NABMA Regional Meetings

The NABMA regional meetings are a great opportunity for market managers to keep up to date between conferences with what is happening in the industry and to network with other industry professionals.  Six have been scheduled and Llanelli (19th May) & Bridport (24th May) are the last two. At the time of going to press places were still available.

I managed to squeeze in a visit to the London meeting, hosted by Camden Markets and held at The Swiss Cottage Library. Topics covered included: LYLM update, The London Markets Board and Understanding London Markets report and NMTF’s Youth Market scheme.

NABMA Chief Executive, Graham Wilson explained how, along with NMTF’s Joe Harrison, they were looking at the possibility of introducing an accreditation scheme for markets, as part of a benchmarking exercise. He asked those assembled for their feedback and the response was positively in the scheme’s favour. I think this is an excellent idea, which will help to raise the profile of the industry and further increase quality standards across the board. This is in its infancy and I will be reporting on this in more depth as it develops.

The inspiring presentation of the day was from two representatives from the New Horizons Partnership, based in Euston. They work with young homeless and ex-offenders aged between 18-24, offering a pre-employment training programme on a crepe stall that they run at Camden’s Somers Town market. This will be the subject of a future article in MTN, but suffice to say, their redevelopment programme and passion is to be commended.