Charity Shop Ignorance

hairy_g

WhiteHorse wrote: »

As usual, things vary between extremes.

Yes, it is true that charity shops get stuff for nothing. It is also true that some people expect to buy for next to nothing, which is ridiculous. On the other hand, some charity shops are getting greedy, and some of the staff seem to think they're working at Harrods.

Moderation in all things.

Russell Brand - My Booky Wook

Barnados £3.99 scribbled on inside of book.
Acorns £1.25 On a removable sticker.

These two shops are on the same shopping centre.

cit_k

Do managers in charity shops get paid a salary, and if so why, and whats the average rate...

OrkneyStar

cit_k wrote: »

Do managers in charity shops get paid a salary, and if so why, and whats the average rate...

If someone is in more than 2 days a week and is full time, in charge of rotas, health and safety etc, then they do deserve a salary imho. Other staff should be volunteers, perhaps paid travelling expenses if they are coming a fair distance. The problem is that a lot of the shops are looking and feeling too posh these days!

u1bd2005

In the charity shop where I volunteer both the Manager and Assistant Manager recieve a salary, volunteers recieve travel expenses if they are in over so many hours during a day (unless they are on a job center course/work placement or probation.) and Designated Volunteers are entitled to Travel Expenses and 2 Lunches paid for during the week.

Designated Volunteers (like me) are still unpaid, but help with a lot more than normal volunteers, I have to do cash up, banking, arranging collections/deliveries, till checks, etc... and am also left in charge of running the shop every now and again.

cit_k

I was quite shocked to find out how much the cheif exec of one charity was paid (and I would assume many other charities pay similar amounts, but dont know for sure) - scope had a job advertised for a chief exec, salary circa 160 thousand UK pounds a year....

OrkneyStar

cit_k wrote: »

I was quite shocked to find out how much the cheif exec of one charity was paid (and I would assume many other charities pay similar amounts, but dont know for sure) - scope had a job advertised for a chief exec, salary circa 160 thousand UK pounds a year....

:eek::eek:
No wonder they have to charge £6 for free second hand dresses lol!

u1bd2005

Scope's cool, thats where I volunteer

queenlizard45uk

Yes, we get these clothes for free. But we sell them for charity. To raise money. For good causes. What is the point in being donated items and selling them for 10p each. We would run out of stock withen a week and have hardly any money raised.

People need to realise that charity shops are NOT jumble sales. They are a normal retail shop, which just has items donated, rather then bought and delivered in.

Savvy_Sue

cit_k wrote: »

Do managers in charity shops get paid a salary, and if so why, and whats the average rate...

cit_k wrote: »

I was quite shocked to find out how much the cheif exec of one charity was paid (and I would assume many other charities pay similar amounts, but dont know for sure) - scope had a job advertised for a chief exec, salary circa 160 thousand UK pounds a year....

There comes a point in the life of any small charity when it grows. And when it grows to a certain size, having paid staff is almost inevitable (unless you are of Independent Means, which isn't without its problems), because you can't always get volunteers to do what's needed. And when you get big, you need quite a number of staff. And they need managing, and the finances need managing, and all the activities need managing, and so does advertising, and fundraising, and campaigning, and oh yes, someone needs to make sure that the few thousand volunteers whose work you depend on are well managed too, plus there's a few other things which need taking care of I can't think of right now.

Could I do the chief exec's job? No. Would I want to? No. Does that mean the chief exec of a very big charity should only be paid as much as a humble administrator of a much smaller charity? No.

Good staff need good pay and terms of service, if you want to keep them. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

And, btw, that's not directed at Scope, about whose finances and management I know very little. But I know about small-but-growing charities, and they NEED to be well managed if it's not going to all end in tears.

Getting back to charity shops directly, you may well be able to open one with all volunteers, but the beauty of volunteering is that when your situation changes you can just stop, without having to make huge adjustments to your lifestyle.

So, you work for a small charity which runs a charity shop, and you have one rock solid volunteer who is always there, opens up, cashes up, locks up, never misses. Until the day they have a family crisis, and can't be there. So you scramble around and find another volunteer who can do 2 days this week, and a 3rd volunteer who might be able to do 1 or 2, isn't sure yet, and a 4th volunteer can do Friday if the cat doesn't need to go to the vet, and ... so it goes on.

Meanwhile your shop has to close at lunchtimes and early on Wednesdays because you can't get the volunteers, takings are down but the rent's the same, environmental health are complaining because when you're not open as expected people are leaving bags outside the shop even though you've got signs in foot high lettering asking them not to do so. Oh, and one volunteer has phoned complaining that they didn't know the shop was shut and turned up for their shift, and it turns out that they have a new phone number which rock solid volunteer knew but no-one else did so you've not been able to get in touch.

Now, even though your primary job isn't running this particular charity shop, you're spending an awful lot of time finding volunteers just to open - and suddenly the costs of paying a manager to do that look very very attractive! Not to say cost-effective ...

Because if the manager has a family crisis, they can't just drop everything and disappear for 3 months without at least negotiating some unpaid leave!

OrkneyStar

queenlizard45uk wrote: »

Yes, we get these clothes for free. But we sell them for charity. To raise money. For good causes. What is the point in being donated items and selling them for 10p each. We would run out of stock withen a week and have hardly any money raised.

People need to realise that charity shops are NOT jumble sales. They are a normal retail shop, which just has items donated, rather then bought and delivered in.

I agree selling things for 10p is silly mostly (although our one sells, for example, a smallish matchbox slightly scratched car for 10p). And also agree that they should definitely be a step up from a jumble sale price-wise (and they do take more organising/time too). They should not have prices equal to standard shops though, in the whole.
The thing that annoys me more than anything really is people who use charity shops/bags as a dumping ground for things that really ARE past their best....of course some clothes can be sold for rags, but really I am talking broken things, stained things, dirty things. For example me and DS have come across 1. a sticker/colouring book that was already scribbled/coloured and all stickers used, 2. cars with 1 wheel and dangerous bit sticking out, 3. clothes with holes in. And of course this is AFTER they have been sorted, heaven knows what the staff do actually come across in the bags pre-sorting. They don't have an easy job imho!