Saturday, 3/22/14, Joanne and I participated in the first ever Vashon Home Fair.  We were part of the planning committee along with a small group of island businesses and Jim Marsh, the director of our Chamber of Commerce.  Joanne’s expertise from her old banking days was essential to our planning process.  She was great at organizing and herding the “island cats” to establish a reasonable plan for the home fair.

It took 3 months of focused planning; in Vashon time, that’s an unbelievable accomplishment.  To get Islanders to make decisions, meet deadlines, and successfully hold an event on the day, and at the time, that was published – well, it’s very mainland of us. 

Our Vashon Home Fair became quite an event:

• 28 exhibitors, all island companies
  
• surprisingly good attendance
• educational talks every 45-minutes.  Our Ellisport talk was titled “Earthquakes, Landslides, and Floods – Oh My!”.  The talk was made more pertinent by the coincidental landslide tragedy in Oso, WA on that same day.
• a Kid Zone, with a cardboard playhouse and blocks supplied by RO Enterprises
• collection for the Vashon Food Bank
• a local performing duo (who doesn’t love an accordion?)
• a local caterer sold food
• raffles every hour
• filming of the event by Voice of Vashon, our local island production company
• and our secret weapon, Joanne’s homemade “Crew Cookies”, which enticed people to our display table and sparked many conversations. 

Overall, we felt the event was very successful.  Yes, there were some things that could’ve gone better, but we’ve de-briefed about the event, and will strive to improve for next year.  

Yes, this will be an annual event!  Special props to Jim Marsh from the Chamber, who knocked himself out to make the Home Fair a success.  His energy and enthusiasm is boundless.