Volunteering for the Red Cross

[watervole]

For reasons that I've spoken about in locked postings (so as not to embarrass Scope), I've left Scope and am about to volunteer at the Red Cross shop in Poole.

Factors influencing my decision were:

1.  The books are in alphabetical order.  The hardback fiction is limited in quantity and is on a low shelf.  There are a number of old and moderately tatty (and would thus have been binned by a certain person in Scope), but collectable books that are clearly displayed and priced by someone who has looked them up on the Internet.

2.  The clothes are colour-blocked (the manager in Scope wanted to do this, but higher management forbade it).

3.  There is already a chair behind the till.

They also get bonus points for having a visiting expert who prices their collectible pottery, having friendly staff, arranging a clear time for me to go and talk to them in more detail about volunteering and by having a well-lit, attractive shop.

In other words, they make good use of the items that are donated to them and appear to treat their staff well.

Comments

[jon-a-five.livejournal.com]

Arranging clothes by colour always makes for a very pretty looking shop IMHO.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

I have been to a charity shop in the UK once - in Oxford - and it was so friendly there and yes, the clothes were arranged in an attractive way. I bought two identical low white vessels.
I hope Red Cross shop will be good for you.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Arranging by colour makes the shop look very pretty but it makes me want to walk straight back out the door as when I buy clothes I am looking for a specific size not a specific colour and having to wander round the shop looking for that size really gets my goat. How ever having the books in alphabetical order is a definite plus point. Good luck.

[kerravonsen]

Agreed about colour versus size. Though I never look for clothes in Op Shops any more because I am far too fat.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Always worth checking. There are some very large people who donate. Never assume you're the only one.

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you've found another place to volunteer :-)

Regarding the sizes, a couple of the shops round here have specific "Size 16 and up" rails which are clearly marked which seems like a sensible idea.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Most cloths shops, commercial and charity, do it in my neck of the woods. so I now do the bulk of my buying in ASDA which still goes for sense over style and arranges their clothing by size. They don't tidy them often enough though and from long experience in libraries I know Joe Public is on the whole incapable of putting something back where they found it.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

It's very much swings and roundabouts. Pretty much all the charity shops use small coloured tags on the hangers to show size, so it's pretty easy to spot your size on the rack you're looking at.

Colour blocking has a psychological effect in that it stops the shop looking like it has a load of crap second-hand stuff in it.

[darkfloweruk.livejournal.com]

Good luck, mate!

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

If the Scope shop in Poole is typical of Scope's shops, then the charity will be losing out drastically in the current recession. But you did try to tell them, and if they won't listen....

[kerravonsen]

Good! I'm glad you didn't stay where you were before.

What does "colour-blocked" mean? Sorted by colour?

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Yes. You put all the red skirts together on the rail rather than sorting by size on the rail. It has pluses and minuses as a technique, but it often means that your eye is caught by a specific colour as you head through the door and it can draw you to the rail.