New Year’s Resolutions

12 for 2012!

1. Attract more volunteers.

2. Reply more timely to volunteer applications.

3. Spend more time working with stock that isn’t my speciality (i.e. anything that’s not books).

4. Do Bookfest events again in July (sort of contrary to above).

5. Establish our poetry evening as a regular event.

6. Remember that for everyone who comes through the door of the shop, we are the face of Oxfam.

7. Further to (6): have patience with even the most ornery customers!

8. Make more connections with local businesses.

9. Make more connections with other Oxfam shops.

10. Work out some kind of way to get awesome stock from generous businesses (magazines/radio stations we’re looking atchoo).

11. Get more outsiders in to do nice window displays.

12. Help our existing volunteers get more involved in the decisions we make.

Christmas and New Year opening hours

The following hours are likely to be definite but if you’re thinking of coming in/bringing donations it’s best to ring in advance on the sketchy days! 0207 254 5318.

December 19-23: regular opening hours, 10-530.
December 24: open between 10am and 2pm.
December 25-27: closed.
December 28: likely to be open, but call to make sure.
December 29-31: regular opening hours, 10-530.
January 1-2: closed.
January 3: normal hours resume.

If you want to donate items to Oxfam and we’re not open, then you  can donate clothes to the donation bank at approximately 401 Kingsland Road, opposite the small post office.

If you’re thinking about bringing in donations when we’re open, then, firstly, thank you! It’s because of the awesome donations we get from our local community that our shop is so good.

Secondly, now that nice bit’s out the way — please think hard about what you give to us. At this time of year we get a LOT of stuff, and we also become unexpectedly short-handed at times when our volunteers get sick, or the weather stops them coming in, or they have childcare issues, or they go on holiday.

After New Year for the last two years we’ve had to stop accepting donations for a day or so, because we literally couldn’t store any more. This gets a bit frustrating because we have to turn people away who are probably giving us nice stuff — it’s even more frustrating when we finally sort through what we have downstairs and have to recycle/throw away 70% of what we get given (see here for more on this stat).

All we ask is that you apply this quick checklist to your donation:

1. Have I seen the item for sale in Oxfam? (Furniture/electricals for example – we don’t sell them!)
2. Is the item in saleable condition? (Shoes with broken heels, books with missing pages, etc.)
3. Would I buy it from Oxfam? (Overwashed/faded clothes, crockery with food stains, etc.)

If the answer to any of this is no, then we probably don’t want it! It costs us time and money to get rid of things we can’t sell, and also depresses the heck out of our volunteers. If you have any questions about if we accept something, then phone us, send us an email at oxfamshopf8084@oxfam.org.uk, or ask me on Twitter. We’re very keen to have conversations about this, and we don’t want to come off sounding ungrateful, but we just want to make the shop as good as possible, and if people know a little more about what we can/can’t accept, then it would help ensure we don’t have to close the shop to donations. If you ask us, we might have some ideas of where you can take things we don’t accept, also!

Other things that we have had to stop accepting recently: VHS tapes (we have a few thousand waiting to be sold downstairs, and we need to stop taking them or we’ll just be throwing them in the rubbish), encylopedias (people aren’t buying them unfortunately), and old computer books/academic handbooks for institution-specific courses — no-one wants to buy these either, we’ve found!

Whew. Other than that, HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

CHRISTMAS

Check out our wicked Christmas window, installed by our elves this past weekend. We’ve got a ton of festive goodies to pile into the window over the next couple of weeks, so keep your eyes peeled. We’ve also got loads of perfect presents stacked behind the till, from neck pillows with in-built speakers to incense stocking fillers to a variety of ceramic animals.

We also have our usual range of awesome books, DVDs, CDs, homeware, clothing and accessories, all donated by the lovely people of Dalston, all of which would make great presents on a budget that are doubly ethical: 1) recycled/no-waste gifts that 2) help fund Oxfam’s work around the world. We’ve got Christmas cards and wrapping paper, as well as a selection of Unwrapped gifts if you want to make a donation to a specific Oxfam project.

My tactic for Christmas gifts for my parents is to get a suitably appropriate Unwrapped present (teach a teacher for my mum, a teacher, and olives for my dad, a keen cook) and then a 99p book or two! They don’t want me to buy them anything big so this is a nice way to satisfy my guilt and their wishes at the same time.

Two bits of Christmas news to close on: firstly, we’re going to open for a short period on Sunday to give you a chance to do that little bit of extra Christmas shopping — from 10 to 4 this coming Sunday, 11th December. Secondly — we’re going to reprise our Christmas mystery parcels from last year very shortly. These were very popular with our customers — we bundle up a bunch of strange little objects and books in shoeboxes, wrap them up for you, making an unusual gift for someone. We’ll probably do a flat rate of £5 for a box this year (we did different sizes last year but all the boxes we’ve found this year are the same size, more or less!). If you can resist opening the box yourself, whoever you give it to will get a brilliant surprise, and so will you! We’ll be roughly dividing the parcels into male/female, and while they would be fine to give to kids, we think they’re more suitable as gifts for adults. Keep an eye on our Twitter to find out when they go on sale. Hopefully by this weekend! Check out last year’s parcels below:

Poetry!

