The Kings Ring

Well not long to the first Noel, a few months and it will all be over. I’ve started already on my shopping. I found a cute shop local to me selling little knick knacks and vintage inspired gifts and I’ve made a start there a bloomin good start. Can I point you in the direction of http://www.collardmanson.com while I remember it is actually my favourite shop and the reason why I’m promoting it on here is many things they stock are similar to some items we receive over the door that are not in any way associated with our charity (although they are welcome to donate if they wished, what a dream that would be for our customers). When I say similar what I mean is I had a wander in their Meadowhall stall as you do, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by its magical pull they stock lots of bespoke items such as candle holders, candle sticks, glass wear, clothing, textiles etc and its inspiring because we could display and market some of our items in a more creative way (I touched on this in the last blog) and it’s amazing that some of the things on offer in stores like this are “one off” vintage inspired items where as we on the other hand sometimes have very old or unwanted bric a brac and ornaments which would fit nice in the right setting, the world is changing and people need to see the potential in recycling and looking at things in another way. I’ve picked part of their vision “We only stock what we believe in”   which is a great line don’t you think?

A little bit like us as a manager we have to “cherry pick” the stock and offer our customers good value and good choice that we believe to be true. Charity shops have the potential to be whatever they want to be as long as they have the right attitude.

Footnotes

“The Kings Ring” note: the king of Jerusalem/First Noel, Reference to William and Kates Marriage when the ring nearly didn’t fit, our silver ring, a kings ring where people battle out their differences, conflict between people”

The case of the missing febreeze plug in

The other day I went into work after my day off and the shop didn’t have its usual lovely ocean breeze smell. Hmm I thought suspicious, so I looked down at the plug socket which was discreetly covered by a large cardboard box full of knitting patterns and I pulled it away to reveal....NOTHING.

Someone had unplugged our air freshener and stole it. I know this because none of the other staff had moved it. I was so shocked, then disheartened and then ultimately angry. Why would someone stoop so low (literally) i mean whats the world coming to...having to lock up your air fresheners, or worse alarm them. Goodness me.
Anyway rant over, last Monday we had a retail meeting, I use the word “Retail” as we are encouraged to drop the charity shop label and use Retail Shop instead which I like as it is more present and current.

More charities are using this term to describe their shops. It’s a good move but it's still perfectly ok to call them charity shops - we sell items that have been donated by kind people like yourselves which is charitable and we make money to help our charity which is very important to moving forward.

Can I just say though more and more people are stopping donating and doing car boots instead to make quick money, this is a little bit saddening  and makes it more important people that people continue to donate to charities as we still offer a great bargain and you are making a difference to a cause.

On the other hand its often very surprising people’s generosity, we have had some lovely donations lately including a nice hand painted vase which we sold for a good price, old antique clocks, vintage tea sets and more. It's great to be able to displays these creatively, for example we used an old CD rack and transformed it into a scarf rail by tying scarves and belts on, other shops I’ve seen using old rails and painting them in kitsch colours such as baby powder and blue with the organisations logo on them. I’ve seen antique mirrors draped in jewellery, old antique chests of drawers with scarves and hats peeping out the draws tempting customer’s imaginations.

I love all this free thinking creatively and if the people and charities embrace this it’s such a step forward into the modern merchandising world such as a time like this when the current demand and boom is for “other world, old fashioned” bespoke ideas and items. I use this in a loose term and many phrases have been coined to this effect and that just goes to show anything goes! 

So I look forward to the future of display as it keeps growing and growing, forget the stolen plug in.

I love the image below imagine a lovely tree like this in our shops covered in jewels and diamonds!!!!!

Just call me charity

I’ve been for a stroll in a well known town today, it’s just right. It has a main street, nice restaurants a lovely Abbey and..wait for it lots of charity shops! Yay I’m in heaven..or not. When you have numerous charity shops all in one area, from a customer’s point of view it can be a little bit of a rollercoaster ride.

