Village Market Celebrates First Birthday

Amazingly, when our next Ruddington Village Market takes place this February, it will be marking one year since its launch!

Hosted by The White Horse Inn, in partnership with the now award-winning Ruddington Village Centre Partnership (RVCP) team, the event has since firmly established itself on many people’s lists of essential things do in the area each month. Organisers gave themselves a well deserved rest this January – to prepare for the big, first birthday market on Saturday February 1st 2020.

We’re promised music, entertainment, prizes and birthday specials in addition to all the usual market favourites such as fruit & veg, bread, meat, cheese, eggs, pies, spices, brownies, craft stalls and much more. The full list of stalls and attractions is below:

RVCP itself will be the ‘charity’ stall at this market – with a raffle featuring prizes donated by local businesses – plus “guess the weight of the cake” – from which all the proceeds go into the kitty for future projects.

Former Ruddington Parish Councillor Sue Matthews is taking over from Stella Dickie as Project Manager for Ruddington Village Market in 2020: “I’ve been involved with RVM since it began a year ago, helping to sell fruit and veg initially and joined RVCP later in the year as liaison to Parish Council” explains Sue. “I was delighted to be asked to continue Stella’s excellent work finding and booking traders, which is something I have past experience in. 2020 will be an exciting year for RVM, building on the strong support from regular traders, we will continue to look to add exciting new traders to compliment existing market and village traders and offer a great choice to growing number of visitors.”

RVCP founder member, Mark Pinks, adds: “It feels like a lifetime ago that we first started thinking about setting up a market – way back in September 2018, but from that first market in February last year, on sunny days and rainy days, and right through to Christmas, the feedback from visitors and stall holders has been amazing. We’re really excited for our second year, with lots of plans for new features and stalls!”

RVCP’s Stella Dickie and Andy Hunt of the White Horse officially opening the inaugural Ruddington Village Market on 2nd February 2019

White Horse landlord Andy Hunt had been thinking about using his premises for a Farmers’ Market for quite some time before being approached by RVCP: “It’s way exceeded anything I would have been able to organise on my own” admits Andy. “With the help of Stella and the RVCP committee it’s been fabulous, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them. The market is a village enterprise for the people, and to help other retailers, and we’re just glad that The White Horse can facilitate it. Thank you to everyone who’s come out and supported it.”

RVCP Chair Mike Ader adds: “2019 has been a great year for the village. I couldn’t have hoped for a better start for the Ruddington Village Market, Makers’ Night and other initiatives that RVCP has initiated. It has been tremendous working with all on the steering group – what a wonderful team! It all bodes tremendously well for 2020.”

The first birthday Ruddington Village Market takes place on Saturday 1st February 2020, from 9.00am until 12.30pm, at The White Horse Inn on Church Street.

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