This has been an enormously successful summer season for Bon Coeur thanks to several new, innovative and entertaining activities.
The shop is open all year long, five days a week, but this summer we decided to revive the practice of also staffing the shop during the evening markets that happen throughout July and August. Lots of villages in the area hold Soirées Gourmandes, and the Beauville markets are on Fridays. Every Friday evening rows of trestle-tables and chairs filled Place de la Mairie, with stalls selling locally-produced food lining the edges of the square; locals and holidaymakers sat out in the warm night air eating, drinking, chatting, enjoying the live music – and, this year, buying clothing and books and brocante from the shop. At times items almost seemed to be flying off the rails and shelves, with the shop’s takings increasing exponentially.
Another new development was an activity suggested by Julie Kollman, a recent volunteer. She proposed having a book stall at a Vide Grenier in Montaigu-de-Quercy and it proved to be pleasingly profitable. We shall certainly be doing more of that in the future.
In addition, various habitual summer events added to Bon Coeur funds: an Open Garden at John Massey’s house in Massels, an Expo d’Art at Moulin de Berdassot, and Beauville’s annual Brocante, where stallholders from far and wide start setting-up in the village at first light, and members of the public begin arriving not long after. On that day the shop stayed open way beyond its normal hours, and was busy all the time.
It has, of course, been a long and baking hot summer, but the Bon Coeur shop benefits from being in the shade of the arches that are all around Place de la Mairie, and more than one customer confessed that they were very happy to linger there buying things because it meant they were out of the sun!