A graphic of some boxes in a room labelled donation with some items spilling out
Episode 139 – What you can take to the charity shop

In this episode, Lesley is talking to Sandra Czachur. We spoke to Sandra in episode 131 all about her decluttering journey and her experience of downsizing and then upsizing again. Do listen in if you haven’t already.
Sandra spends her time in Llandudno walking on the North Wales beach with her two lovely dogs, Barkley and Poppy. She loves Instagram to share progress on the gradual refurbishment of her new home and volunteers for the Cats' Protection Charity.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Outro  0:06  
Welcome to today's episode of The Declutter Hub Podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your hosts professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

Lesley  0:31  
Hello, listeners and welcome to episode 139 at the declutter hub podcast, and mostly. Now in today's episode, I'm going to welcome back Sandra Czachur who's one of my very good friends. In episode 131 Sandra had shared with us her journey into downsizing upsizing and right sizing and everything in between. So do have a listen to that podcast if you've not listened in already, because it's really insightful, and Fab. So thank you for sharing that Sandra. Sandra shared with us at the end of that podcast that in her new sort of dream life in London now in north Wales, one of the things that she has chosen to do is to volunteer at a charity shop. So Sandra volunteered at the cat's protection charity shop in London No. And we're going to find out all about what that looks like and what her day to day life looks like. So welcome back to the show, Sandra.

Sandra  1:25  
Hello, thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk about Cats Protection.

Lesley  1:30  
I know not one but two podcasts. How fabulous is that we get to. So it's no surprise to me that when you chose a charity shop to volunteer at that it was something to do with animal welfare. Because we have a fantastic story to tell, don't we Sandra about you know, people as a declutter lots of people talk to me all the time and say, What's the most interesting thing that you've ever decluttered? And this is a story that you're always tell and it actually involves Sandra, doesn't it? So we sat there one morning Sandra having coffee, didn't we? And what did you share with me that your dream animal was?

Sandra  2:08  
Well, if I remember rightly, I was talking about a vision board I'd done. The first thing on my vision board was a new farm and dog.

Lesley  2:18  
So for anybody who's not familiar with a newfound wind, it is a huge dog. It's fair to say isn't it? Huge, a very large dog. And so Sandra's show, all of this is on my vision board. And I would love to have a new family dog. And we just kind of like put it all behind. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's fine. What I've never really thought anything more of it until that afternoon when I went to work. And I worked for a client that I've worked with for quite a while. And she said, to know what Lesley, it's all got a little bit worse, because as well as dealing with my clutter. I just couldn't help myself. But taking this dog that I found so she had a new rescue dog. And it was a new found Lind cross, wasn't it, Sandra. And so she just said the house that she lived in was quite small. And she loved the dog and the dog was absolutely perfect, but it wasn't suitable for the property that she was living in. And so I said to her, I might have the perfect person to declutter your dog, too. And so a few phone calls later, I had decluttered lovely Barclay, and Sandra was then the new proud owner of him.

Sandra  3:28  
Oh, I just love how it works. It's amazing, isn't it?

Lesley  3:32  
I mean, I really you know, you really do believe in things happening for a reason, don't you Sandra, throughout your journey and throughout your journey with a Aveda you believe that things are meant to happen, don't you? And that was definitely meant to happen. And with you. Tell us a little bit more about Barkley?

Sandra  3:48  
Well, like you say, I mean, it was interesting that you happen to come across a new farm across and border. We were looking for another dog. We only had one dog, Sammy, but, you know, I was thinking it'd be nice to have another dog. But yeah, that first time I know, we went to meet him and pick him up and we were only having him for the weekend. He never went back and that was over. I don't know 1112 years ago now. So he fitted in Well, I mean, it was a bit you know, it's had a bit of a bit of a hard life up to then with the previous owner that were had been rescued from but you know, he's doing well and he loves living here by the sea. So yeah, it was definitely a good job last night.

Lesley  4:37  
It was the most interesting thing I've ever decluttered I decluttered it from a house that didn't work. I mean, she would really did not want to let him go because he's such a gorgeous dog but she knew it was the right thing for him. So all the pieces fit together and that's my most exciting decluttering of all time. But anyway, so it fits in nicely Sandra Because the charity shop that you work in is the cat's protection. So it's no surprise then you have a lot of animals. So what animals have you got in your house now?

Sandra  5:08  
So well, we have got two dogs, but one dog is actually in sale. Because during this the lockdown and everything he went, she went for a visit. And there's never been able to come back because obviously they can't travel to Wales. And actually, she's a golden retriever. She's quite happy there. And she's got everybody taken. She's got five men, they're all taking them for walks and things in the house where they live. So. So we've just got one dog here now, but we do have four cats.