Hey do you like poetry? So do we!

Oxfam Dalston Presents: Poets! on November 17.

Building on the success of our last reading event during Bookfest (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=227342237295319), we wanted to do another night to say thank you to our customers/donors and just have some lovely times in the expansive surroundings of our shop.

Confirmed readers on the night so far are:

Alex McDonald (http://selectedpoems.wordpress.com/)
Chrissy Williams (http://chrissywilliams.blogspot.com/)
Sophie Cameron (http://twitter.com/#!/trouserlesspoet)
Emily Berry (http://www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk/p_emilyberry.html)

We’ll be adding a couple more writers in due course as we sort them out.

The event is free entry but as before, we’re asking you to bring along one book to donate to the shop. Even the smallest donation makes a difference to Oxfam’s work throughout the world, and there’s the added fun of getting to see what books people have got sick of recently….

Hey and it’s five weeks before Christmas, you could come and do some early shopping too if you want!

We Want Volunteers!

We’ve been getting a trickle of new volunteers in the past month or so that have really helped enhance the shop — our homewares section in particular is moving a lot more stock (it was already pretty good but it’s better now!) and some new book volunteers have helped make the shop feel fresher, I think. We sold over 1400 books last week, and recycled maybe twice that. It’s a testament to what having a strong team can do, and we think it makes the shop that much better for customers – if you come in a couple of times a week, you’re still likely to see new stock out, which is hopefully going to make you spend more money!

With that in mind, we want to recruit some people for key roles in our shop — homewares volunteers and till/floor staff.

If you’re interested in joining our homeware team, you’d be helping sort and price the few dozen boxes of bric-a-brac we get given each week. This involves checking for flaws/imperfections, pricing them according to a level appropriate for an Oxfam shop, and arranging the stock on the shop floor. A nicely arranged homeware section can be beautiful!

If you’re interested in a more customer-facing role, then we’re also looking for people who’d like to work on the till or help out on the shop floor. Working on the till is a great way to develop retail skills if you’re interested in working in retail at some point, or just a nice way to interact with a ton of different people day-to-day. You’d be the face of our shop to our customers, and a good impression can really make people remember their visit to the shop, and encourage them to come back and give more money to Oxfam’s campaigns in the future. We also need people to help us with various shop floor tasks like tidying, visual merchandising, colour-blocking, signing people up to Gift Aid, and helping with queries/incoming donations.

If either of these roles sound like something you’d be interested in, then check out more information on volunteering here, pop into the shop, or drop us a line on oxfamshopf8084@oxfam.org.uk.

NTS Re:Versed at Oxfam Dalston

A couple of months ago to push Oxfam’s Bookfest donation drive we put on a few events in our shop — the video of NTS‘s Re:Versed show live from the shop floor has just gone online. Some lovely work by Soul Rebel Films! We hosted performance poetry from Angry Sam, Sophie Cameron and Charlie Dark. It was a really fun experience to have our regular customers shopping while our poets did their stuff in the clothes corner.

Warning – there’s some distinctly adult language in this show, so don’t watch if you’ve sensitive ears.

Oxjam 2011 launch part 2

Just photos this time!

Oxjam 2011 post-game (part 1)

So our Oxjam launch week is over! Where to begin with the summary?! First thing to note is that Oxjam continues all over the country all-year round.

Oxjam 2011 Launch Night 1

The (poorly kept) secret has spilled….we’re hosting the Oxjam Festival launch gigs this week.

Oxjam is Oxfam’s month-long music festival. It runs all through October (though there are tons of things around all-year!) with hundreds of events around the UK, all organised by volunteers who know and love their local music scene, all raising money to save lives around the world. You can find other Oxjam events near you here — we know of Oxjam teams based in Stoke Newington and Brick Lane to name but two.

Last night the shop hosted Fatboy Slim, Kissy Sellout and Man Like Me. It was, to use a cliche, banging! Check out our Twitter feed for some reaction from delighted punters, and keep an eye on it over the next few days for more updates from the gigs and behind-the-scenes photos etc! Check out our summary of last year’s launch gigs for an idea of what’s to come.

Tonight we have Brett Anderson, Patrick Wolf and Mercury-minted nominee Ghostpoet. Tomorrow Charlie Simpson, Benjamin Francis Leftwich and Gabrielle Lapin. On Thursday we finish up with the launch of the Damon Albarn/Oxfam project DRC Music, with DJ sets from some of the producers involved in the album. Wicked.

Thrift Fart

One of our new volunteers, Georgie, has set up a blog called Thrift Fart documenting some of the…stranger items she encounters while sorting our homeware donations. Well worth a follow!