The standards vary. A lot! You can go into one that looks a little shabby on the outside but inside it is set out lovely, colour co-ordinated is always nice on the eyes and smells fresh, which can be difficult when you deal with second hand clothes not because they are dirty but because they have sometimes been left a long time in an garage or attic and become a little musty, that’s why we steam the clothes and use air fresheners (my favourite things in the whole world) in the shop and good ventilation all help, most people don’t notice but I do. I sniff first before I look around. I had a good mooch around today bought a few things, but some of the more “high profile” shops are not as nice inside as some of the other charities, it's almost like they become complacent with it yet they could be sat on a goldmine! Their windows leave lots to desire and they don’t display their stock to maximum effect.

I went into one charity shop that resembled ours inside, nice layering of winter jackets with jumpers and funky scarves, little denim waistcoats over vintage 60s blouses. It’s all in the detail and this is what makes the difference - an active interest in merchandising and accessorising the stock is a key skill to obtain and it’s very important as people are more often than not-  V-I-S-U-A-L. Give them a feast for the eyes.

Can I just lay something to rest for some readers that may believe that all stock in a charity shop was previously owned by a deceased person, this couldn’t be further from the truth its nearly always women who have just had a ruffle through their wardrobes and had clear out or a clothes swapping party and want to donate to charity some of it is even current season stock with labels.

I’d say only 5% of what we have donated has the label on but sometimes people rip the tags off and don’t even wear and we end up with it so you’d be very hard pressed to actually find something that has been donated in from a house clearance of the deceased. Although we are grateful for that too that’s where we get our vintage ranges from! Recycling - were well ahead in the game. 5 years ago lots of stock would have been ragged now you see vintage boutiques and retro wholesalers popping up like daffodils in spring. If you go to Lincoln City, which is lovely by the way, there are some amazingly beautiful vintage shops which always inspire me. Market research is important too even for us charity retailers.

9am confession

I want to make a confession. I don’t throw Bibles away. It’s funny people who don’t believe in god in times of hardship and despair call upon the Bible. I’m not saying we are going to give away free bibles with every purchase but I do think it’s something we can’t always put a price on. We often receive donations of high interest and age a few months ago I blogged about a 200 year old Bible, how do you put a price on religion and faith?

This large plaque of Jesus Christ nailed to a cross was donated to one of our volunteers this morning as she was waiting outside, she is a very keen lady and has once or twice been spotted waiting at 8:30am - we don’t open until 9 so I have advised her to stay in bed a little longer but she say’s she likes to wait..wait? wait for what? Armageddon? A train? The new argos catalogue? I still don’t know what she’s waiting for, she actually looks like one of the Queens Guard/Secret Agent she stands very upright and firm and with dark glasses, she appears quite imposing and there is always donations beside her. I’m sure if she stood there all day people would just pile donations on her and she wouldn’t move, which suggests the rest of the week they are stolen so I try to get there earlier now.

Back to my original story we have put Jesus in the window and I hope he goes to a very happy home. Do you know some people call their children or even more surprisingly animals Jesus...Oh lord.

Back in my day....

You hear a lot of people saying “oh back in my day we didn’t have new clothes we had to “make do and mend” and we didn’t have charity shops, look at this Edith it’s hardly been worn its lovely” I used to roll my eyes, this has changed.

Since visiting Eden Camp Museum in Malton I spent a good few hours there and learnt a copious amount about how back during World War 2 people lived and feared for their lives and more importantly how they survived. After this experience, I have a new found respect and interest that maybe I didn’t have before and it proves that its ignorance why many people maybe don’t respect the past.

Whilst walking around I kept noticing items that sometimes pass through our hands at the charity shop, jugs, singer sewing machines, hats, tools, old wooden toys, medicine bottles etc all the sorts of things your Mums, Dads Granddads and Grandmas would have used and played with and maybe kept after the war as a “souvenir” and it amazed me how much history and rarity can pass through the paths of charity shops. I was definitely surprised and a little annoyed we hadn’t kept hold of these artefacts. We are becoming more savvy and learning more about these almost other worldly goods as we should, we have a duty to Autism Plus to make sure these are sold at the correct and fair values as people who donate the items want as much for them as possible or else they wouldn’t donate to charity.