Lesley  5:42  
Okay, and what are your cats called?

Sandra  5:44  
So we've got Frankie and Teddy who are 13. And they came with us, so we only came to this house with two. But since working at Cats Protection, we have acquired two more brilliant Betty. And they're just over a over 114 months or something.

Lesley  6:04  
You love your cat sandwich. I love my cat. I love your cats and your dogs. And so you are at Cats Protection. Tell us a little bit about that charity.

Sandra  6:12  
So well cats was getting so huge was the largest feline welfare charity for starters, they must have around 200,000 cats and kittens every year. And that's down to all the sharps of volunteers and all the centres around the country. I think what I love about their vision is that they their vision is for a world where every cat is treated with kindness and an understanding of its needs. And for me personally, it's a vision of mine too, for all animals, not just cats. So cats, but you know, Cats Protection have that sort of ethos about helping caps and giving them a voice really, because obviously they can't talk for themselves can make. But they also rehome they knew to give lots of advice on their website. So if you need any advice about cats, you can go to their webs website cats.org.uk. But yeah, I think it's just helping cats. And that's what I like about it.

Lesley  7:14  
And I'm sure you know, obviously this podcast goes out worldwide, but I'm sure there are equivalent cats charities all over the world. Of course there are. So what is your day to day, what's your role then at the charity shop.

Sandra  7:27  
So I've probably got two roles. So I'm a volunteer in the shop. And mainly I went to volunteer when we moved here, I moved here away from everybody I knew. So I didn't know anybody. And it seemed like a really good idea to volunteer somewhere. And so when I saw a maybe it was a Facebook post, I saw, they're asking for volunteers, and jumped at the chance to work in the shop. And I've chosen to work on the shop floor, so any volunteers can go along. And they can do they can be behind the scenes if they like that, you know, there's lots of different roles they can do in the shop. But I like being on the shop floor. I like meeting people and I get to talk to all the customers and they love to show me pictures of their cats and things. So that was my choice to be on the shop floor. In our shop, we have two managers who are great and make my job really easy. The thing I like about cuts protection is across all their shops, they're consistent in their layouts and their styling. So in our shops we have everything is sort of colour coded, or mostly ladies clothes, and we have to do have some men's clothes, and they're all colour coded. And they all look fabulous. In fact, people walk in the shop and debt and don't realise at first that we're actually a charity shop, you know, they come walking in and then they realise which is nice and it's good to have those standards, you know, to make the shot look so nice and inviting.

Lesley  8:58  
It's so interesting that you talk there Sandra about colour coding because if we go back to the last episode that we were talking about you were telling us because we shared that you had five children or within seven years of each other. So you had five children within seven years. And one of the things that got you through those early years was colour coding, wasn't it so you colour coded absolutely everything to do with the children from the lunchboxes to the cups that they drank out of to their toothbrushes everything like that and that's so interesting that is kind of its comeback again the colour coding has come back in your in your later life.

Sandra  9:31  
No, no but lots of it like that. But yes, obviously some theme going on there something definitely well yes, it does matter. Yeah, it makes the shop look lovely. Yeah. And you come in because things are and then we can match things together, you know in the same colour thing. Yeah. And there

Lesley  9:47  
are different types of charity shops, some some charity shops are more kind of top end enormous than others, aren't they and, and really do some are more kind of a bit of a mishmash of lots of kinds of things but more regularly now charity shops are, in some ways, exactly the same as normal shops. And as we started to focus on sustainability and repurposing and reusing people, we're very focused on not buying something brand new when we can buy something secondhand. And so I think the charity shops have definitely upped their game over the last few years in terms of the layout, and the consistency that they that they have, haven't they? So it's interesting that yours is a nice, I mean, they're all nice. And they've all got their purpose. But it was a nice environment to shop in.

Sandra  10:32  
Oh, yes, absolutely. And I think you hit the nail on the head, there was sustainability, because when I looked back, in that last podcast, we talked about downsizing, and when I had all those clothes that I got rid of that that was a very different me when I would go out all the time and buy clothes and, and I think we realise now that we don't need to do that. And the stuff that we get donated, is in pristine condition. And I just can't believe you know, but it's just that, like we all are, sometimes we just either something doesn't fit anymore, or we don't like wearing it. But it doesn't mean it's not, you know, good to wear. I've unfortunately, bought a few things from the charity shop, because when I'm in there, and I'll see something, but the other thing we do is we do steam all the clothes upstairs, so they're always in immaculate condition anyway, when people come in, I think that's why that makes it more appealing. Doesn't it somebody to go shopping?

