Thoughts about NH maple awareness month.....

[red maples]

I don't like it. There are good points made. BUT your taking the "holiday" or big deal out of maple in my opinion. you have to make it an occation.

sugarhouses pull out all the stops for maple weekend. Hay rides, vendors in some cases, bring in extra help etc etc etc. you can't epect everyone to do this for the entire month. Maple awareness month fine but alot of sugarhouses are open on weekends anyway but they should still set a date for maple weekend in addition to maple awareness month. I have spoken to several of my customers and they like stopping at all the sugarhouses on one weekend they were bummed that they wanna get rid of it. they make a day or whole weekend of it.

Maine borders us, all NH borders are maple producing states, VT all borders maple producing states.

bad weather or not it was rainy and cold here last year on sunday and I still did VERY well!!!

Anyhow it just takes the Special out of it.

[jake22si]

Soo, when is it?

[Russell Lampron]

Soo, when is it?

It is this weekend. The 23rd and 24th.

[Russell Lampron]

I don't like it either Brad. It is going to confuse the regulars that look forward to the one weekend. The big guys are open and boil on the weekends already so it isn't going to be much of a change for them. I work a full time job and the maple is a hobby business. The weekends are when I have the time to get into the woods and get other repairs done. I normally boil at night. I don't have the time or help to make value added products for every weekend. If I pick the wrong weekend(s) to be open I miss the traffic. If I'm open every weekend I don't get anything else done. If I don't open at all I miss the sales. By the way I have no set hours except on maple weekend. Anybody can stop by any time and I will gladly show them around and sell them something.

I know that I'm not going to participate in the maple awareness month that is planned for the fall. Hopefully none of the other small producers will either. I'm just too busy at that time of the year getting my firewood in for the winter and getting started on the following years wood.

On the flip side of the coin the NHMPA has left the burden of funding on the committee. They got seed funds for the fall promotion but have to pay it back. When they asked for the funds from the NHMPA they were told that they would have to find other funding because there wasn't enough money in the treasury to support it. If they don't get the support that they need the idea won't get very far.

[jake22si]

I think it is bad practice to not have set dates. Then you will always miss half the people because they will keep saying "we'll do it next week, we have all month", and that keeps going until the month is over and then their like "we missed it?" And who can handle open house for a month? Too much of a burden I would think.

[sugaringman85]

Personally if there is a maple awareness month next year I am going to get together with my local sugar houses and do our own maple weekend. make it more of a town/area maple weekend. its a bad idea for the maple association to think that its a good idea for them to down play our weekend into a month. it would only be ok if they were planning on doing twice as much advertising and actually promoting a full month. but from the sounds of it there isn't the money to even do one weekend.

[Dill]

Howard Pearl was on NPR this morning doing a nice little blurb about Maple weekend. We aren't going to get the media interest without a planned weekend. And like another poster said, people will just say nope I"ll go next weekend and show up in april only to wonder why there is no steam.

[Dill]

I will say there is no way a decent sized operation could sustain the effort of maple weekend for more than 1 weekend a season. Its just not going to happen.

[Russell Lampron]

I will say there is no way a decent sized operation could sustain the effort of maple weekend for more than 1 weekend a season. Its just not going to happen.

The bigger operations that have a store and kitchen can and do plan on boiling during the day on weekends. Windswept Maples and Sunnyside Maples both in Loudon. It won't be a big deal to them. For them it's business as usual.

For a smaller guy like me it is tough to do because of my full time job and having other things that have to be done during the daylight hours. Making the value added products and having someone there to sell them while I run the evaporator is another problem.

[red maples]

I am open for weekends, did it this year for the first time. sold some syrup piggy backed it with tours in the late afternoon. it worked out good. just open for 3-4 hrs each day. that being said as a smaller producer I need to cut that back to 1 day on the weekend because I just don't make enough syrup to sell that much each weekend. also getting an RO for this up coming season the goal is to boil 2 hrs MAX per day and I will not boil raw sap except maple weekend because its just too crazy. and like everyone knows that boils raw sap you go through 10 times more wood!!!

In addition to that there is much more preperation to maple weekend, with fundraisers, other venders, artists, hay rides additional snacks and treats etc. what someone might offer, and the amount of syrup, and confections etc you need to have on hand. which seems to be going up by leaps and bounds every year especially this past year.

as for the bigger producers its easier for them first of all they have more help, lots of family to help out in the store etc. my family is still young and its pretty much just me, my wife will help if I need it and my daughter who is 11 and son is 7 are getting a little more involved. But I am married to the evap!!! maple weekend its all hands on deck!!! but we are tired after the weekend but its alot of fun!!!! especially when your counting the money at the end of the day :)