PRESENT: Karl Rau, Coco Page, Gloria DeNicola, Joan Carkhuff, Sue Watson, Tom Roberts. Karl facilitated the meeting. Several folks that planned to attend the meeting did not make it. As a majority of the original Steering Committee was present, the first action the group undertook was to appoint Karl and Coco to the NFAM Steering Committee. The following topics were covered on the agenda:

TREASURERS REPORT:
Income: $691.00 Expenses: $441.17 Current Balance: no debts at the end of 2007, balance is $249.83. The full report is here.

OPENING AND CLOSING DATES for the 2008 season:
The group felt it was important to be open for Mother's Day, so May 10th, 2008 was set for opening day. Closing was discussed and October 25th was suggested with flexibility to provide a market as long as the weather conditions and market offerings were feasible. The group agreed that the market was not big enough to hold for two days/week and Saturdays worked well. It was noted that advertising will be more effective if people know when to come looking for us and Tom is posting current info on the website.

PROMOTION of the market.
Advertising - Joan volunteered to check on rates with the Rolling Thunder newspaper, Karl will talk to Sebasticook News to see if they could carry the farmers' market brochure as an insert, and for how much.
Signs - various options were discussed, including printing the NFAM Logo as a poster and laminating it to post. Sue will check to see if there is a cost to do this at the Penobscot Soil & Water District. This will be discussed in more detail at the next NFAM meeting.
Website - Tom has asked all to review your listing. It will be used for the brochure (edited if too long). Please identify any other changes besides dates he should make.
www.NewportFarmersAndArtisansMarket.org/memberedir.html
Brochures - update personal info.
- The group talked some about how to distribute them around town. Joan volunteered to make sure they will be available at the Maine Feeds Maine info booth at the Ag Trade Show in January along with a sign up sheet for more info or application for the NFAM.
Grant - Joan asked the group about interest in submitting another grant proposal to the Maine Dept of Ag to fund promotional efforts for the market. Tom suggested that the group think about how they can direct their energies towards being self sustaining rather than looking for agency financial support.

LOCATION
- Pros and cons of our current location were discussed and all agreed to remain at the PFU. A thank you card from the market to Skip (the Newport PFU manager) was suggested.

STEERING COMMITTEE
- Clarify and define jobs.
- Elect members: Coco was elected to fill the position opening on the NFAM Steering Committee. Using the Officer & Steering committee guidelines of the Waterville Market, Coco Page was appointed as Chair, and serves as second signatory on checks. Joan Carkhuff will serve as Market Manager, Sue Watson will serve as Secretary, Gloria DeNicola agreed to remain as Treasurer. Carl Rau and Wendy Sheriff will serve as members at large.

BY-LAWS AND RULES
Revisit and amend. The group reviewed NFAM and Waterville Farmer's Market by-laws and NFAM Market rules and application form to see where NFAM could strengthen and clarify their documents. A committee comprised of Coco, Gloria & Karl will draft changes using Waterville Market bylaws as guidelines and email out the draft for review. Tom Roberts will work with them on formatting the documents.
These are both available on the website. Review them and identify any changes we should make. For comparison and to get ideas, many other markets' rules and by-laws are available at www.mffm.org

NEW MEMBERS
How do we recruit more vendors? Dropping the requirement for individual liability insurance was identified as an action to take as the cost is prohibitive and the market already carries liability insurance.
- What kind of members do we need?
The group felt that more producers that are capable of participating for the whole market season and producers with specialty products including bakery items, more dairy and meat varieties were important to try to increase .

More diversified meats, dairy products and fruits were identified as things the market could increase offerings of.
Members agreed to invite new producers to join.

Other Topics? The group agreed to send thank you letters to UMCE educators Gleason Gray and Donna Coffin for their efforts in developing the NFAM.

Meeting adjourned around 12 noon. Minutes submitted by Sue Watson.