Relationships between the people who co-operate to run the Friday Country Market seem to be a little strained at the moment.
First, there was the split that resulted in the Friday Country Market moving from June 13th from the market hall to the English Presbyterian school room 'neath the main church. This followed the Country Market falling out with the Indoor Market over use of the market hall, the home of the Friday Country Market for 32 years. The Indoor Market manager Mrs Shaw wanted to start operating each Friday, a busy day in Rhuthun/Ruthin, but couldn't, because of the Country Market. So, Mrs Shaw gave notice to the Friday Country Market. The Country Market felt that the Indoor Market's manager bullied them out, with one of the senior Country Market stallholders calling the Indoor Market organiser "odious". The Indoor Market now opens Wednesdays to Saturdays inclusive.
Under the guise of a merger, Mrs Shaw's preferred solution was to take over the Friday Country Market making weekly space within for the already shrunken Friday County Market but obviously hateful relationships were not conducive to this, hence the Country Market's move. But there were more issues:
Then, in November, some within the Friday Country Market felt that the way in which they organised themselves needed up-dating. Chairman Mrs Howe supported a new approach for customers to pay each stallholder individually for goods rather than keeping the established centralised pay system. Outvoted longstanding treasurer Mrs Thackeray, a proponent of the old school approach, decided to leave. Her health wasn't so good, in any case.
Now, there appears a fresh twist. Mrs Howe is herself to leave the Friday Country Market and, get this, set up stall with rivals in the Indoor Market, competitors a few months ago with whom neither she nor her fellow stallholders could work.
The backdrop is one of decline. Remember the queues for years outside the Friday Country Market, then called the W.I. Market? Believe it or not, takings diminished with the coming in 2006 of Tesco to Rhuthun. Yes, it seems hard to believe, given the specialist nature of the Friday Country Market, but it's absolutely true. Eight years after Tesco and the Friday Country Market has contracted considerably compared to what it was.
Mrs Howe felt that the Friday Country Market should break with tradition and open on Fridays in January 2015. It is usually closed during January. But, on the Friday Country Market before Christmas, customers learnt of a change of heart. It will now be closed and, as a result, Mrs Howe is to leave. Given its precarious position, changes of management and competition from the Indoor Market, can the Friday Country Market really afford to be so choosey?
There is something of an undercurrent that sees the Friday Country Market as unable to modernise. Stallholders have left over the previous eight years and when you add the current difficulties, in reality, the prognosis for the Friday Country Market seems to be heading from contraction to collapse.
Under the guise of a merger, Mrs Shaw's preferred solution was to take over the Friday Country Market making weekly space within for the already shrunken Friday County Market but obviously hateful relationships were not conducive to this, hence the Country Market's move. But there were more issues:
- The Indoor Market has progressively attracted stalls that now compete with the Friday Country Market and the the two were incompatible.
- And an amalgamation of the two would result in a loss of the homemade/home grown unique selling point of the Friday Country Market: the indoor market if it sells homemade products at all is limited in this regard.
Another Free Press Howe-ler: it's Mrs Howe, not Mrs Howie
Now, there appears a fresh twist. Mrs Howe is herself to leave the Friday Country Market and, get this, set up stall with rivals in the Indoor Market, competitors a few months ago with whom neither she nor her fellow stallholders could work.
The backdrop is one of decline. Remember the queues for years outside the Friday Country Market, then called the W.I. Market? Believe it or not, takings diminished with the coming in 2006 of Tesco to Rhuthun. Yes, it seems hard to believe, given the specialist nature of the Friday Country Market, but it's absolutely true. Eight years after Tesco and the Friday Country Market has contracted considerably compared to what it was.
There is something of an undercurrent that sees the Friday Country Market as unable to modernise. Stallholders have left over the previous eight years and when you add the current difficulties, in reality, the prognosis for the Friday Country Market seems to be heading from contraction to collapse.