Woolton Farmers Market

We rocked up at Woolton Farmers Market, Liverpool on Saturday with more arts and crafts stuff than you can shake a glue stick at. This is how the local community reacted.

Temperatures were just short of 30 degrees as the neat rows of white gazebos and tables began to form at 7am. To ensure we definitely got a spot and could put all our preparation work to good use, we were first in line for a pitch.

Gary, Craig and the guys from Liverpool City Council markets got us set up, and after almost falling at the first hurdle (turns out tape is banned on the gazebo poles!) our packing paper flowers, insects and all important ‘FREE ARTS AND CRAFTS’ sign, adorned our stall.

Within an hour two little girls were happily sticking Super Mario stickers on themselves, the table and their colouring sheets, while giving their mum a well earned five minute break from the heat. Shortly after another mum swung by with a little one in a buggy, and asked if she could just have a sticker. Needless to say she went home with 5 stickers and a colouring sheet for later on.

We’ve previously worked with LFC Foundation, Friends of Springfield Park, and Friends of Norris Green Park to produce similar community spaces. We realised how quickly kids just want to have a go. If you make the space, they’ll more than likely come.

Throughout the day a common question popped up. ‘What’s in this for you?’ Initially we had a different answer for each person but thought about it and narrowed it down to three things.

• We live locally and can walk with our materials to the farmers market site.

• We already have an abundance of arts and crafts materials, nothing was bought in.

• We have extensive experience of family time feeling challenging because there’s nothing for kids and young people that doesn’t carry a cost.

We made some small decisions which were appreciated by the grown ups. We reduced the size of our custom colouring sheets so that time at the stall was guided to 5-10 mins, rather than 20-30 mins for those little hands that like to colour every single inch of the paper.

We cut all the badge circles in advance to save impatient little ones from having to wait more than a minute to wear their designs. All our colouring pens are Crayola washables (obvs) and we encourage crayons for the teeny ones. We petted all the dogs and offered Bailey&Reilly postcards to anyone who wanted one.

Our trusty badge making machine went down a storm with one little girl running back to ask if she could pay to make ‘just one more badge, this time for my friend’. Obviously, there was no charge. She was delighted and made two more! All those original art works parading around Woolton Village on a glorious Saturday morning. Stuff of dreams.

From a 10 month old baby, to an 81 year old man, complete with walking stick and hearing aids, our ‘customers’ all brought an insight into how we create community. Our lovely octogenarian commented: ‘Just lovely this, seeing the little ones get creative, because everything is art really, isn’t it?’. He proceded to make himself a badge with grandad written on it.

Some kids are chatty, some are very quiet. Some have ALL the questions ‘how old are you?’ ‘Will you come to my school’ ‘Do you like my pink elephant’ amongst our favourites. Grown ups are the same. Some stopped to draw themselves on our community portrait boards, others watched over their kids offering oohs and ‘well dones’ for their colouring efforts, some looked at their phones, and we gave them all space to be.

At 2pm we packed up what we had left, having given as many coluring sheets and stickers away as humanly possible. 7 hours, 50 kids, one octogenarian and so many lovely conversations. Not a single transaction.

Speaking of numbers. It took 8 emails, 2 phone calls and a 5am alarm call for Liverpool City Council markets department to finally accept our application to ‘trade’, despite not selling anything. We paid for the stall and table hire, we sent them our insurance details and were told ‘if we can fit you in, we will, but actual traders get preference’.

Now, we accepted this because if you’re a baker or butcher or grocer or florist or similar, you have perishable stock, right? However, we weren’t asking for a freebie. We paid our way and took days creating and collating materials for the local community, and okay packing paper flowers don’t expire as such, but its still a lot of work.

We hope that following the hugely positive response to our community art and crafts stall, the city council might be less resistant to making space for young people within their regional markets.

Our biggest take-away from the day? Kids are inherently creative and hilarious. When you create a space for them, they really love it!

Thanks to our lovely friends who brought electrolytes and drinks to get us through the heat. Will we do a free arts and craft stall again? Yep, see you on the second Saturday in September for Woolton Farmers Market.