Winter Brings Change

The last few months have been extremely busy and there have been quite a few changes in terms of the Barter Faire site! I guess I'll start with a summary of my favorite annual barter faire, the Okanogan Family Faire near Tonasket, WA. I had a great time and stayed very very busy this year volunteering as a dog patrol coordinator. This was my first year volunteering for the faire (well, other than being a year-round webmaster for this site), and it was very rewarding. I arrived in the wee hours of Thursday morning and parked just inside the gates & went to set up camp. We got a great spot near the drum circle and camped with friends. Thursday morning I started by checking in vendors with dogs, explaining dog rules, and drinking a lot of maté to keep me awake. I worked pretty much all of Thursday & Friday checking cars for dogs, handing out collar tags, explaining the rules to folks as they came in, helping set up the "doggie hilton" cages and siging up dog patrol volunteers. I was amazed at how many volunteers signed up, and how well-behaved most of the pooches were. There were still a few stubborn folks who didn't want to leash their dogs, but most people are pretty rational when spoken to rationally. :)

I set up my booth Friday and had friends watch it most of the time while I was volunteering. On Saturday I got to do some serious trading and made some great trades. One of the best was probably trading my herbal massage oil for foot massages for my boyfriend & I. I also got a beautiful patchwork dress and hand-made fairy wings. Yay! The faire was huge this year, so big that people had to be turned away at the gate and all the day camping lots were full of campers. It was beautiful weather (although we got a bit of rain on Sunday) and the vibes were wonderful as well. I got to do some dancing by the fire, see some great bands like Panda Conspiracy, check out the awesome fire dancers, and fall asleep to the sound of the drum circle. The food, as usual, was excellent, especially the brick-oven pizza and organic oatmeal. Mmmmm... I got to hang out with all kinds of friends old & new and made some great trades. And that's what barter faire is all about!

I hope all that attended had a great time at Okanogan Family Faire — I highly recommend volunteering if you've never done it before. The faire is run on volunteers and they're needed even more as it grows. The growth has caused some problems and quite a bit of discussion among faire planners, so we need all the help, ideas, and good vibes we can get...

The Okanogan Family Faire is the last barter faire of the season, and of course I'm sad to see the season end. I can't wait until springtime when the faires start up again. Until then, I'll be crafting and looking for the community on the forum, so stop in & say hi! And speaking of this site, I'm sure you all probably noticed that it has moved. After a year or two of redesigning, expanding, and maintaining the site at barterfair.org, the owner of the barterfair.org domain name, Ed-I, has taken the site back and has different plans. So I didn't want to see such a good thing go to waste, and moved the content I developed to a new domain name, barterfaire.org (with the olde tyme "e" on "faire"). Now that the site is all up to me, I hope it will grow into a nurturing community atmosphere and a place to share information, stories, and memories. Please spread the word about the move and tell everyone you know that everything on barterfair.org is now on barterfaire.org (don't forget that "e"!) — with more on the way soon! Unfortunately the forum didn't make the switch, so we had to start from scratch. So you better go introduce yourself all over again on the forum and keep the conversation alive all winter long! :)

Thanks for your support and your visits, I hope everyone enjoys the new site and participates in the community online. I am open to suggestions for improvement, and as always I need information on upcoming faires and events, so keep me posted! Have a Peaceful & Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

New Barter Fair Blog

What better way to remember barter fair stories, share information of interest to the barter fair community, pass along news, and share pictures than a barter fair blog? I figured the barter fair site could use just that. :)

So here's my idea for this blog, and I may need your help. I'd like to gather a small group of barterfair family who are good writers, interested in the community, and full of useful information and stories. We can take turns posting on topics of interest to the blog, like sharing links, news articles, commenting on current events, reminiscing about a recent fair, sharing some information on the goods or services you barter, or generally talking about the barter fair lifestyle. Hopefully these will be longish, thought-out articles, not just random ramblings (save that for the forum, lol!). Over time we will build up a wealth of information and memories on the blog.

Anyone like this idea? Who's with me? Am I the only one addicted to blogging? So if you are interested, please e-mail me at megan@barterfaire.org and let me know why you're interested, what topics you'd like to talk about, how regularly you can post, and if you have one, a writing sample or link to an existing blog you write. Elders and barter fair veterans are especially encouraged to participate and share their knowledge and experience with the family. Let me know what y'all think, and check back often. :)

peace!