Announcing the ONLY IN-PERSON EVENT OF 2020 !!! 🐠
In place of our customary Fall All-Day Auction we will be holding an informal, outdoor, in-person marketplace event in the spacious parking lot of the Emmaus United Church of Christ in Vienna, VA. The event will be free and open to the public. Only PVAS members may sell. Anyone may come to buy.
Date: SUNDAY, October 4, 2020
Time: 12 - 1 pm seller set-up, 1 - 4 pm marketplace, 4 - 5 pm seller take-down
Where: Emmaus United Church of Christ, 900 Maple Avenue East, Vienna, VA
Fees: None at all, no entrance fee, no sellers fee, no MyGroupAuctions
What: Sellers can sell anything at the marketplace that they could normally sell in an auction or tag sale
Who: PVAS members can sell, anyone can buy
How: Sellers should post their items and prices in the Forum under Fish Mongers just as if they were selling items for pick-up at a monthly meeting. Buyers can pre-order. Sellers can bring additional items not pre-ordered for sale as if it were a tag sale. Do it your way!
Rain Date: SUNDAY, October 11, 2020 will be the new date if we're rained out on Oct. 4th
The club will not be providing anything but the venue. Sellers can bring tables, chairs, and canopies if they like, or just sell out of their cars. Do it your way!
Fish Health: Buyers and sellers should be prepared to shelter their live purchases (including plants) from temperature swings as this will be an outdoor event and the weather could be cool. Also, be aware that many people are currently using larger than normal quantities of hand sanitizer which can be deadly to fish and shrimp. Use extra precautions when taking purchases home by washing your hands and fish bags to remove anti-microbials before floating bags in aquaria and unbagging animals and plants.
People Health: Masks and social distancing of at least 6' will be required, no exceptions. Every person has a different risk profile relative to contagious disease such as COVID-19. Members or their family at home may fall into high risk categories. Each person should make their own decisions about how much and what kind of interaction they would like to have with others above and beyond masks and social distancing, and everyone should respect those decisions. For example, a seller may prefer to sell out of their car by handing purchases out of their window, or by placing them on the curb outside their vehicle to minimize person-to-person contact. To avoid confusion, sellers should consider putting up a sign with special instructions if they don't want people approaching them. Do it your way!
Socializing: We will designate an area away and downwind from the sellers area for people to set up their own lawn chairs or beach towels and socialize. Chairs must be at least 6' apart from each other (10' is even better) and everyone must wear a mask. Be careful to follow people's social signals. If someone doesn't want to be approached, please maintain additional distance.
Can't wait to see everyone.
With the JRAS tailgate tagsale coming up, (oct 17th) I really wanted to take par in this event sunday to see how our big sister (pvas) makes it work...
The day was a huge success for all.... it was really evident that just because you didn't have many "pre-orders" people wanted to see in person what we had and most sellers that spoke with did very well... i too think there were over 200 people there, and I hope folks keep this in mind when coming down for the richmond event. Thanks to all that put in the time to make this happen and i hope yo decide because this worked you make the effort to visit JRAS's event.
much like pvas, no costs, no fees and you don't have to be a member to sell or buy for ours
david
What a great event. I could not believe how many cars were in the parking lot when I arrived. Great to see so many PVAS members who were successfully able to wear masks and keep social distancing in place. Trying to estimate how may people were present - think about 200 or so.
Thanks Mike for arranging this.
Matt - I can't agree more. It turned out far better than I think most expected. I really feel we needed it socially and there is/was a lot of pent up demand for this type of event.
That was a great event! It was wonderful to see so many friends and to see so many fish!
Thanks to the PVAS Board for arranging this and having clear rules for safety.
FYI, we will have access to a rest room so no need for resorting to adult incontinence measures :)
Funny, but the vendors at the local farmers markets around me are now back to preferring cash, because of the fees that are charged on credit calls and some apps. In my experience, both Venmo and the Cash app don't charge any fees and work well.
As other merchants prefer "contactless payment," should we be encouraging something similar? Maybe we can pay in advance via paypal? Should members with tables have a venmo account set up? etc.
Here's a social distancing idea. Have everyone wear pool noodles on their heads. By October, all the pools will be closed, so there should be plenty of noodles available.
If anyone has ideas about clever ways to promote social distancing at these types of outdoor events, we would love to hear about them. Anything that doesn't require $ or effort or throwing away one use items. I was thinking of bringing small clay plant pots to mark off 6-10' increments in front of sellers' tables. I also have landscape marking tools - those orange flags on thin metal stakes I can bring. Other thoughts are welcome.
First, will there be a “donation” table? I plan to have blue dream shrimp available.
Second, the usual can not be sold (invasive plants, snakeheads, etc). Similarly, folks can or can not sell end of season pond plants? Water lettuce? Water hyacinth?