The market day run sheet, Friday night to lockup

Friday evening, before any truck moves

• Lock the stall map for SaturdayFreeze assignments at a stated hour and note every hole on the sheet. A locked map is what your gate volunteer reads at five in the morning, so late changes belong on the exception line rather than in the map itself.
• Chase every unconfirmed vendorText or call anyone who has not confirmed, and record who you contacted and when. Good looks like zero unknowns by the time you lock, so nobody is holding a stall that will sit empty.
• Fill open stalls from the standby list in orderWork down the list in the published order and write down who you offered it to. Fairness questions come up every season, and a written offer sequence answers them without a board meeting.
• Print the gate sheet and the fee sheetTwo pages: stalls in load-in order for the gate, vendors alphabetical for the money. Paper survives a dead battery and a lot with no signal, which is most lots at five in the morning.
• Count and set the token and change bankReconcile the drawer against last week's closing count before you leave, and record the opening bank on the fee sheet. Bring small bills for benefit tokens and incentive currency.
• Publish the Saturday lineupPush the vendor list to your site and social accounts while shoppers are planning their weekend. Name the farms rather than the categories, and flag anything seasonal like the first sweet corn.

Gate open and load-in

• Walk the lot before the first truck entersLook for broken glass, potholes, sprinkler heads, low branches and cars left overnight in a stall. Fix or cone anything you find before a vendor drives into it in the dark.
• Cone the fire lane firstSet the fire lane before anyone can park in it, because moving a loaded truck later costs you twenty minutes and a bad conversation. The lane your permit describes is the lane on the ground.
• Post a person at the gate with the mapOne named person, holding the printed map, telling each truck its stall number as it enters. Good looks like nobody driving in circles looking for their spot.
• Stage the token booth and the information tentPower, shade, signage, the benefit log and enough table for a line. Set it where shoppers see it on the way in, not tucked behind the produce row where nobody finds it.
• Check scales, permits and certificates during setupWalk the aisle while vendors are still setting up and eyeball scale seals, cottage food labels and any certificate expiring this month. It is far easier to fix at seven than to argue at ten.
• Clear all vehicles by the stated cutoffVehicles out and the lane closed before the first shopper walks in. If somebody is late, they park outside and hand cart in, exactly as the vendor agreement says.

Bell to close

• Mark attendance while the map is freshWalk the map in the first thirty minutes and mark present, absent and any stall swap. Doing it later means guessing, and guessing is where fee disputes start.
• Collect fees on one fixed routeSame direction, same order, every week, with the fee sheet in hand and a receipt for anyone who wants one. A predictable route means vendors have their money ready when you reach them.
• Run the benefit table on a written logRecord every SNAP, WIC and senior FMNP transaction as it happens, with tokens issued and dollars run. Federal reporting expects records, and rebuilding them from memory on Monday does not work.
• Walk the aisles once an hourLook for canopy weights, blocked exits, sampling tables without handwash setup and anything sitting in the fire lane. Fix small things quietly before an inspector or a gust of wind does it for you.
• Log every complaint and violation in writingDate, vendor, what you observed, what you said, what happens next. A written record is the only thing that survives an appeal to your board at the end of the season.
• Note the weather and the crowdOne line on temperature, rain and rough shopper count. Three seasons of these lines become the most useful data your market owns when you set next year's fee.

Teardown and lockup

• Hold the lane closed until stalls are packedVehicles come back in only when the aisle is clear of shoppers and vendors are ready to load. The last twenty minutes are when most market injuries happen.
• Reconcile the drawer against the fee sheetCash, tokens and card totals against what the sheet says you collected, before you leave the site. Any gap is much easier to explain while the morning is still in your head.
• Photograph the site before you drive outTwo or three wide shots of the empty lot. When the property owner asks about a stain or a broken bollard on Monday, you will be glad you have the picture.
• Write the three line market reportStalls filled, fees collected, one thing to fix. Send it to your board chair the same day, because a short report every week beats a long report nobody reads in November.
• Post next Saturday's changes tonightAny vendor added or dropped, any layout change, any special event. Shoppers plan their week on Sunday, and vendors plan their picking on Sunday too.