Hello everyone,
It's time to vote for the idea on ideablob.com

Funding for Farmers' Market Envisioning and Design Process...

Greetings to all who are interested in seeing Lane County Farmers have a year round indoor-outdoor market in Eugene.

The year-round farmers market has been in and out of popular discussion for several years now, but has lacked focus and sustained energy. The Willamette Farm and Food Coalition has decided to host a series of facilitated discussions to move the conversation forward with the purpose of drafting designs and creating a business plan.

The Lane County Farmers' Market is happy to have the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition (www.lanefood.org) taking the lead and plans to participate in the discussions.

Local citizen activist Erin Ely is trying to help us with our effort by using the Internet. Advanta Corporation sponsors an online "idea" competition at their www.ideablob.com website. The best idea of the month, determined by the votes of website visitors, wins $10,000. Erin Ely entered this competition two months ago with the idea for a permanent Farmers' Market for Eugene. She lost the contest by a mere 20 votes! She is trying again this month—May 2008.

If Erin wins, she will donate the $10,000 to Willamette Farm and Food Coalition to facilitate public discussion of farmers' market options, and to draft a preliminary presentation of 2 or 3 designs as well as a business plan. So we want you to help us help her win!

Here is a direct link to the idea so you can vote.
http://www.ideablob.com/ideas/2281-Year-Round-Home-for-the-Lane-Co

This first round of voting is like the primary; we need to win or get second place in the primary to make it to the general election.

This week: May 15 to May 21

please go vote for the idea:
http://www.ideablob.com/ideas/2281-Year-Round-Home-for-the-Lane-Co

As a reminder if you have not registered yet:
This is what you need to know about voting in the competition:

1. You will need to register on the www.ideablob.com site by creating a username and password and email address. This takes about 3-4 minutes. (You do NOT have to give your physical address and they will not spam you with advertising.) If you already registered and voted before, you will not need to re-register but you do need your user name and password to get in to vote again.

2. Once you have registered, Ideablob will send an email with a link that you must click on to confirm your registration.

3. Now you get to vote, which takes all of 30 seconds.

4. BUT, you have to vote >TWICE<, once during this time period from May 15 to May 21(the 'Primary'), AND again at the end of the month from May 22 to May 28(the 'General Election').

Let me know if you have any problems so I can alert the company if there are problems.

Thanks for your help!!!

Regards,
Erin