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Shipyards Night Market in North Vancouver
Roland Clarke of DTES Street Market visits the Shipyards Night Market in North Vancouver on Fri May 22, 2015
217th DTES Street Market in Vancouver
217th DTES Street Market and 32nd Street Market of 2014
Roland Clarke, Coordinator of the DTES Street Market says:
Another great sunny day.
The temperatures soared over 32 degrees.
This time, we were fully prepared with lots of freezies, icecream, and cold pop in our freezer and cooler.
It was a record day for selling… over $425 – which makes an all time Street Market record!!!
This Sunday was our Pride Market.
The pride parade was happening all over the West End, and some pride celebrations were visible at our market throughout the day.
It was also the third day with our new security guards.
The great beginnings progress is coming along amazingly.
We now have 3 large murals being painted, and offer 45 distinct jobs during Sunday (our old figure was between 28 and 30).
This week we added the positions of “Greeters”.
The greeters will stand at the entrances of the market to maintain our perimeter. They will have the opportunity to stop someone that wants to vend and is not a member of the market, and will also be able to call for help if there is trouble.
The greeter on the north end of the market was given a radio, since they will be quite separated from the main tent.
8 radios are now deployed at the market during Sunday
2 – with both RPICs
2 – with both coordinators
2 – with the new security guards
1 – with the Eidge liaison
1 – with the north end greeter
Our hope is to pick up a few more, but with only one channel, we are limited to about 10 radios without having too much cross talk.
Only a few incidents to mention – a couple was arguing and needed to be escorted out of the market, and our RPIC#2 became sick early in the day and needed to go home.
Here is a list of the 45 distinct jobs during the day
2 x coordinators (12 hours each)
4 x early morning cleanup (3 hours each)
2 x RPIC 1 and 2 in the morning (5 hours and 4 hours)
8 x tent crew (1 hour each)
3 x guards in the morning (3 hours each)
2 x marshals in the morning (4 hours each)
2 x greeters in the morning (2.5 hours each)
1 – eidge liaison
1 – media
2 x RPIC 1 and 2 in the afternoon (5 hours and 4 hours)
8 x tent crew (1 hour each)
3 x guards in the afternoon (3 hours each)
2 x marshals in the afternoon (4 hours each)
2 x greeters in the afternoon (2.5 hours each)
3 x cleanup in the afternoon (3 hours each)
For a total of 133 volunteer hours every Sunday.
This does not include the 16 hours of time from the BST trained security guards.
So, the grand total number of human-hours it takes to put on the market has jumped to 149!
This is such an amazing example of achievement for the Downtown Eastside and we are so proud of the volunteers each and every week.
Financial Report
1) 50/50 Raffle: $33.25
2) Tents/Tables: $112.85
3) Coffee/Pop Sales: $281.20
Total Revenue for the day: $427.30 (Huge all time record!!!)
Total spending for the week: $245.92
Petty Cash now = $840.26
Vendor/Market Summary
We counted 188 Vendors at noon. This was a great number. Hardly any incidents and good mood at the market the whole day.
Number of tents deployed = 24
Number of tables deployed = 13 x 5 foot tables, 12 x 10 foot tables, 42 x 4 foot tables
67 total tables deployed during our event.
197th DTES Street Market at Pigeon Park in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) on Sun Mar 16, 2014
197th DTES Street Market and 11th Street Market of 2014
Roland Clarke, Coordinator of the DTES Street Market says:The 197th Street Market at Pigeon Park on Sunday
Our 200th market day celebration will take place in only three more Sunday’s!!!
Light rain throughout the day, but not enough to chase away the vendors and the buyers.
Once again, we had access to power at Pigeon Park, and we had 10-12 people come and test their items throughout the day.
We also had two porta potties again at the park, and about 114 people used our bathrooms between 10am and 4pm.
We are beginning the conversation of how to improve operations if given just a little more money. If we had just two more people in the morning, a more extensive fence system could be set up that would control the area in terms of ingress and egress.
There are only 5 entrances and exits to the park at present. Our goal would be to put up enough fencing so that these areas are only 5-10 feet wide at the most. Then, guards could be posted at the five points and given clickers to count the people coming in and out. If someone was coming in with a large backpack or a shopping cart, they could be stopped and other volunteers could help them find a spot. This could serve as the beginning of a vendor check in system, and could improve the order of the market quite a bit.
In order to do this, we would need 2 more positions in the morning, paid $10 each, and then two shifts of 5 sentry positions paid a little more than the normal guards, at $15 each. This would total $170 of additional funds to pull this off. Over a year, this would amount to an additional $8,000 or so.
195th DTES Street Market at Pigeon Park in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) on Sun Mar 2, 2014
195th DTES Street Market and 9th Street Market of 2014
Roland Clarke, Coordinator of the DTES Street Market says:
This was the 195th market at Pigeon Park on Sunday, and it was a snowy and rainy one.
The morning was cold with snow flurries until the late morning. Around noon, the temperature warmed into the typical rainy Vancouver winter day.
We had over 20 tents to put up – thanks to our funder the Central City Foundation – and saved what would have normally been a disastrous day.
Lots of information was given out at the main tent. We had three new potential DNC board members sign the nomination forms.
We also had a guest group – ALIVE – Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement – giving our information and signing up new members. Our hope is that ALIVE will set up its own tent in the spring and maintain a permanent presence at the market.
There were just a few minor incidents of note.
In the morning, the VPD came and confiscated a huge bottle of vodka from the drinkers. This put a damper on their party and made them much easier to manage throughout the day.
A sign of more good things to come?
192nd DTES Street Market at Pigeon Park in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) on Sun Feb 9, 2014
192nd DTES Street Market and 6th Street Market of 2014
Roland Clarke, Coordinator of the DTES Street Market says:
This was the 192nd market at Pigeon Park on Sunday. We are always proud of this number because it represents the DTES Street Market as one of the longest running events in DTES history.
We had two porta potties this weekend!
Thank you, City of Vancouver!
By the end of the day, the first one was completely full and clogged like normal, but the second one was still usable. Progress!
It was again great weather for Vancouver in the winter. Cloudy, cold, but no rain.
We had no major incidents throughout the day, and most of the volunteers showed up as they promised.
The police interaction during the day was very positive. We had a visit from Mark Bradshaw, who was friendly and cracked some jokes as usual.
Later in the day, we asked two officers to help with the erratic couple that we frequently have problems with. The woman that likes smoking meth openly in the market fired one up in front of everyone. The volunteers tried to get her to be respectful of the families and children that may be walking by, but she just denied it and argued with the volunteers. The police were flagged down and helped us move them out of the market. The police were helpful and just stood around while the couple packed up, and therefore assisted the volunteers immensely. The couple were told that they could come back to the market next week, but had to leave today. They left peacefully. Hopefully this is a new era of cooperation between the VPD and the DTES Street Market!
We also had a celebrity visit from MaryClare Zak from the City of Vancouver. She wandered around the market and spoke to a few of our volunteers. She had nice things to say, and I hope that it showed how proud the volunteers were of their work.
DJ did outreach for the DNC at the market, and polled a number of vendors on their opinions of the DTES LAP process. She will present these findings at our next board meeting.
We had good sales again. Sold out of Coffee and Hot Chocolate at about 1:30pm.
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