New West Farmers Market

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Calling All Photographers

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We frequently get compliments on the lovely images we’ve used  in our materials and on our site – did you know that all of them (as in every! single! one!) are images that volunteer photographers, both professional and amateur, have taken and given us the liberty of using? We feel really lucky because so many people find inspiration for nice photos at the market and we are always delighted when a new email, tweet, or search results in seeing new and pretty pictures – especially if it’s viewing the market in a way we hadn’t considered before. If pictures say a thousand words, we love what you are saying about us.

Here are two images we found recently from Flickr member hudsonny that really float our boat because they are depictions of the market the way we want to be seen – a community gathering place with producers and shoppers who care.

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We’re always on the lookout for some new luscious food and market images to use, and 2011 is the year we’ll be working to expand our library. Want to help? Come to the market (winter and summer!), shoot some angles of the market you’re seeing, and tell us about it in one of the following ways:

  • Upload to flickr with the tag “rcfm2011” (and feel free to add it to our group)
  • Tweet it (Make sure you @nwfarmers and use the hashtag #rcfm2011)
  • Email us at marketmanager at rcfm dot ca (we’ll upload it and tweet it ourselves)

With your permission, we’d like to have a copy of the photo in our library for use in our promotional materials and website. You’ll get a special limited edition RCFM button proclaiming you an official volunteer photographer, and better yet, you’ll be entered to win a super duper prize package, which we’ll be drawing at our last market in the Summer 2011 season – October 6th.

What’s in the prize package? I’m glad you asked! UPDATED March 2nd 2011

  • A private tasting for 4 to our favourite local New Westminster winery Pacific Breeze Winery, valued at $100
  • Tea for two every month for a year at Great Wall Tea Co, located in River Market, valued at $72
  • Two annual subscriptions to Edible Vancouver Magazine: be greedy and have two years all for yourself, or be generous and have one for yourself and one for a lucky friend!, valued at $62.72

Check back as we establish other goodies in the prize bag.

A huge thank you to the sponsors who have donated their goods to the contest! Please check out these great local businesses:

Green Zebra Guide

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We are very excited to have been supplied with a Green Zebra Guide to give away to one lucky market shopper at the upcoming March 12th market. The Green Zebra Guide is part coupon book and part buyer’s resource guide and the whole thing is actually published by TB Vets Charitable Foundation – you know, the keytag people who raise money for hospitals in BC. Here’s what they tell us about the Guide:

“You can enjoy local savings for sustainable living with 2011 Green Zebra guide.  Discover the best of the Lower Mainland with thousands of dollars in savings at local, community-minded restaurants & markets, spas, yoga studios, ecoapparel boutiques, bike shops, family outings, theatres, and more!  Sprinkled through the stylish book are practical tips and fun ideas for all aspects of a sustainable lifestyle.  It’s easy to change your stripes…with Green Zebra!”

To enter, simply fill out a ticket at the info desk in the lobby of the market on March 12th with your contact info. We aren’t collecting your info – all leftover tickets are destroyed after each market. You can also sign up for our email newsletter at the market (or sign up online right here through My Markets News!) We’ll send you an email before each market event.

Check out Green Zebra Guide online and explore what the guide offers.

Nutrition Coupon Program for 2011

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Coupons from the 2009 program

RCFM is thrilled to be able to announce that we are funding the Nutrition Coupon Program for the 2011 Summer Season thanks to a City Partnership Grant from the City of New Westminster and working with our friends at The Hospitality Project out of Shiloh Sixth Avenue United Church. This program provides 50 families with $15 in coupons to be spent on fresh produce, meat, dairy, eggs, seafood, unprocessed nuts, bread, and honey at the market, as well as a skill building and educational component for the participants so they can learn how to utilize all of the amazing foods available to us here in beautiful British Columbia.

The provincial government funded this program on a provincial level with the BC Association of Farmers Markets in the 2009 season, and RCFM was grateful to be selected as a participant market, but sadly, the funding was cut with only a few weeks to go before we started in 2010. We were not able to fund it ourselves in 2010 and so the program lay dormant last year.

But 2011 is a new year! We are very grateful the City of New Westminster approved our funding application and can’t wait for this program to begin. If you’re interested in helping the program to share your food knowledge with program participants, or can help us secure funding for future years, we’d love to hear from you. Please email us at info@newwestfarmers.ca

Also: Check out the recent article in the Record or listen to the News 1130 interview with RCFM’s Jen Arbo about the 2011 Nutrition Coupon Program.

Seeking Community Groups for Summer 2011

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As part of our mission to support all of our community, RCFM allocates one space to a community group at every market. The space is offered free of charge, and includes the use of a table, two chairs, and a tent. We encourage groups from New Westminster to apply and give preference to groups working with food security, environmental concerns and health issues. For our complete guidelines and application form, please check out the community group page. We are now accepting applications from community groups for the Summer 2011 season. We encourage you to apply early – the spots fill up fast.

By Jamila
Family Place at RCFM

From the Mailbag- Why Thursdays from 3-7?

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We often get asked why our market is on Thursdays from 3-7. We know many of you work full time in traditional Monday to Friday jobs, and we understand that some weeks it is probably a stretch to make it to the market before it closes at 7. But there’s a lot of thought that went into choosing Thursday as our market day and 3-7 as our hours, and we wanted to share with you how that came to be!

In 2007 when planning was first started by community members interested in bringing a farmers market to New Westminster, they did what all smart folks should do, and they did a bit of research first. Who else was running markets? Where were they? What days and times were they on? It was important to know what was going on in other communities.

The density of the Lower Mainland means that most vendors don’t just do one market – they try and schedule many markets to maximize their time and find the best outlets for their products – but they can’t be in two places at once. Because our friends at established, longer running markets such as Haney, Abbotsford, Coquitlam, and Vancouver were all on weekends,  our founders knew it would be hard to find great quality vendors with a good list of followers if RCFM tried to compete with the already busy weekend market crowd. The same year RCFM started, other markets were in the works too and they were doing their homework as well. And thus, the mid-week market was born. It was the only way to start a vibrant, well balanced market.

RCFM founding organizers also knew they couldn’t please everyone with their time of day, and picked 3-7 to try and cater to as many demographics as possible: the kids and after school, the commuters heading home, the retired folks, and the vendors, too. We’ve been asked more than once if we’d consider staying open later than 7 – even for part of the season – but if you’ve been to the market in the later part of the season, you know it’s already dark at 7 and our vendors come from places that can be up to a two hour drive. They need to get home early as possible to prepare for their busy days ahead and get some rest. We also didn’t want to have different hours within the same season – we thought it would be easy to forget that the market is open later for part of the season. It would be confusing to a lot of people who already have busy schedules.

The market opens for the summer 2011 season June 9th 2011 and runs Thursdays from 3-7. You can still catch us at the winter market March 12 and April 9th from 10-2 at Holy Trinity Cathedral.

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Land Acknowledgement

Our market is grateful to operate on the unceded land of the Qayqayt, Kwikwetlem, and other Halkomelem speaking Peoples. We acknowledge that colonialism has made invisible their histories and connections to the land. We acknowledge the incredible gift this land is to our market and BC Agriculture. We commit to the ongoing work of decolonization and allyship.