Street Market Report - May 4th, 2014 - May the fourth be with you

It was a rainy spring day.

Our 204th market at Pigeon Park on Sunday.
In less than a month, we will be celebrating a full 4 years at Pigeon Park.

The rain limited the number of vendors early in the morning, and made the set up phase quite a bit easier. No one likes working in the rain, but it was not too cold, so not many volunteers complained.

This market was the eve of Cinco de Mayo, and we took the opportunity to play some Latin American music - Mana, Gypsy Kings, and more.

Cinco de Mayo is a celebration to mark the anniversary of the battle of Puebla in 1862 when a Mexican Nationalist force of 4,500 men under the leadership of  Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín defeated a much larger French army (over 8,000 men). The French army at the time was considered the most professional in the world.

It took many years after the battle of Puebla for the French to finally withdraw from their Mexican colony, but after this date, no other European power attempted to establish a colony in the Americas. 

This was our Cinco de Mayo market.

This was also the Star Wars market.

The first Star Wars movie was a story of a small, ill equipped band of rebels who defeated a much larger imperial force....  OK I'll stop. I hope everyone appreciates my sense of humor... ha ha ha


Other events did happen that day, besides the triumphant fact that a market occurred at Pigeon Park on Sunday.

At about noon we had some trouble with an old Chinese man that was selling cigarettes. We eventually convinced him to leave the market area.

We also had another incident with Dean and Sheri - some volunteers caught them selling alcohol and told them to leave. It is getting to the point that we may want to consider banning them for a while.

Constance Barnes stopped by. We took a selfie and talked about the market. She said that she would do what she could to support us in finding an acceptable solution.

I walked around and handed out postcards for the Hastings Crossing Tool Share Library.
This is a great joint initiative by the Street Market and the Hastings Crossing BIA. 62 East Hastings will hold a set of tools, and local businesses will be able to borrow the tools for free for a few days. We have a gas pressure washer, two leaf blowers, lots of shovels and rakes and assorted power tools. It is totally awesome.

John and Lee - the managers of the Nelson and Seagull told me that they were quite exited about a tool share library in the neighbourhood and had a number of tools that they no longer needed that they could donate to the cause. Great news.

Hanise and Liz - at the Thrift Shoppe said that they loved the idea.

Scott Clark, Dima Ansari, and Hendrik Hoekema came by. We took a selfie as well.

No major issues with the VPD today. We had one arrest outside the market fence, and none of the volunteers said that they saw anything untoward about the interaction.

We gained a lot of empty garbage bins from United We Can at the end of the day. These will come in handy as planters or just general containers for 62.

We also picked up a bunch of trees from Home Depot and Nestors. Awesome...

Financial Report 

1) Table/Tent Rental = $121.00
2) Coffee/Pop Sales = $55.00
3) 50/50 Raffle = $26.75

Total revenue = $202.75
Total spending for the week = $406.14
Petty cash now = $244.95

Vendor and Customer Report

80 vendors counted at noon
Average number of customers through one the main entrance was counted at 20.5 per minute, This leads to an estimate of roughly 6,125 customers over the course of a five hour period.

57 kids under 12 were counted
18 dogs walked through the market

Many families were seen today.

Over 20 people used our power to test items
This was the first day that we ran an additional cord over to our regular vendor, Rod. He uses music to sooth the illicit drinkers that congregate in the park.