Over the past few months, our charity Chief Executive Martin Edwards swapped his suit jacket for a high-vis vest to work a shift in all of our 14 shops. We asked him to share his journey as a Julia’s House ‘trainee shop assistant’ across Dorset and Wiltshire, and what he learned from the experience.
It began in Wimborne, where assistant manager Ali patiently showed me how to work the till system, as well as sorting, steaming, tagging and pricing clothes. I was really careful with the tagging gun (which fixes price tags to garments using a needle) if only to save myself the humiliation of reading out the accident reports in Health & Safety meetings.
I said to each manager: ‘I’m your trainee shop assistant for the day, what would you like me to do?’ I wanted to get stuck in, and soon found myself lugging sofas, perching up on steps and working down in basements sorting heavy bags of stock.
Changing dresses on mannequins was pretty fiddly, and bolero jackets – whoever invented those? Ladieswear isn’t my forte – it had to be pointed out to me that Karen Millen is a designer label not a Julia’s House volunteer. But when it came to menswear or boys’ toys, I was the resident expert for the day.
A key skill of our shops team is spotting the true value of donated goods. You know on Antiques Roadshow where someone paid £5 in a charity shop for what turns out to be a Ming vase? That should never happen at Julia’s House. So, it was good to help pick out and clean items like the 1960s resin figurines donated to our Bransgore shop.
Working in our Dorchester shop the week before Halloween was fun. We send all children’s fancy dress costumes to Dorchester, and cute little spooky costumes were flying off the shelves as fast as we could put them out.
I loved what two young volunteers in Chippenham called sorting through our big pens of donated clothes: ‘crate-diving’. It sounds like an Olympic event.
More and more young people now buy from charity shops for environmental reasons. ‘Sustainable shopping’ is popular across the generations and the recycling impact of our shops is huge.
Of course, there are many bargains to be found in our shops too, and I couldn’t resist. My top purchase was a lovely cashmere scarf for £3.
There was drama right outside one of our shops as an old lady had a fall in front of a bus. A couple of us rushed to help. As I waited with her on the ground for the ambulance, she asked what line of work I was in. ‘Palliative care,’ I said. She replied: ‘I’m not there yet!’ Thankfully she was right - her injuries weren’t serious.
From Creekmoor to Devizes, Weymouth to Wallisdown, Salisbury to Shaftesbury, no two days are the same in Julia’s House shops. It was great learning for me, and it brings us all closer together.
Our amazing shops team sells 15,000 items each week, and sorts through 330,000 bags of donated goods each year. And of course, we can only keep up this wonderful work thanks to the incredible support of our donors and customers! It’s thanks to all of you that we can continue to achieve our vision to bring dedicated comfort and care to every local family who needs us.
