Autism Awareness Day, are you aware?

Monday 2^nd April is a very special day. Very special indeed for it is national Autism Awareness Day and this is celebrated throughout all of the world. It is a time to celebrate the stories and triumphs of people living with autism across the whole spectrum as well as creating awareness of everything that it means to be autistic and also on how YOU can help make a difference. One of the best ways you can do this is just to learn and understand which is one of the focal points of having this special event.

We are doing a local collection fundraising morning at our local Morrisons superstore so a huge thanks to them for allowing us to do this! Also on the 21^st April there is going to be an outdoor Tombola in Goole by the Junction Cinema/Market store raising money for this event so pop down and have a go! We have been saving some nice little prizes for this day and thanks to Goole council for allowing us to have this stall!

Recently lots of people are selling there bags of clothes to wholesalers and rogue business traders for small amounts of cash based upon weight, this is having a SERIOUS impact on charity shops and most definitely ours, stock donated over the door is swiftly falling in numbers and in no doubt related to this in some way. Please please I urge you to donate your clothes, bric a brac, DVDS, CD’s and anything else you can think of would be greatly appreciated in your local Autism Plus retail shop, please see the website for more information on how and where you can donate.

We also have a facebook page and a twitter page so become friends and follow! It makes the world go around, Happy Autism Awareness day!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2/4/12 be there.

Mona Lisa edit

We had an idea the other day. Well I had seen it in a high street retailer in York where they used an old painting in an easel and in bright pink paint painted over it with “spring stock NEW ARRIVALS” I thought it was brilliant. It was an old landscape scene with trees and sheep you know the normal.

Can I just add I in no way endorse graffiti but once on a trip to Rome whilst taking an evening stroll with a guide one of the other visitors pointed out the graffiti on the city walls and asked why they didn’t remove it, the guide simply replied in a swish Italian accent “We look at it as art”. Enough said.

But I wonder if Leonardo would object to someone sprawling “Free buns with every cuppa” across the Mona Lisa leant against a makeshift cafe outside the Louvre. Then again she has survived being shot at.

We had an old print in the shop in a tatty frame. We checked it for value etc plus it was damaged so we used some orange paint and painted in bright colours VINTAGE.

We have placed it on a shelf above our vintage clothes section - it does look very effective but has been met with mixed response and an occasional gasp but overall it’s positive.  I look at it as creativity and modern thinking and actually this sort of thing has been done for years I remember seeing an artist painting a scene in a very large flagship Topman store.

Vintage clothing as I have said before do generate a lot of interest and if you create a section dedicated to it you attract a whole new shopper without compromising the integrity of the rest of the shop.

I have been to vintage fares in the past and let me tell you there is a lot of money spent! The last time I went to one they had two 1950s pin up girls with a basket of candy floss and a DJ spinning vintage war time tracks mixed with contemporary dub step. Great atmosphere – not saying I am going to start blasting out dirty bass beats featuring the velvet tones of Vera Lynn belting “We’ll meet again” ....

I don’t think so Autism Plus shoppers you have been saved!

Second Hand Illness

Today I feel ill. I sometimes wonder if everything we get donated in is actually visible. What I mean by this is sometimes I think maybe people donate their germs. My immune system must be pretty stable and well stocked seeming as though I’m coming into contact with the public every day and their donated belongings.

We steam the clothes after hanging them to make them look presentable and I think it must release some allergens. I always get allergens, endorphins and dolphins mixed up I don’t know why as they are nothing alike.

I am definitely more sensitive to sprays and fragrances than I used to be but this is the same in any place you work, for example if you work in an office you are technically inhaling everyone’s recycled oxygen through the air conditioning unit. Same difference really you can’t hide from micro organisms, neither can you see them - they are sneaky devils!

Anyway onwards and upwards as my Gran used to say. We're not doing too bad here at the shop steady with fits and starts (another one of my Grans old sayings) we can be quiet and then it’s like a coach trip arrives.

The recent snow has had a funny effect on people they all seem hyper and incoherent, babbling wrecks muttering useless jargon everywhere I really don’t know what’s going on, is there something in the snow?

