Charity shops!

Bloody great bargains too, I picked up 200+ quids worth of a jacket for a tenner the other week.

I love charity shops. Silk ties a go go. Gorgeous shirts too.

In the past I have also bought items to help me connect with difficult and challenging pupils. A way in as it were. It works well; showing an interest is always good.

Rob was a lovely but incredibly difficult lad, high performing Asperger's and then some. Trying to teach him was so hard, he just would not countenance anything that ran contrary to his preconceived ideas. He loved trains and train sets.
Local Barnardo's had a tiny foldable AAA powered fold-up train set, about the size of an A4 tablet. Signals, points, trains, waggons, freight. Scenery too, it's blummin' brilliant.

I asked him to help me set it up which he did but increasingly slowly until he asked me whereabouts I had had it from. I told him, he then let me know that it was just like the one he had at home ...

...turns out that Mum had decided that it was time that he grew out of these toys and have gifted it to the charity shop.

We went to our local one with a couple of bags of really decent kids stuff. Sorry don't accept deliveries today, it's this day or that (we are in work) - went to the recycling bin at the tip. FFS the shop was full of staff.

I volunteered at one till a while before covid hit. It was fun, most of the time, and the volunteers were great. Most had "reasons" to want to volunteer (including me) and they got as much out of the experience as the shop got out of their donated time. A true win, win.

One of their large expenses was disposing of all the crap that was donated though. I mean huge amounts. The other thing that shocked me initially was how picky they were with the clothing. The reason was simple though, they could afford to be picky as they were given monumentally huge donations of clothing so all but the absolute best was shipped out once a week for recycling or whatever.

If anyone is considering volunteering I definitely recommend it. Charities are increasingly trying to pick up the slack where government austerity has cut so many services to the bone.

You get some wonderful customers too, some don't come in to buy anything really but just for a chat. It's obvious that even in this small role these shops provide a service to people that might feel very alone much of the time.

Lastly, it will really force you to remember that the vast majority of humankind are fundamentally decent people. It's a great cure for cynicism.👍😁

Did some of my community service in one.
Nice people.

PAT testing

Careful with that talk in here you'll have folk frothing 🤣🤣

But well done, glad it has gone well 👍

My late partner worked as a volunteer in the local Dorothy House shop when she first came to live with me, and she loved it there. Now, when I have a clear out of stuff I take it straight to them. My mum collected character or decorative teapots, and there was a bunch of them sitting on top of cabinets around the house, so I cleaned them up and took them to the shop, along with a load of ceramic animals and birds.

I happened to mention to a friend of mine what I’d done, and she said if she’d known, she’d have had them, so I went back to the shop, asked them to see if they still had them. After hunting through ten boxes of donations, they found them, so I bought four back and they’re going to be Christmas and birthday presents in future. A win-win situation; I get rid of things I no longer need, the charity gets the money, and my friend gets a series of presents! 

We love a good charity shop, especially one where someone has just dumped an extensive CD and DVD collection.

@Harry_the_Spider 🤣 Oaktree animal charity, Carlisle. 500dvds 🙄

I worked in the warehouse for a local one, every day we would get a few on day release from a local prison, and when they were within a few weeks of release they could get their own transport and a proper paid job. This one character was around 1 week from freedom when after finishing his shift instead of riding towards Hollesley Bay rode the other way, his motor bike was found in Newmarket and he has been on the run ever since, that was November 2018.

We love a good charity shop, especially one where someone has just dumped an extensive CD and DVD collection.

The British Heart Foundation in Bury looked a bit surprised when I turned up with a couple of thousand CD’s after a ruthless clear out of the man cave. A couple of decades worth of chin-stroking 6 music listening meant there was some pretty obscure stuff 😂

We too love a good charity shop. My daughters love retro/vintage clothing and take great pride in finding bargains and it’s normally the first port of call when we go somewhere new. My best find (well… Binnerette number one found it) was a really nice Ralph Lauren jacket winter jacket for the princely sun of nine quid

The British Heart Foundation in Bury looked a bit surprised when I turned up with a couple of thousand CD’s after a ruthless clear out of the man cave. A couple of decades worth of chin-stroking 6 music listening meant there was some pretty obscure stuff

I know. We bought them.

I’m a committed charity shopper for books and shirts mostly. I donated lots of stuff from my parent’s house and they were quite honest with what they wanted and what I needed to tip. The Salvation Army in ChezVegas renovate bicycles to either sell or help people who need transportation. I’ve since donated boxes of new parts including wheels, brake spares and the essential inner and outer cables - all the consumables that they need but obviously have no budget to buy. Have a visit, you’ll be surprised what they sell!

Charity shops are great but I do wonder at the future of British town centres now that such premises are proliferating so extensively.

I got a brilliant deal on a hardly used Osprey Raptor biking pack at once of my local charity shops. Saw it in the window, looked like it needed a new chest strap but other than that was pretty mint, still had the tool roll in the bottom and not a scuff on the pack itself. Couldn't make out which of the numbers on the handwritten tag was the price - none had a £ next to them - so asked the lass at the till. Knew those packs were £140 RRP, £100 on Osprey site, £70 on sale prices, so imagine my delight when the young lass tells me it's £6.99!

Actually, I felt guilty enough that I stuck an extra tenner in the collection box and still walked out feeling like I'd stolen it...

Thud loves charity shops.

If he's having a flat day I'll give him some money and order him out to trawl the local ones 

Comes back stoked with various clothing bargains that make him look like a US college student 😅

But what is it with Debra?  There must be more of their shops than sufferers.

Apart from the Miami Vice DVD set which will be keeping me entertained for 33hrs for the sum of £5, I also picked up a FYC album and what i'm listening to right now which is Fleetwood Mac Live in Boston box set - £2.99 for 3 cds of pre-pop pre Nicks Mac lovelyness

Edit Just launching into 25 mins of Rattlesnake Shake - thank you Oxfam!

I dropped off a huge bag of blu-rays the other day at one, I’d thought they not be interest. They were over the moon, so some more going down this week to another one.

They all seem to be, without exception,  lovely, thoughtful and just generally good people. I know most are volunteers and are getting their feelgood fix (not a pun), but there's many a high street retailer who could learn lessons from the obvious team ethic, customer service values and "supplier" appreciation. I have to say I'm a convert and looking forward to getting stuck in. They all seem to need people who can organise and really get stuck in; most of the demographic seem to be well intentioned but a bit lacking in physicality. Bless 'em all.