A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR MARKET PLACE AND ITS FOUNDERS – JAN GLOVER AND SONYA ENKELMANN...

Jan Glover and Sonya Enkelmann are two busy mums living in Hobart. After meeting at a mother’s group and becoming good friends, Jan asked Sonya if she’d be interested in starting a business... and after a lot of discussions, pondering and wondering, we decided to take the plunge.

We are really proud to have developed Your Market Place using a business model which provides benefits to so many groups: people buying and selling second hand goods; local charities, schools and not-for-profit organisations; and local businesses. We believe that we must have healthy and thriving local businesses and community organisations to have a healthy and thriving society. We are thrilled to be making a positive contribution.

Your Market Place started out of desire for a better way to recycle all the clothes, bikes, instruments and ‘stuff’ that you accumulate when you have kids. This idea evolved into a second hand classifieds fundraising program for local schools and charities, and after testing the concept with some of the local schools, we realised that this could work.

We decided to include the second hand classifieds with other services that added value to our families lives by saving them time and effort, but gave them greater choice. We wanted to connect people to our small local businesses – people often want to shop locally but find it hard because they either don’t know what is out there or it is too hard to do the rounds of the butcher, the bakery, the fruit and veg shop, let alone anywhere else. We decided to make it as easy as possible to buy from our local shops and use the latest technology as the means to do it.

Your Market Place was born.

Jan is a midwife by training and has a large family with husband Dave. She is the creator/innovator of the relationship and has found an outlet for all her brilliant ideas! Sonya, with her two children and husband Andrew, has enjoyed the adventure of starting a business from scratch. Working with businesses as a public servant provided a sound basis for a lot of the background work, but it has also been a steep learning curve. We are both loving the challenge of being in business.

We’ve also been incredibly fortunate to have met two (endlessly) patient and talented people, who form an essential part of our team: Anita Wanless from Stream Art Design, and Graham Brown from MediaRare. This idea would not have taken off if it wasn’t for them. We are constantly amazed at the advice and solutions they have presented to us.

Your Market Place launched its first market place, the Hobart and Southern Region, on 2 June 2011. The rest of the State will be launched later in the year, with plans to expand interstate shortly thereafter.