Miscellaneous Charities & Charity Shops

[Jimmymack]

It's a charity, that's why the price is so low.

 

[Targa]

It's Oxfam, they have very highly paid 'directors' or whatever the people who run it call themselves.
They take 'charity begins at home' literally.

 

[Jimmymack]

I don't think it's that. My local Oxfam has stuff that is stupidly priced from time to time. It doesn't sell so they cut the price in half and then it disappears, probably to another shop but who knows where, certainly not sold as the price is still stupidly high. I think they look at the internet to get a price and somebody found one of those silly prices on eBay, sorry Stephen, for the book and set their's accordingly.

 

[Stephen Howard]

I don't think it's that. My local Oxfam has stuff that is stupidly priced from time to time. It doesn't sell so they cut the price in half and then it disappears, probably to another shop but who knows where, certainly not sold as the price is still stupidly high. I think they look at the internet to get a price and somebody found one of those silly prices on eBay, sorry Stephen, for the book and set their's accordingly.

I think that's undoubtedy the case. I've noticed it in the local charity shops over the last few years - in particular a very grubby cheap and old flute that was ticketed at £80. I wouldn't have taken it off their hands for scrap even if they paid me.
That said, whenever I go into a charity shop these day I always cast an eye over the bookshelves....just in case a sax manual pops up for a fiver!

 

[PigSquealer]

I think that's undoubtedy the case. I've noticed it in the local charity shops over the last few years - in particular a very grubby cheap and old flute that was ticketed at £80. I wouldn't have taken it off their hands for scrap even if they paid me.
That said, whenever I go into a charity shop these day I always cast an eye over the bookshelves....just in case a sax manual pops up for a fiver!

OK you officially have my curiosity. If you’re not looking for instruments and only casually for a book, what do you really go to the charity shops for? New clothes and arrows?

 

[jonf]

It's Oxfam, they have very highly paid 'directors' or whatever the people who run it call themselves.
They take 'charity begins at home' literally.

Dunno whether this is a tongue in cheek comment, but it's been made in a public forum, so I think I need to make some sort of response (I have absolutely nothing to do with Oxfam, BTW).

Major charities are massive organisations, which expend large amounts of money doing work that otherwise would either not be undertaken, or would fall to governenments to fund. Oxfam, for example, has an income of £373 million, and employs about 4,200 people. Running an organisation of that size requires significant executive level skill and experience. If charities weren't able to pay for directors at a reasonable level for that amount of responsibility and capability, they would be left without management teams able to run such a large service provider. Oxfam employs six people on what I think are high salaries, which are fairly comparable to the rates paid to directors in the NHS, where I work. This is an awful lot less that these people would get in the private sector, but it's just about enough to attract people with the necessary skills to run such a large organisation. There are parts of the media (the Daily Mail regularly runs campaigns criticising the charitable sector) which seem to think that people working for charities should be paid a pittance. If that were the case, organisations like Oxfam, The National Trust, Cancer Research UK, British Heart Foundation and so on just wouldn't function. It is simply not possible to get exective staff capable of running a third-of-a-billion pound organisation on the average UK salary of £35k per year.

This is the reality for all large charities, and, of course, if you don't like it, you can elect to not support them. Oxfam does receive some governement grants, but this amounts to about three quarters of one per cent of its total income, so the overwhelming majority of its earnings are from its own fundraising efforts.

 

[Jeanette]

When I first went to work for a charity I naively made a comment to a lower paid colleague complaining about pay and workloads "well we do work for a charity" To which she quickly replied, "yes but I'm not a charity"! She had a very fair point. In my defence I had taken a pay cut on moving.

Most people working in not for profits go above and beyond on a daily basis. They deserve a fair wage for their efforts whatever level they work at.

Jx

 

[Pete Effamy]

When I first went to work for a charity I naively made a comment to a lower paid colleague complaining about pay and workloads "well we do work for a charity" To which she quickly replied, "yes but I'm not a charity"! She had a very fair point. In my defence I had taken a pay cut on moving.

Most people working in not for profits go above and beyond on a daily basis. They deserve a fair wage for their efforts whatever level they work at.

