Our 2013 Season Is Coming Together: Market Update

The snow may be flying and the temperatures may be still cold, but the daylight hours are getting longer and this weekend the time changes as we spring forward and lose that precious hour of sleep. That can only mean one thing: market season is around the corner and we are busy planning behind the scenes for our third successful market season. There are a few happenings to update you on...

We have moved!

The Southwest Edmonton Farmers' Market has successfully negotiated a move to a much better location! Still located in the Terwillegar Recreation Centre parking lot, we are now in the lot that is visible from 23rd Avenue, beneath the new animated sign, opposite from the Leger Bus Station. This location change should have a tremendous impact on attendance at the market... if people can see the market as they drive by, they will be more likely to pop in for a visit.

We are receiving many applications for the 2013 market season!

This year's market is looking to be a vibrant and exciting one filled with a wide variety of vendors and a number of special events and planned activities. This is the time of year when vendor applications are coming in to our market organizers. If you, or anyone you know, would like to be part of our 3rd season, go to our website at www.swefm.ca. There you will find application forms and a fee schedule. You can find the documents you need to be a vendor at our market under the "Get Involved" tab and a link called "Become a Vendor" (http://swefm.ca/become-a-vendor.html). You will need to download and fill out the forms there.



We are excited to welcome back many of our favourite vendors from last year! 

Look who's coming back:

AIG Produce Osoyoos (BC Fruit)
Dargatz Family Farm (Vegetables, Bedding Plants, Pickles)
Everything Cheese (Cheese Products)
Gourmet Girl Cookies (Cookie Dough, Packaged Cookies, Whoopie Pie)
Holden Colony (Vegetables)
Jenny's Gems (Jewellery)
Olive Me (Olives)
Orange Avocado (Jewellery)
Peter's Lake View Farms (Saskatoon Berries, Pie, Vegetables)
Prairie Mill (Bread)
Red Apple (BC Fruit)
Red Tractor Meats (Meat)
Riverbend Gardens (Vegetables, Bedding Plants, Vegetable Seedlings)
Simply Supper (Prepared Suppers)
Steve & Dan's (Vegetables & BC Fruit)
Sunworks Family Farm (veggies, meat, eggs)
Tea Garden (Tea Cup Bird Feeders)
Theo's Greek Kuzina (Prepared Greek Food)
The Butcher's Bus (Sausage, Perogies)
The Pink Kernel (mini donuts, cotton candy, theatre popcorn, Hawaiian Ice, freshly squeezed lemonade, novelty ice cream, bottled beverages, Yo yo balloons)
Three Muffin Tops Charms (Jewellery)
TR Greenhouse (Vegetables)

Stay tuned for the next update where I spill the beans on the exciting new vendors to our market. There are some wonderful surprises in store for you there!



Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/swefm.ca
Contributed by Sheri Hendsbee

What a Different World We Live In!

I had an opportunity this past week to attend the Edmonton Gift Show. Held at Northlands, it is a gigantic event where importers and wholesalers come and try to sell their stock to retailers (owners of independent businesses). It isn't open to the public, and it's not a place to buy individual items; rather, it's a place for local businesses to place their orders. [Believe it or not, many retailers were placing their Christmas orders there for next winter!] It was a very strange experience for me to wander the huge halls, looking at booth after booth of mass produced items.

I guess I should have known what to expect. Afterall, any business or company big enough to produce items for other stores and businesses to sell, and any company looking to expand beyond its own doors, was obviously going to be carrying factory or machine-made, mass-produced items. Now in fairness, there really were some unique items: for example, the Saskatchewan Craft Council sent a bevy of potters & an ironworker to the show, there was a local Edmonton artist who made blown glass necklace pendants, and there seemed to be some unique jewllery designs. But there was a lot of off-shore, made in China type of stuff. Even the "Made in Canada" Hall had the feel of off-shore tourist store kitsch (picture Banff themed sweatshirts and ball caps). For the most part, throughout the show, the vendors were offering up things that I had seen before, and honestly, I'm really not much of a shopper, but they were all very familiar. Nothing there was really all that unique or eye catching. And I was aghast, seeing all the wholesale prices of things throughout the show, at just how incredible the mark-up is on retail items!

I guess it helped me to realize what I knew in my heart already... I really value the creative process. The little guy. The handmade, one of a kind items that you can find with the artisans of farmers' markets. I love the amazingly creative people and the stories that go with these items. I like the sense of time, patience, love, creativity, insight & perspective that goes into making them. I like that they are not always perfect. Or, conversely, that they are so well made, with such finely wrought materials that no manufacturing process in a mass produced reality can possibly imitate them.

This is the world we live in when we regularly shop at farmers' markets. We encounter unique, well-made, original handicrafts and items. Take Sandra, the creative genius behind the Orange Avocado stall at our market, for example. If you read her Orange Avocado Blog, you'll see the care that she takes when crafting and designing her jewellery pieces. She writes:

It's pretty much black and white to me this year. Less is more. It has never been about mass production for me. Never been about a million new styles each year; although there are a million ideas in my head. It’s about making something from nothing.

And for me, it is about developing a relationship with an artisan. Understanding the work of art that you are purchasing. Getting a sense of the inspiration and the personality of the artist that lies behind the piece. Connecting with your purchase.

And if that is not enough for you... I always come back to the social imperative that often motivates me: support the local artist or farmer, cook or food producer at a local market and any profit that is made goes directly to that person. There is no importer or wholesaler; no middleman to take a cut of the profit. And because the artists and other vendors at our farmers' market are local, the money stays in our local economy, ultimately helping the community in which we live. In today's mass-market, globally-focussed economic model, shopping in local markets is an important stand to take.

Visit our website at http://www.swefm.ca
Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/swefm.ca
Contributed by Sheri Hendsbee