I saw medicine bottles for ailments such as “purifying the blood” & “boils and spots” and “feeling under the weather” imagine a bottle for curing under the weather! Brilliant! Just imagine if people could buy these now. I have included a photo I took of some of the bottles in the museum...

If you look in the photo of the bottles you will notice a Boots product, Boots back in 1940! I think it might be a lung purifier or something to do with having bronchitis I will definitely keep a look out for this in the future! I just hope they have cleaned it first! I must reiterate most of the bottles we have donated into our shop have been emptied and cleaned. (we always wash items before they go out for sale regardless)
Anyway to end this long blog nicely here are some photos of some of my favourite donations today:

A nice ethnic patchwork rug. I’ve seen one very similar in a store called “Collard Manson” , we are very modern aren’t we :)

Also featured is a nice floral cream jug, saucer and sandwich plate beautiful for afternoon tea on the veranda.

A rainmac will not save you

It came with a storm, a raging storm many are saying a storm like they have never seen before, felt before or feared before. A storm that raged the sky’s, the world seemed to grow grey, trees were bowing nearly in half, cars were stranded and all hell broke loose, the heavens opened and the water fell. Enough to flood this town. It was just before closing as we let an elderly lady find refuge in the doorway, as it passed we stood and watched in disbelief as torrential rain came pouring through the top of the fire exit, small stones of hail falling like a cascading waterfall.

Then underneath like a river until a huge puddle formed in the backroom of the shop, water came pouring out from the top of the door. We threw down bags to try and soak up the damage, but it wasn’t doing much good there was just too much water. I opened the fire exit and it was like a small river rapids at Alton towers (I love it there, Halloween is the best time to go, it won’t be long before we pop a pumpkin in our front window will it!) guzzling down the alley way.

Anyway the drains couldn’t take it, the pumps couldn’t distribute the water quick enough and lightning struck peoples trees I found out afterwards, some completely in half, the council will not remove an act of god therefore it is left at the expense of the resident. One victim was one of our own volunteers. 

The scene from a neighbouring shop

The whole town began to flood, many shops suffered severe damage we were quite lucky as some were completely flooded through their lighting and roof. Thankfully ours is a relatively new building so a bit more modern and hardy. Although some of our winter stock and carpeting was damaged in the flood, we had to use heaters and fans to dry it all out. Anyway I hope we don’t have a repeat performance as the town may start resembling the lost city of Atlantis!

I ponder too long I may catch a fish. Or a white Rabbit.

White Rabbit I’m not even going to bother looking up this one I want to live in ponder, but why do they say “White Rabbit” on the first of each month? It’s apparently bad luck to speak before saying this phrase.

It’s the first day of August today, this year is going too blooming fast and I choose the word blooming as I haven’t even had chance to buy any plants yet, I have one lone lavender plant, some mint on my window and a small primitive pepper plant, I bought it for 50p from a gala because I won a St Michael vase, the irony of it all is it’s something I would donate to our charity shop because I’d have no use for it but everything has a story you know, and many objects and clothes have stories and if you are to stop and think for a while what journey it has taken to get to where you are now...

If objects had a soul, a memory and a heart then we would think twice before donating or worse throwing it away. It’s surprising what people throw away, and it’s some young people who don’t understand that their clothes they have had hardly worn would be better suited in one of our shops than the landfill sites. Also lately I’m getting a little annoyed with these shops that let you take a bag of clothes in and give you a small token (pittance), its taking directly from charity shops, people are selling everything these days and I worry one day there won’t be charity shops because the world will turn greedy and consume itself! There I said it, its sacrilege. Please donate to charities they need you.

Next time you donate an item to a charity shop think about it, where it’s come from and where it’s going to go you may be surprised what you remember!