June 26 2016
Where have I been. I think the whole market thing distracted me. Not impressed at all and only yesterday I noticed that the same man is approaching sellers and still offering some sort of market thing. Has the main got no shame. Really upsets me. It has taken me over 4 years to build the reputation it has and he appears and wants to just grab people from the Car Boot. The morality of some people is just wrong. I have seen this a lot lately and I think i've moaned about this before in this blog. My partner spent ages choosing twhere to open her shop and picked a place where there were no competitors and nothing similar. Suddenly, everyone sees something that is going well and decides to copy the idea. I was brought up in Essex and in Essex people would maybe copy an idea but look to operate the same idea in a place where it would also be the only place offering that. In Suffolk people seem to copy the idea and then run it at the same venue. Obviously, it's upsetting that it's allowed by the owners but, I woudn't have the cheek to do something like that.
Naturally, that brings me back to the market chap. his market has upset everyone at Stonham and it just won't work so, I have no idea what he is trying next but, it won't work at Stonham because you have shops that will always be upset with people offering the same services as them. Running the Car Boot has been restricted because of the various things I am not allowed to have selling at the Car Boot. I have slowly and carefully kept everyone on my side with this but, we would be far bigger if we could allow plant sellers freely into Stonham.
One thing I have been asked to do is to run a midweek Car Boot at Stonham. I've been reluctant to in the past but, have started to look at possibly running one on a Tuesday as Stonham is starting to orgaise more and more activities to attract people to Stonham. The next thing is coach tours and with this growing we can expect a much larger instant crowd at Stonham. This added to the campers and holiday home people we have the start of a crowd. Added to this the fact that there isn't any local Car Boots on a Tuesday we could be able to generate enough interest for a Tuesday Car Boot. Let me know any thoughts you may have.
Last Sunday was possibly the worst we have had this year as we have been really lucky with the weather. Sadly, despite all the covered stalls being booked for possibly 8 in a row weeks the forecast of great weather on Sunday didn't materialise. Instead we had on off rain followed by huge downpours and huge puddles. Amazingly we didn't have anyone stuck on the field. Either way, we opened and atempted a Car Boot. We did the best we could but so many were put off of coming out in the on off rain. This has been the first week it has been so quiet but, I expect most other Car Boots didn't open or closely very early.