| Newsletter Nov. 2010 Serving Bloomington and Monroe County |
Local First Indiana 1st Anniversary!
Just over a year ago, we launched Local First Indiana with a speech from BALLE's new director, Michelle Long. We have since joined BALLE, gathered 65 members and we are still growing. Best of all, we have reached a size that allows us to begin the process of creating initiatives that will really make a difference for our business members and our city.
The Holiday Season is fast approaching, and we are very excited to roll out our Think Local First Holiday Guide! See below for details!
Thanks to everyone who has stuck with us during our first year. We can't wait to see what happens during our second!
--Una Winterman, Founder, Local First Indiana |
Local First Indiana Sustaining Member
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 Check out the Think Local First Gift Guide! 
Local First Indiana's Think Local First Holiday Guide is filled with ideas for your Holiday shopping list--and they are all from local, independent businesses in Bloomington. Bursting with 32 pages of ideas for a variety of budgets and recipients, the guide also include's a list of events happening in Local First Indiana member businesses on Black Friday and throughout the Holiday Season.
We asked Local First Indiana business members and a number of Bloomington residents, from students to professionals, to give us a list of their favorite gifts from local, independent businesses in Bloomington, and we created a guide that was made for Bloomington, by Bloomington.
We also asked our business members to give us a list of the items they are most excited about on their shelves for the holidays this year. Some are best sellers and some are simply favorites of the owner. I can guarantee that some of these items will be your new favorites, too. From DIY Spice Mixes to locally made beers and wines, cheese, BBQ Sauce, and flavored honeys, the Food and Beverage section offers great ideas for the Foodies on your list. There is a section for Entertainment and Experiential Gifts, like dance lessons, live music, or theater productions. The retail list is the most extensive, with ideas that range from stocking stuffers for bicycle or music lovers to handmade art, and carefully selected toys and books. We also have a great list of Charitable Donations for those who would rather not receive physical gifts but love contributing to the improvement of our community.
Best of all, this list reflects a growing desire to keep things local. All items on our list are sold in locally owned, independent businesses in Bloomington, and includes many items that were made right here in Bloomington and in Indiana. Every item that you buy in a locally owned, independent business makes a difference for the business you bought it from and for our town. Keep your money local and you will have a Holiday Season you can be proud of!
Look for the Think Local First Holiday Guide in these businesses, starting the weekend before Thanksgiving!
- Barefoot Kids, 615 W. Kirkwood
- BCT Box Office, 114 E. Kirkwood
- The Bishop, corner of 4th and Walnut
- Bloomingfoods (all 3 locations: Westside, 316 W. 6th, Eastside, 3220 E. 3rd Downtown, 419 E Kirkwood Ave.
- Boxcar Books, 408 E. 6th
- By Hand Gallery, inside Fountain Square Mall, 101 W. Kirkwood, Suite #109
- City Hall (Shower's Building, Main Desk near front entry, 401 N. Morton)
- The Comedy Attic, corner of 4th and Walnut
- The Crazy Horse, 214 W. Kirkwood
- Friends of Art Bookshop, 1201 E. 7th, Fine Arts Building, IU Campus
- Landlocked Music, 202 N. Walnut
- Melody Music Shop, 402 W 6th
- Nick's English Pub, 423 E. Kirkwood Ave.
- Oliver Winery, 8024 N. State Road 37
- Paper Crane Gallery and Studio, 401 W. 6th, Suite J (door is on South side of building in the Photo Solutions building
- Revolution Bike and Bean, 401 E. 10th
- Sahara Mart, 106 E. 2nd
- Sole Sensations, 414 S. College
- Soma, 322 E. Kirkwood
- Upland, 350 W. 11th
The guide is also available for download on our website: www.localfirstindiana.org/holiday-gift-guide/ |
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 BALLE's National Buy Local Week 2010
Nov 26 2010 - Dec 5 2010
BALLE's Buy Local Week will be celebrated by many of our 80+ local business networks across the US and Canada. Buy Local Week is an opportunity for locally owned businesses to work together to increase the local economic impact of holiday spending, create more jobs, more tax revenue and a more stable local economy.
Because locally owned businesses spend substantially more money locally, they typically generate two to four times the economic multiplier benefit for their communities as do nonlocal businesses. As holiday season spending represents the largest chunk of revenue for retailers in a single year, a shift of just 10% of holiday spending toward locally owned businesses has the potential to create an impact of billions in economic activity in just two months. |
Local First Indiana Sustaining Member
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Local First Indiana
November Events
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Think Local First on Black Friday!
