{"id":17731,"date":"2017-07-05T16:39:28","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T20:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17731"},"modified":"2017-07-05T16:39:28","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T20:39:28","slug":"market-musings-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/market-musings-75\/","title":{"rendered":"MARKET MUSINGS"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jan Freedman
\n<\/strong>
\nWhat an absolutely wonderful Canada Day we had at the Farmers\u2019 Market last Saturday.
\nWhat you may not realize it that it was an historic day for us. That\u2019s because, since the return of the parade to Aurora, we have always participated in the parade as Canada Day has not fallen on a Saturday, until now.
\nSo, it was a new experience for us to have a Farmers\u2019 Market on Canada Day, and we didn\u2019t know what to expect. Would people come after the parade, or would they drift off to activities elsewhere?
\nWell, people came in droves after the parade and we were extremely busy amid a sea of red shirts. The sun was shining, everyone was smiling, until some of us began to run short of coffee and food. Now we know how to prepare for a Canada Day at the Market.
\nThank you to the good people behind the new Music Aurora who connected us with jazz musician, James Brown, whose trio brought us wonderful jazz sounds on Saturday. The picnic benches and stands were full of Aurorans enjoying the great music.
\nThe next new vendor to introduce is Marc Kolb of \u201cBrainy Games\u201d, a small Aurora business that creates games and puzzles. Marc has been making online games since he was introduced to computers in high school, beginning with a tic-tac-toe game using punch cards.
\nOver the years, Mark has created close to 100 computer games and now is making tabletop games and puzzles with his sons, Devon and Justin. These include educational games, personalized puzzles and web games as well as free \u201cPrint and Play\u201d word games for teachers.
\nAfter having a word game prototype sitting around for 10 years, last year Marc asked his family if he should publish it. The result was the Connections Card Game which began in March of 2016.
\nPrinted locally in Richmond Hill, this popular game has sold over 500 copies and was rated in the top 10 new games in the Hasbro Games Labs\u2019 2016 competition out of 462 entries worldwide.
\nHis wife, Denise, came up with the \u201cSecret Connections\u201d version where the key to winning is to understand your spouse better than he\/she understands you.
\nMark conducts his play testing with people of all ages, including \u201cBrain Fitness\u201d at the Oak Ridges Retirement Community as well as afterschool programmes. He finds new ideas and inspiration from the many and diverse people he meets.
\nRecently, he took a laser-cutting course and can now laser cut a variety of tabletop games and puzzles. These can be jigsaw or magnetic as well as any shape. There are some specialty items like wedding guest books and engagement surprises.
\nMarc has \u201cColour your Own\u201d puzzles and you can take any image and Marc can create a puzzle within a few days. His newest creation is a Canada 150 themed coaster puzzle where guests must put together their coasters in order to get a drink.
\nWith his recent Ontario 150 Grant, Marc is excited to launch his web-based historical scavenger hunt at the Market this month. You can uncover 150+ years of secrets hidden in plain sight. Watch for it and visit Marc\u2019s booth next to Gabriel in Town Park. He will be delighted to talk about his interesting creations and how they work.
\nNext Saturday, July 8, is a regular day for us but we\u2019ll be sharing the park with Kerry\u2019s Place and their annual Appreciation Day and Art in the Park coordinated as usual by Aurora artist Deborah Campo.
\nSee you at the Market!<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jan Freedman What an absolutely wonderful Canada Day we had at the Farmers\u2019 Market last Saturday. What you may not realize it that it was an historic day for us. That\u2019s because, since the return of the parade to Aurora, we have always participated in the parade as Canada Day has not fallen on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4BZ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-03 04:23:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}