• Home
  • Stories
    • News >
      • 2022 Local Government Elections
    • Learning & Literacy
    • Food, Farming & Fishing >
      • Recipe Collection
    • Culture & Heritage
    • Wellness
    • Environment
    • Opinions, letters and reflections
  • About Us
    • Donate
  • Jobs
    • Job Posting Submission Form
    • Job Postings
  • E-magazine
  • Calendar
  • Albert County
    • Community Directory
    • Churches
    • Living in Albert County
    • Our Villages
    • Attractions
  • Ads
  • Trails
Connecting Albert County

opinions, Letters, ​​and
​reflections
​

Happy New Year from The Old Church Farmers Market

20/12/2020

0 Comments

 
By Jim Kitts 

We are thrilled by the community support we received in 2020. It was a nerve-racking challenge pulling The Old Church Farmers Market forward with our friends and neighbours. Health concerns sidelined several of our customers and vendors, and halted our out-of-province tourist income altogether. Your support and purchases of our food, art and crafts saw us through and kept our doors open. Fundy Farms: local harvest and the Backyard Herbalist kept going after Thanksgiving even when the rest of us gave up, and I’m not wholly convinced they are out of the picture yet. They will have planted their new earth-battery greenhouse by the time you read this.
In 2020, the building’s owner provided us with a new roof, electrical panel and LED lights. We bought three large electric heaters with fans to keep you warm for the cold season and an industrial fan to cool you when it is hot (and to circulate the air as a COVID control measure). 

The Old Church Farmers Market is an autonomous collective. It is not organized to the point of being able to qualify for grants and, even if it were, we stubbornly want to pay our own way. However, it is becoming clear that our core members and our customers exist as an island of talent in an expanding lake of need. In 2020 (given all the new arrivals to the area), we referred people to all sorts of local services that you can imagine - everything from real estate transactions to children’s music. In the coming year, as we better understand the depth of talent of our members and associates, we may start partnering with other organizations to help connect the dots to help them reach their community goals. 

The fact that farmers’ markets were classified as an essential service by the province gave us the confidence to join in with the traditional Christmas in the Country festival. When our zone switched to orange, we lost about 20% of our vendors. Thankfully, we went back to yellow on the last day of the sale. The event was spread out across two weekends: four days to accommodate social distancing. Everyone was masked. Our COVID plan included the usual things plus we “blew out” the air in the building at the end of each day with our industrial blower to keep the air fresh. We were inspected by the troops. They particularly liked our sign asking visitors to keep apart by "one comfy market pig distance, that’s 24 pigs feet."  

And we had a little fun and drank too much locally roasted Buddha Bear coffee. It is amazing how you can recognize people by their eyes, hair and how they carry themselves. We saw such great masks. We had live music all four days. Fundy Ceilidh played two days. We were treated to a performance by Gareth Pearson (aka The Welsh Tornado), an awesome guitar player from Wales who happened to be stranded in our area. Also, “Jampan” played while masked children accompanied on the drum and danced.

​
Have a coffee (that’s a locally roasted coffee) and think of us during the New Year… we will be thinking of you. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Views from Albert County


    ​Connecting Albert County would like to thank the following supporters & advertisers:

    Platinum supporters
    - Bennett and Albert County Health Care (BACH) Foundation  
    ​- Albert County Pharmacy
    - CR Yardworks & Equipment
    ​​- Hon. Rob Moore, MP for Fundy Royal


    Gold supporters
    - CBDC Westmorland Albert 
    - ​Albert County Funeral Home​​
    - 
    Grass Roots Community Economic Development Cooperative

    Silver supporters
    - 
    Albert County Chamber of Commerce 
    - Crooked Creek Convenience 
    - East Coast Kids Child Care & Learning Centre
    ​ 
    - 
    Fireside Home Heating
    ​ 
    - 
    Foods of the Fundy Valley​
    - The Garden Guy (Micheal McBurnie) 
    - 
    Hon. Mike Holland, Minister, MLA-Albert 
    ​
    - 
    The Old Church Farmers' Market​
    - Village of Hillsborough
    - Village of Riverside-Albert

    Bronze supporters

    - Broadleaf Ranch ​
    - 
    ​Chipoudy Communities Revitalization Committee (CCRC)
    ​
    - 
    Cape Enrage Fundy Log Cabin
    - Falcon Ridge Inn B&B
    - Friends of Fundy  
    - Fundy Highlands Motel and Chalets
    - 
    Fundy Mud Pottery 

    - Jeff MacDougall, SouthEastern Mutual Insurance 
    -​ Village of Alma


    If you would like to support Connecting Albert County, visit our Advertising page or Donation page. With your support, we can continue to share the news of rural Albert County.

    Comments
    We welcome comments to our blog postings. Please provide your email address and name with your comment, and respect our content guidelines.

    Archives

    November 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    November 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015

    Categories

    All
    ACOA
    Albert County
    Albert County Chamber Of Commerce
    Albert County NB
    Alma
    Alma Celebration Days
    Bay Of Fundy
    Buy Local
    CCRC
    Chamber Of Commerce
    Childcare
    Childhood
    Children
    Chipoudy Communities Revitalization Committee
    Christmas
    Christmas Shopping
    Collage
    Community
    Community Collaboration
    Community Events
    Community Involvement
    Congratulations
    Construction
    Contribute
    Couchsurfing
    Crooked Creek
    Daycare
    Day Care
    Drivers
    East Coast Kids
    Economy
    Ecosystem
    Education
    Educators
    Elections NB
    Electoral Reform
    Environment
    Espresso Yourself Coffee Break
    Farmers Market
    Frontline Workers
    Fundy
    Fundy Park
    Fundy Shoreline
    Government
    Harvest
    Hillsborough
    History
    Home-made Candles
    Home-made Gifts
    Honourable Mike Holland
    Hopewell Rocks
    Hospitality
    Ideas
    Introduction
    Learning
    Local Service Districts
    Logging
    LSDs
    Marshes
    Memoir
    Moranda Van Geest
    Mystery
    NB
    New Brunswick
    New Coordinator
    Newsletter
    Nominations
    Nuts
    Open Letter
    Opinion
    Poetry
    Protected Area
    Public Library
    Rediscover Main Streets
    Response
    Riverside-Albert
    Riverview Lions Club
    Road
    Road Construction
    Rural Rides
    Salt Marsh
    Save Our Seed
    Seed Campaign
    Share
    Shepody
    Shepody Food Bank
    Shepody Mountain
    Single Member-Proportional Vote
    Southeast Regional Service Commission
    Spring
    Stories
    Submissions
    Summer Students
    Thank You
    The Old Church Farmers Market
    The Order Of New Brunswick
    Tourism
    Update
    Urban Drivers
    Vendors
    Volunteer
    Volunteers
    Warm Showers
    Waterside
    Welcome Committee
    Woodlots

    RSS Feed

CONTACT
ADVERTISING
CALENDAR
PUBLICATION

SiteLock
Copyright © Connecting Albert County, 2021 | Albert County, New Brunswick, Canada
  • Home
  • Stories
    • News >
      • 2022 Local Government Elections
    • Learning & Literacy
    • Food, Farming & Fishing >
      • Recipe Collection
    • Culture & Heritage
    • Wellness
    • Environment
    • Opinions, letters and reflections
  • About Us
    • Donate
  • Jobs
    • Job Posting Submission Form
    • Job Postings
  • E-magazine
  • Calendar
  • Albert County
    • Community Directory
    • Churches
    • Living in Albert County
    • Our Villages
    • Attractions
  • Ads
  • Trails