On the way to work a lorry had lost its load and caused massive delays, daredevil  1.2 Corsa drivers overtaking in freezing fog and people walking their dogs (without tartan check coats) at 6am - has the world gone mad? Admittedly I do like snow and have enjoyed walking in it, it just can be a pain travelling in it and I think that’s why I’m ill, I have exhausted myself by walking. 

It’s also been my birthday this week so I’ve had a lovely white snowy birthday I will not disclose my age as it is getting painful but let’s just say everyone here at the shop has been lovely and remembered and made real efforts with homemade cards and wine (not homemade shame I hear it’s very potent!!) and even some of our customers have brought in cards.

We sell quite a lot of craft, card making and textile books for bustling crafty fanatics and sometimes they bring in their creations for us to sell - for example a customer with disabilities makes us beautiful homemade cards to sell in our shop and they sell very well. It’s a real pleasure to be able to offer this service and sell them in our shops to make money for a great cause, a real endorphin moment!

Plug me In to 2012

Here at Autism Plus all the retail shops have been implemented with computers and the World Wide Web. It is proving very useful.

We can make our own posters, signs, keep spreadsheets of data and forms and do research on items for price checks etc. It’s all very modern but I must admit I quite liked the novelty of working in a place where this it could still be 1940 - well in the back anyway with a wireless.

I fear like anything else as soon as its modern it’s outdated and we can’t keep up. The main obstacle was finding a suitable place for this equipment as it is very sensitive and at home I’ve often found myself contemplating throwing mine through the window when it crashes and pops up with a blue screen of death. The situation is that it’s such a small premises there isn’t room to swing a cat without hurting someone or the cat, so it was a real challenge. Thankfully we were innovative and created a space and in doing so created an oasis of paperwork, files and pin boards.

It’s a real micro office now I can even sit down which is not sarcasm it is a real treat. But there was drama we couldn’t use the card machine at first as we weren’t supplied a splitter? Or something like that and our printer broke it started crunching and eating the paper it turned into a cannibal printer.

One of the guys from IT whizzed over on his motorbike with a printer in his POD and whipped it into shape. I’ve sent a number of emails now so I’m well and truly plugged in!

Return of the Blog

Belated and bloated Happy New Year!
Happy New Year and all that jazz!! I do like Jazz and the little Jazzies you can buy from the sweet shop up the road. It is very quaint and old fashioned with lots of vintage items on the shelves such as old weighing scales and what not. They often buy items from us for their displays, we are a real community shop!

But as we're in the spirit of new year and resolutions (probably most have been broken by now I just keep moving the goal posts of mine) then I’m resisting the ye olde fashioned sweet shop and thinking about, above and beyond my waist as I hardly recognise myself these days along with my ever changing hair colour, I remind myself of the “horse of a different colour” from the Wizard of Oz as I walk through a door my hair changes hair colour, seriously I do cause a stir when I dye it and it’s not even bright colours just alternates between blonde to dark brown as a rule.

Anyway I’m enrolling myself into a food diary keeping course which basically means I write everything down I eat so will be full pretty quickly. It is hard work mind, working in such close proximity to us: the oxygen is slowly replaced by air particles consisting of pastries and pasties.

Talking about smells one of the volunteers who I happen to work recently informed me she has lost her sense of smell and call still smell peoples breath but not things like sausage rolls and tulips (what an odd combination). This made me feel semi uncomfortable and self conscious as I had eaten a sausage roll and it was bloomin’ lovely and worried she may detect the smell of it on my breath and detect it that way?

The body is a funny thing and so are people, no wonder people study other people so much it must be a ongoing experiment socially, biologically and every other alley you can discover a lot about people by working here.

Like when people say in the shop when they pick something up they think would suit their friend and bellow out “Ooooh thats right up ya alley Bev!” where did that phrase come from and what does it mean being up someone’s alley!  I don’t know for sure.

I am now joined to the world of the twitterish and follow a group called “Random Useless Facts” which is pretty useful as I’m learning something because everything else I obviously know! Thanks for reading me oh and my other new year’s resolution is to learn French, bonjour et au revoir!!