Jx

Aside from doing good work, I’m one of many musicians who have been treated extremely badly by some big charity organisations and would never work for them again.

 

[Colin the Bear]

I've come across charity fund raisers where the band are expected to make the largest donation.

 

[rhysonsax]

Time to split off the posts relating to practices in the Charity sector onto its own thread ?

Rhys

 

[turf3]

Without professional management you end up with situations like a friend told me of:

She showed up on Saturday to help with a load of donations, to find an 18 wheel truck full of pallets of goods, three middle aged women, no loading dock, no fork truck, no pallet jack, nothing except a truck driver who needed to get that trailer unloaded by 5 PM to pick up his next load.

She left the location, and she left the organization.

 

[Stephen Howard]

OK you officially have my curiosity. If you’re not looking for instruments and only casually for a book, what do you really go to the charity shops for? New clothes and arrows?

Mostly clothes.
I seriously resent paying upwards of £40 for a pair of jeans that are going to get covered in grease and gob from mucky horns - so a secondhand pair of Levi 501s at a fiver seems like a very sensible bet. Plus there're a lot of folks who chuck out decent clothes just because it's 'so last year'. Well, I'm so last ten years...and a nice cotton jumper for a fiver that would have cost me £40 new seems like a no-brainer.
And then there's the gadgets, and the furniture, and the bric-a-brac - and every so often a nice bit of tech. Last 'best buy' was a cheapo spotting scope which I now use to see where my arrows have landed at 50+ metres. Cost me a tenner...which is a saving of about £80 on a similarly-specced new one.

One thing I'm particularly on the lookout for are old trophies. Y'know, silverplated cups engraved with "Winner - 1998 Shove-Ha'penny All-Comers Tournament". The cups are junk - but the bases are often solid rosewood/cocobolo, and worth waaaaay more than the asking price for the cup.

 

[Jimmymack]

Most of my shirts came from charity shops, I got a Balmain for about £8 and very nice it is. Musical instruments tend to be junk. My wife does better than me with clothes. Without charity shops many of our high streets would be full of empty shops.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Without charity shops many of our high streets would be full of empty shops.

It is also good for environmental reasons to reuse stuff.

 

[Ivan]

what do you really go to the charity shops for? New clothes and arrows?

 

[stitch]

New boots and panties are just about the only things I DON'T buy from charity shops ...

 

[thomsax]

Without charity shops many of our high streets would be full of empty shops.

Yes, but most charity shops are depending on "over consumtion". Stuff from countries that have doubtful ways to produce. And also doubtful ways of shipping. A high price to pay to avoid empty shops. If charity shops are running by organizations that have high over-head costs .... I prefer empty shops.

 

[Jimmymack]

The charity shops in my area mainly depend on donations. None will accept clothing from the sort of places that sell junk clothes that are often produced in sweatshops. Over consumption is not of their making, you need to point the finger elsewhere for the culprits, and they are in the business of recycling some of that.

The ethical question about how other manufacturers produce their goods is another thing altogether and not for this discussion I think but you can apply your comments to full price retailers in the same way and have a lot more empty shops.

The profits made by charity shops go somewhere useful and give the public an opportunity to buy cheaper. The only reason I would accept for them not existing is that they shouldn’t need to exist.

 

[mizmar]

I've no skin in the game; but remember, a lot of donations that don't make there charity shop cut are stuffed into containers and shipped out - sometimes destroying the fabric and garment industries where they ever up.

Anyway, if anyone is interested in the economics of (over producing) t shirts, Including how far around the world a t shirt can travel... Here's a good listen.

https://www.npr.org/series/248799434/planet-moneys-t-shirt-project

 

[thomsax]

The charity shops in my area mainly depend on donations.

Yes, we have a few of real charity shops as well. Small shops, garage, basement rooms .... that are running by independent and free persons. But we also have charity shops (in malls) that are more in a "group" thinking.

I use to give money to small projects that I know my money will make a different. I didn't like "Fair Trade" Sweden. The brand was (is?) owned by LO (union) and the Swedish church, 50% each. I'm not a member of the Swedish church any more. And I was never a member of any union.

I guess charity is different in UK.