Country Women’s Assoc Doreen Community Market

Good Friday Appeal Market

When a market organiser decides to run a market on a day like Good Friday, they take a risk of resistance of the stallholders and the community, but the CWA Doreen Community Market has always had its fully fledged support from their stallholders and that is why the Good Friday Appeal Market turned out be so successful in its 2nd year running.

CWA Doreen is a community run organisation, a subsidiary of the larger Country Women’s Association of Victoria Inc. (Association) which is part of the largest women’s organisation in Australia.  It aims to improve conditions by community service more especially as they affect the welfare of women and children.

When we listed the Market under our fairs section of the website, we decided to take the opportunity to make it our market tour for the week.  Plus I wanted to meet one of our listed stallholders, Made By Elise, whom I have communicated with for almost a year but never met.  So I took the long drive from Rowville to Laurimar (only just over an hour), got lost on the way because I don’t like having a GPS but ended up using my phone GPS and arrived in the gorgeous estate of Laurimar.  It does look like the adverts they show on TV.

The roads were full of parked cars so I parked across a large lake and walked through the foot bridge with little ducks coming towards me thinking I have food for them.  I could see the activity from across the sports oval, so many people, so many stalls and jumping castles.  Wish I bought my little ones with me.

First stop was Cheeky Little Fox with her gorgeous little hair accessories.  They seem to be at quite a few markets that we list on our site, so I can see us bumping into each other again.  It is really nice to know that our social media shout outs work as a few of the stallholders at the market responded to a call our for stallholders at this market.

Next stop is a beautiful lady Janice from Senorita Bonita Children’s Clothing & Accessories with the cutest and most unique handcrafted plush horses.  Last year I bought all the little girls in my family Splatt Dolls but this year I will be buying the Plush Horses for them, they are just simply gorgeous.  Janice usually sells at school market nights and fetes but will also be at the Melbourne Showcase Market at the end of April.

I finally got to meet Elise from Made By Elise,  she was as lovely as ever, and I had a look at her newest creation which was a handmade flower girls’ bouquet.  What a perfect place to go for custom made bridal accessories.

There were some others that I knew from other markets such as The Calico Co with their handmade dolls, Artistic Blooms and Belle Lumiere with her handmade soy & palm wax candles.

Homegrown Harvest

Finally I met Homegrown Harvest with their small kitchen gardens.  They have a great business with design and maintenance of home, commercial and community kitchens.  But the best thing is Kirsten from Homegrown Harvest runs a Mernda and Doreen Produce Swap where the community trades surpluses of their food with other local gardeners.  What a fantastic community initiative.

I managed to enjoy a yummy cup of coffee with my little mascot the keep cup and also purchased some yummy biscuits for my little ones from the CWA Doreen stall.  The food vendors didn’t expect such a large crowd as many started to run out early.

We put a post up saying what a fantastic market it was the feedback from that post on facebook were from stallholders at the market who had really good days.

The Country Womens Assoc, Doreen holds their market on the 4th Sunday of the Month at the Laurimar Community Centre.  They are trying to negotiate a permanent spot for the market as there seems to be some resistance from the local traders for a community market.