The idea to run a market as a permanent on-going income generating project was conceived in 1974. It took until 1976 to turn the idea into reality & it has been going strong and growing ever since. Here's how it happened.
Very little of the work done by Balwyn Rotary would have been possible without a strong income stream to support it. Our club has been incredibly fortunate to have had members with vision who conceived the potential value of a public market.
One of our members saw what the Rotary Club of Belconnen, in Canberra, were achieving with their Trash and Treasure market which commenced in 1974. Subsequently, several of our members visited Belconnen Rotary to study the operation of the market. As a result of this fact finding mission and after much debate, and with the wonderful cooperation of the Camberwell City Council, it was decided to establish a regular market in the carpark behind the Burke Rd shops. In August, 1976, the idea was put into action. The Rotary Sunday Market at Camberwell Junction was born.
Originally, it was called the "Browse-n-Buy Bazaar", and it started modestly of course, but it grew steadily and is still growing. The first one attracted 48 stalls (mainly club members) and 1696 visitors. Income that day was $531.13. Within 3 months, the number of stalls had grown to consistently over 100. These days there are 380 stall sites available and the market is virtually fully booked every week.
The market was, and still is hard work. It required staffing to manage the stalls and man the gates of course, but there was also fencing, clean-up, rubbish removal and other jobs to do. These were all done by club members. This meant a 4am start for the members on duty to get the market site ready for opening at 6am.
Trading then continued for 8 hours till 2pm when all the stalls were to be closed so the clean-up could commence. This took another hour and a half. Finally, we were able to stagger home at about 3.30pm after being busy and on our feet for 11½ hours.
We were able to manage this workload for many years but eventually, the number of stalls and visitors grew to a level where the work involved was more than we could cope with. To ease the workload, we contracted the Scouts to do the site clean-up. This provided them with much needed financial support.
Several years later and after more debate, it was decided to outsource the work of stall bookings, on-site stall management and site management. this enabled us to concentrate on gate management and helping the visitors.
Growth has continued and we are now sharing the staffing with several other Rotary clubs in the area. They in turn share some of the market income to utilize on their own charitable projects.
The first market brought in a modest total but the takings grew steadily to generate $24,226 for the first year. In 1978/79, the total income for the market went over $100,000. In the 1980/81 year, weekly takings exceeded $2000 per week.
This year (2007-8), the market is on track to raise $750,000, a record which will push our total funds generated over $8.5 million.
The amount allocated to projects up to the end of June 2007 was $7,755,562 and more money is being allocated to worthy projects during the current financial year.