Check our facebook event page (link at bottom of this page) for more info as it comes in! These are not the only local businesses who are having Black Friday Events, so watch around town for more and ask your favorite local, independent stores if they are having Black Friday Events.
Barefoot Kids
615 W. Kirkwood
We will be having a big 'Black Friday' sale the day after Thanksgiving, Nov. 26 - BIG sales on toys plus in-store give-aways.
...Also we are planning a holiday in-store Bobbie Lancaster performance, DTBD.
Bikesmiths
112 S. College
Continuation of its annual $50,000 sale every Nov. 15. This sale runs from Nov. 15 through $50,000 of sales and always goes through Christmas (and typically into the first week of the new year).
Everything in our store is at least 10% off, some things more (including bikes, everything).
The Bishop
corner of 4th and Walnut, Fri., Nov. 26, 9pm $5, 18+
After you finish shopping, stop by the Bishop and relax with an old-time SQUARE DANCE w/ live music from JOE FULTON & FRIENDS and dance caller MICHAEL ISMERIO
Boxcar Books
408 E. 6th
Boxcar Books is closed on "black friday" in observance of "buy nothing day", a worldwide protest against over-consumption.
By Hand Gallery
101 W. Kirkwood, Suite #109
The day after Thanksgiving we will be open late for the tree lighting and will serve hot apple cider.
Shower's Bldg. 401 N. Morton, Nov. 26-27
Visit LFI Member Sadly Harmless and pick up some of her original calendars, coffee mugs or prints! See the above list to see other things often available at the Holiday Market.
Landlocked Music, Nov. 26-28
202 N. Walnut
Give the gift of music! Landlocked's Black Friday Celebration runs from Friday Nov. 26 - Sunday Nov. 28. Amazing limited edition releases made for independent retail ONLY from the likes of U2, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison, Iron & Wine, Black Keys, Drive By Truckers, Black Crowes, Cee Lo Green, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and many more. You simply cannot get these at the big box retailers. We will also be having an awesome sale unlike any we have ever done before on used CDs and LPs.
Here are the details: All $8 used CDs will be $5. All $3/$4 LPs will be $1. All dollar bin LPs will be 25 cents. Plus- TONS of bargain CDs at $1/each. All weekend long Nov 26-28th! Although you might just wanna grab that used item NOW before someone else leaps on it, too. There will also be tons of recent releases for $10 from now til Christmas. Come stock up!
Sole Sensations
414 S. College
Open 10-8 (extended hours) on Black Friday and will have all boots, Smartwool socks, and Haflinger slippers on sale 20% off.
For updates, check our website or find our event page on Facebook here:
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Upland Brewery Expands!
Local craft beer is flowing faster than ever in Indiana, and as the makers of "Indiana's Beer," Upland Brewing Co. is working hard to keep the taps from running dry. Case in point: a ninety ton crane towered over their Bloomington brewery on Tuesday, and a massive 150 barrel (4,650 gallon) bearer of beer brewing potential could be seen suspended in the sunlight from miles around.
"Gigantor," the new fermentation tank that was lowered into the Brewery, required a hole in the roof, so it could be dropped in with a crane. An extra layer of insulation was added in order to keep the temperature of the beer consistent. It is twice the size of any other tanks currently in service, and increases their total capacity by one-third.
Head brewer Caleb Staton says the idea was the result of "literally out-of-the-box thinking, and we have beer to thank for it. We were getting close to hitting the ceiling on our brewing capacity and wouldn't be able to make more of our year-around beers than we already were, let alone more of our seasonals and specialties. We were talking about it over a few beers, and someone joked that we should just knock out the ceiling. Everyone laughed, but a few seconds later we realized that it could actually work." Who says beer isn't a mind-expanding substance?
To give you some hard numbers, they estimate that they will sell 8,200 bbls (254,200 gallons) of beer in 2010 - a 36% increase from the 6,000 bbls sold in 2009. And 2009 sales weren't slack either, growing 20% from the 5,000 bbls sold in 2008. Where is all the beer going? About 2,000 bars, restaurants, liquor stores, and grocery stores in Indiana sell Upland beer, and another 250 out-of-state.
