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.
