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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)
Art by Holly Meade Chosen for 2010 Common Ground Country Fair Poster
The 2010 Common Ground Country Fair poster art contest winner is Holly Meade of Sedgwick, Maine. An accomplished printmaker, Meade is well known for her illustrations of children's books. Since illustrating her first book in 1992, almost 30 books have followed. A number of these 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 illustrated by Meade include Cocoa Ice by Diana Applebaum, And Then Comes Halloween by Tom Brenner, and Down on the Farm by David Elliot. In fact, Meade introduced us to the lively rooster featured in this year's poster from her body of work created while illustrating Down on the Farm.
Each year, MOFGA invites Maine residents and MOFGA members (regardless of residence) to submit a design for our Common Ground Country Fair poster. We are now accepting submissions for the 2011 Fair. The selected art will be featured on the 2011 Fair poster, Web site, T-shirt and promotional literature. The artist will be featured in this newspaper, along with a press release about the artist and the art. In addition, the winning artist will receive $1,000.
For complete guidelines, including technical specifications, eligibility requirements and timeline, please visit the Fair Art link on the Fair page at www.mofga.org or contact the Fair office at cgcf@mofga.org or 207-568-4142.
Apply to be a Vendor or Exhibitor at the Fair
Would you like to be a vendor, exhibitor or demonstrator at the 2010 Common Ground Country Fair? We are accepting applications for most areas (except crafts) of the Fair. Area coordinators will review applications this spring, so contact the Fair office right away. If you are unsure of which area to apply to, call us for help.
The application process for the crafts booths at the 2010 Fair has closed. If you would like to apply to be a craft vendor at the 2011 Fair, please contact the office and we’ll put you on our mailing list.
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.
Summer Fair Assistant
Before we know it, summer will be here and the pace of work on the Fair will be ramping up in the MOFGA office. To help us with this seasonal wave of work, we hire a part-time seasonal assistant. The ideal candidate is available from mid- or late May through early October, is proficient with computers (Adobe design programs especially) and has a deep enthusiasm for the work of MOFGA, especially the Common Ground Country Fair. If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about what this position entails, please contact Fair director Jim Ahearne at jahearne@mofga.org.
For earlier articles about the Fair,
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