What a great market to celebrate the end of 2024! It's been a super fun year of these markets and they have gone from strength to strength with the baking competition being a favourite feature! We were lucky to have a warm, dry(ish) day for this one. The stall-holders did a great job creating a beautiful display of their wares and many wonderful people came through the doors and spent money on these locally made products, (keeping dollars in our community), and caught up with friends, family and other community members – hugs and smiles all around!
After the last market, we had enough money in the coffers to purchase an outside gazebo. The manufacturers reckon it’ll stand reasonably high winds although I don’t really want to put that to the test anytime soon! We put it up and the lovely couple running their stall – Pretzelation (selling freshly baked pretzels!), used it. Hopefully next time the weather will be fine and we’ll get more stall-holders outside – it’s such a sweet little area and I think we can get a great summertime vibe going on out there. If you have something that would work for selling outdoors and are willing to take a chance on the weather (I totally won’t hold you to it if the weather’s crappy – I too am a fair weather person!), please contact me. First in first served as to whether you get a space under the new gazebo!
The baking competition was a so fun – we had 10 entries (thanks so much to our chefs!) and it’s interesting how much variation there can be in a shortbread (which, I always thought, is made from essentially the same ingredients). As ever, it was fun to watch the people taste testing - such an important job! There was a clear winner – Jocelyn Williams, who came with a number of her lovely family members. I think she already knew that it would win as it’s her Nanny’s recipe, tried and tested over a number of generations, always with excellent feedback. Jocelyn did share that the secret was to have a 1:1 ratio wheat flour and corn flour. Good on you Jocelyn!
The raffle this time was won by Christine, who has recently moved to Riverton - congratulations! Such a great array of goodies in the basket as usual and the stall-holders are just so sweet because, during the course of the market, some of them kept coming and adding additional things, even though they’d already donated something at the start! Basically, the raffle prize is full of LOVE – handmade items created and given with love. Enjoy Christine and welcome to Riverton!
The next market falls on Sunday the 26th January. I’m excited to see what’s in store for us at that one. If you would like to have a stall please contact me. In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas and New Year... may the sun shine down upon us all (come on Southland)!!
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