Wednesday. Hiroko Price, Sue Singleton, Ellie Russell, Heide Stone and Bec Wyllie
discussed the plans and direction that this year’s markets will take.
The Cobar Market Day committee is planning a busy calendar for the year ahead with some fresh faces suggesting new ideas at a meeting last Wednesday at the Cobar Bowling & Golf Club.
Committee member Ellie Russell said at the moment they don’t have a full executive (apart from Joy Martin who put her hand up to be president and Sue Singleton who declared an interest to fill the role of vice president) however they do have some enthusiastic new people who are keen to make the local market days bigger and better in 2016.
Ms Russell said the committee is in a trial period and a number of members from the previous committee are assisting them to organise the first market day for the year in March.
“We have general committee members that are looking to assist with the first market day before they put their hands up for any official positions,” she said.
“There are lots of new ideas floating around but mainly we want to get back to the idea of a retail and producers market.
“We want to try and encourage local producers to attend to sell their home grown foods, or handmade foods rather than the markets being just another retail market day.
“We all agreed we’d love to move forward with the idea of a farmers’ market-style as there are some amazing and talented locals who grow and make wonderful foods, preserves, jams and plants which is among other things that we’d love to encourage back to the markets.”
Ms Russell said the committee had a focus on encouraging a wider range of market stalls to also include florists, wood crafters, food makers and bakers among others.
“We plan to promote the event locally predominantly, as of course this is a local event but we are also encouraging some surrounding towns to attend as well to offer an even larger variety of goods and create an even bigger event each time.
“We’ve already had some good interest from people in Bourke, Dubbo and surrounds,” Ms Russell said.
The committee would also like to make the market days a bit more of an ‘event’ offering music and entertainment to encourage people to make a visit to the markets a family day out rather than people just browsing and leaving.
She said the dates for future market days were discussed at last week’s meeting and the dates selected have been organised to avoid clashing with other local events such as Cobar Public School’s Spring Fair and the St John’s School Bazaar.
“We’d love to encourage anybody who is interested in getting involved, or even just interested to hear our ideas, to come along to our next meeting.
“There’s no obligation to join the committee, we’d just love some local input or ideas,” Ms Russell said.
