A customer recently bought a budgie cage but had no budgie to go in it so I undertook to find a budgie for her! This I did but when the budgie wasready to leave the nest, the customer was unable to take it immediately as she had the builders in and so I had to arrange a temporary home! The same customer asked me to collect some things for the shop which turned out to be her teapot collection, so we now have a window display stand covered in teapots ... but not for long we hope! A man asked for cookery boks yesterday and having pointed him in the right direction I was a bit confused when he returned to the counter with a book entitled Great Disasters ... suppose it might have been a cookery book??? The local paper has noted that the Farmers Market has been SAVED by the Salvation Army ... wonder if they know??? We have undertaken the organisation at present rather than let it disappear. Hopefully it brings more people to Jackson Road where we are situated because the road is pretty dead.

It's been a really busy week and this morning the shop was npositively humming with keen shoppers and browsers. A couple from East London who bought some pictures and my Aunt's mirror last year bought some unusual opaque glass dishes: they were surprised that I remembered them. Another good sale was 4 History Books from our small book display by the entrance; it's a good place to put unusual books as they can be seen rather than searched for. Also we have just one price for the Paperbacks so no need to price them all and that combined with our newly donated revolving bookstand means the sales have gone up. Mills and Boone remain at 20p and the readers seem to use us like a paying library. One of our neighbours brought in 6 jackets that had cost min of £200 each ... and all in excellent condition so they shd bring in a good few pounds! Sad news that the shop next door has closed due to lack of trade ... our road is not on the main shopping route and so we lack passing trade. They have been good friends and neighbours and we will genuinely miss them. They gave us a few bits of leftover stock and some fittings plus the organisation of the monthly Farmers' Market. Collected some goods after we closed and offloaded at shop as I need the car free for Sunday. Went to a friend's 60th Party last night and she is telling others that she is going to work in the shop one morning a week, so that will be good and will keep the SA connection in her family as Grandad was Bandmaster and Gran was YPSM for 41 years!!! I did it for 14 years ...

cynhur.tsacharityshop.

I came in early at about 09.00 as I had a car full of bags that I had collected last night. The problem is that we never know which day will be busy ... yesterday was wet and cold so the monthly Farmers' Market cancelled ... and we missed out on the potential of new customers but c'est la vie! Today was mediocre weatherwise but we did ok with a few top sales and a constant trickle of customers. One lady bought 4 gift sets of toiletries to use in fundraising for the Hospice. In conversation with a man who bought a bookcase I discovered his hobby is repair and maintenance of concertinas and that he will use it to store concertina parts so I got his phone number just in case! Talking of which I was told off by a woman who said that I had failed to turn up for a date with her husband!!! Another guy came in and said that he had been thinking all night about a copper plate on display and decided to come back for it; I remarked that it was an interesting item from overseas displaying a Mosque and he said that it would be better if it was made in UK and without a Mosque, so why did he buy it??? There were 4 of us working today so I got off a bit early and gave Banger, my Jack Russell Terrier an extra walk and then I did a bit of shopping for me!

I have been working in a Salvation Army Charity Shop for just over a year ... very interesting and definitely more than just a shop... we are multi tasking! Went on SA Shop Info Day this week (thank you Beverly)and got an update on how the SA endeavours to meet the needs of people who visit the shops and community centres etc. Today in conversation with a customer I discovered that her Aunt was an Officer in SA in the 1920's and she is very proud of that connection. Collecting goods from a house I was told that they like to support SA because they traced her brother. Yesterday one of the older customers brought some soup in for our lunch
; this is an ongoing appreciation because we helped her with application to SA tracing services who put her back in touch with her absent son. My car is full of bags of donated goods for the shop and I will be back there at 09.30 tomo so GN n GBY