Though all of their markets (Indiana, Louisville, KY, and southeastern Wisconsin) have contributed to overall growth, the majority of it is coming from the Indianapolis metro area. Upland's president, Doug Dayhoff, says, "we owe a lot to the bars and retailers in central Indiana who have helped promote local beers and to the consumers who have begun to recognize that flavorful beer brewed by local companies is better than beer-soda brewed in multi-national factories and sold with advertising gimmicks. And I thank the stars every night for a great team that makes this growth look easy, which it's not."
Increased sales have also allowed them to create new jobs. They hired five people to work at the Tasting Room in 2009, and another five for the Bloomington location in 2010. Dayhoff says, "we're never going to be the type of company that single-handedly props up a town's economy by hiring five-hundred positions, but for a company our size, ten hires in a year-and-a-half is pretty significant."
Plans for the future include expansion of the brewery to give more room for equipment and storage. They hope to break ground in 2011.
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 The Local Growers Guild presents
The Bloomington Winter Farmers Market
Saturday mornings 9am -
12pm between December 4 and March 28**
Fresh produce, meat, and dairy products along with prepared foods, special events, and live music.
Visit http://www.localgrowers.org/wintermarket.html for more info!
For the first time this year, Bloomington residents will have continuous access to food grown by local farmers. As the Bloomington Community Farmers Market season winds down, the Local Growers Guild is kicking off its annual Bloomington Winter Farmers Market, which will be open on Saturday mornings between December 4 and March 28. Please help us spread the word about the extended season! Located in Harmony School at the intersection of 2nd and Woodlawn, the market will offer fresh produce, meat, and dairy products along with prepared foods, special events, and live music.
Available produce will include salad greens, kale, squash, mushrooms, herbs, potatoes and sweet potatoes, garlic, onions, chard, carrots, spinach, apples, and more. Farmers will offer locally raised beef, pork, chicken, and turkey, along with milk, yogurt, eggs, tofu, cheese, and breads. In addition to fresh foods, shoppers can purchase frozen vegetables, relishes, local grains, fresh flowers, fair trade coffee, seeds, organic soil amendments, and potted plants. There will also be a wide range of other farm products and holiday gifts, such as dried herbs, jam, kombucha, herbed vinegars, herbal teas, soaps and salves, fiber, wool, and wreaths.
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Local First Indiana Sustaining Members
click on the logos below to link to the webpages
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The Center for Sustainable Living is the Fiscal Sponsor for Local First Indiana
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New Local First Indiana Members!
click on the logos below to link to the web pages
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101 W. Kirkwood, Suite 321 812-333-9016
Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County
Founded by and for the people of our area in 1990. It is an independent public charity governed by a local 17-member board of Directors, and operated by a 5-person professional staff. Their mission is to improve the quality of life in Bloomington and Monroe County through permanent charitable funds, effective grants, and inclusive leadership.
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conduitpress.etsy.com
Conduit Press specializes
in handbound/handmade blank books and journals that range in size from pocket to scrapbook and in style from vintage to
modern.
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Join Local First Indiana!
Bloomington residents want to shop local and we aim to make that easier.
Benefits
(identifies your business as local and independent)
Marketing campaigns, such as poster campaigns, press releases, coupon promotions, interviews with local media.
Listing in our online directory
Twitter and Facebook postings about specials or special events happening in your business. We have over 700 followers on Facebook who will instantly see the postings.
Access to network of over 22,000 local, independent businesses throughout the U.S. through our affiliation with BALLE.
Newsletter
Prices
$10 a year per employee, min. $35, max. $350. Part-time employees count as half.
Sustaining Members
$500, $1,000, or $2,000
Sustaining Member Benefits: Promotion at Local First Events, on our website, and in our monthly newsletter. Size of logo or business name will correspond to size of contribution.
For more information about becoming a member, please visit our website here.
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Local First Indiana Steering Committee
Una Winterman, Founder
David Baas, Roadworthy Guitar and Amp
Dan Coleman, Spirit of '68 Promotions Rick Dietz, Stranger's Hill Farm
Jessika Hane, Oliver Winery
Darcy Harvey, Bloomingfoods
George Huntington, Stranger's Hill Farm, Bloomingfoods
Nate Jackson, Move University David Rollo, Stranger's Hill Farm, Bloomington City Coucil
Jaime Sweany, Wandering Turtle Art Gallery and Gifts
Martin Sorge, volunteer
Brian Winterman, Indiana University Libraries
Sheryl Woodhouse-Keese, Twisted Limb Paperworks
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