's offerings in new formats and expand the circle of conversation with contemporary tools and platforms.
• Additional Volunteer Leadership Positions: We also are looking for coordinators of several speakers’ tents, including livestock speakers and our AV tent. An opportunity exists for someone to help coordinate the media exhibitors at the Fair. Plus, many areas of the Fair have well established teams looking for new team members or, in some cases, understudies. Entertainment, the common kitchen (where we feed volunteers), Maine marketplace, camping, safety, sign distribution, set-up and the Truman games are but a few of the areas looking for new volunteer coordinators.
To take a leadership role in producing MOFGA's annual celebration, in an area noted above or with an element we don't even know we're missing, please contact the Fair office at cgcf@mofga.org or 207-568-4142.
Start Planning for the Fair
Here are some things you can do now to start planning for the big event.
• Order seeds and start plants for your garden. Results could be entered in the Exhibition Hall displays or offered to the common kitchen to help feed volunteers during the Fair. If you do grow a row for the kitchen, please let Bill Whitman know (225-3915). Thanks!
• Contact the Fair office to find out how you might volunteer before, during, and/or after the Fair.
• Create the winning illustration for the 2011 Common Ground Country Fair art contest. Details are posted on the Fair artwork page at www.mofga.org.
• Encourage your local school administrators to plan a student field trip to Common Ground. It's never too early to ask, especially because the Fair comes right after the start of the school year. Remember, all student groups get into the Fair free on Friday!
• Encourage your local adult education program to offer a community field trip to Common Ground. What a terrific way to help conserve resources while getting to park right by the Rose Gate! Contact Fair director Jim Ahearne (jahearne@mofga.org) for more information.
• Let the Fair office know if you have a special farming, gardening or cooking skill that you would like to share with fairgoers. We’ll put you in touch with an area coordinator who will schedule a talk for you.
• Start your shopping list for this year’s holiday season. Down East Magazine recently voted the Fair as Maine's best place to find locally made gifts.
• Tune your bicycle and your body so that you can bicycle part-way or all the way to the Fair. Valet bicycle parking is provided.
• Encourage entrepreneurial kids to participate in the Youth Enterprise Zone on Friday of the Fair. Contact the Fair office for details.
For more information about these and other areas and opportunities, visit the Fair page at www.mofga.org.
Volunteer for the 2010 Common Ground Country Fair
Share your skills or learn something new as a volunteer at the 2010 Common Ground Country Fair. We rely on hundreds of volunteers, contributing in myriad ways, to produce MOFGA's annual celebration of rural living. Whether you have a specific skill, experience in a trade, or simply abundant enthusiasm and creativity, there's a volunteer role for you with the Fair. Contributing in every imaginable way – from carpentry to commercial plumbing and electrical, audio and video recording, traffic control, preparing meals, collecting and sorting trash – volunteers do just about anything and everything necessary to make the Fair happen.
The Fair dates are September 24, 25 and 26. The Fair also depends on volunteers for set-up and cleanup. Individuals, families and groups are all welcome to volunteer at the Fair.
Volunteers who work a four-hour shift will receive a Fair T-shirt, Fair admission, and a delicious meal served by the Common Kitchen. Work additional shifts and receive additional meals and days of free admission. Most shifts are four hours long, but we also offer a few two-hour shifts with limited benefits.
A thorough list of detailed volunteer job descriptions and volunteer guidelines and registration forms are available via the “Volunteers” link on the Fair page at www.mofga.org; or for more information about volunteering at the Fair, contact the Fair office at 207-568-4142 or volunteers@mofga.org.
Grow Food to Feed Fair Volunteers
If you have the space, please plant a row for the Fair. We accept donations of organic food for the Common Kitchen at the Fair. Please contact the Fair office at 207-568-4142 or cgcf@mofga.org with your intended donation so that we can plan menus around donations. Thanks!
For earlier articles about the Fair,
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