Lesley  11:26  
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It's It's nice, isn't it to shop in a nice environment like that. And I know as well as your sort of Front of House role and Sandra with want to call it that. You also do the social media, which is no surprise with your social media connections that we were talking about in the last podcast, because for anybody who has not listened to that podcast, Santos gar, how many followers now? Is it like 13 or 14,000 followers that you've got another

Sandra  11:49  
12k 12 Something K,

Lesley  11:52  
okay. 12,000 followers on Instagram who follow Sandra's journey into refurbishment and design on her house. And so if you want to take a look at that, our pop her Instagram handle on the show notes because she's got a beautiful, beautiful house. And she documents everything through Instagram. So go along and enjoy that. So because of your sort of foray into Instagram, they've asked you to do the social media as well, for the cat's protection. Presumably you enjoy that as well.

Sandra  12:19  
Oh, absolutely. Yes. So yeah, I do their Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Yeah. So hopefully, we can put the links below so people can say in a way, social media is a great tool for us because I can I can go out in the shop. And I can take pictures of things that we've got for sale. And lots of times we've had people come in because they've seen it on the Instagram post or whatever. And we also share lots of lovely stories about cats that have been really honed or

Lesley  12:46  
if your dream Sandra, isn't it to take pictures of cats all day?

Sandra  12:50  
Cats and capsule houses? Clothes?

Lesley  12:56  
Exactly. What I really wanted to talk to you about was the getting down to the nitty gritty of sort of almost behind the scenes at the charity shop, because there's a lot of misconceptions out there, I think, you know, charity shop in the UK, thrift shops in the US up shops in Australia in New Zealand. And so there's a lot of misconceptions about the types of things that a charity shop will accept, won't accept. And so I tend to err on the side of you know, be kind to the people that are going through stuff and don't put complete rubbish in there. But charity shops in general like to make their own choices about what they do and don't want. And they will take more than you imagine that they will take in general, I think that's probably a rule of thumb. And I think people are people always think, oh, actually no, they're never going to be able to sell that. So I'm not going to send it and then sometimes it goes into landfill, which is really quite tragic. And so use the charity shops because there are lots of outlets, so it may not actually sell in the shop. But there are other outlets available to the charity shop owners and management that you might not have thought about. And so I really want to delve a little bit deeper into that. So what kinds of things does your shirt your shirt, you can only talk about the talk about your own charity, of course you can. And every charity shop is different. One of the things that we do encourage is for you to strike open communication with your local charity shop to find out what they like and don't like about what you donate. So you've got a true picture of that. But I'd like to know about your charity shop in particular and what kinds of things you accept and what you wouldn't accept.

Sandra  14:34  
So firstly, we were so grateful for all the donations because we wouldn't be where we are now without but we accept everything we welcome everything because whatever it is we can find a home for it. But in our shop, we are mostly ladies battered really ladies clothes, handbags, shoes, accessories. We have some men's wear. We have box DVD CDs And we even have vinyls, we get some amazing donations. Just recently, we had a great big selection of records from somebody. And things like that we can sell not so much in the shop, but we can sell them online. So we're happy to accept anything, because even if it's clothes that you think, or nobody would wear, we can send those off to the rag trade. And we'd get money for those. And it's all about bringing money to Cats Protection for the cats to help always cats out there. So whatever it is, it's worth bringing, we can't take furniture, and we haven't got a big shop floor to be able to put furniture and maybe small items of furniture. But we don't have vans and a big space to store it. So furniture isn't really an option. Yeah,

Lesley  15:52  
I think I think there are plenty of charities out there that do that have those bigger spaces, don't they and most people know in their local area, who takes furniture and who doesn't. And those do tend to be the ones that will come to your house as well and pick stuff up. So I'm interested that you talked about the rag trade and that you can sell things on so they weren't necessarily selling the shot, but you can still get money for them as a charity. So how does that work? So there's somebody sawed through the stuff and take out the things that is that how does it work behind the scenes?

Sandra  16:23  
Yes, so like I was saying, I've chosen to be on the shop floor, but other people other volunteers will choose to be would be preferred to be behind the scenes. And so in our case, we have an upstairs. So upstairs, all the donations taken, we have lots of big pens, where different items go and everything sorted into into colour size, style, we have a massive a big pen that we can put all the rag trade in. And then I'm not sure it might be something like once a month, somebody will come and collect all that stuff. I'm not sure about the timing of that. So we have volunteers upstairs who will go through everything and make sure it's suitable. If it's not suitable, it goes into the relevant pens to be either sent to another sharp or sent to the right trade. We try to use as much as we possibly can, because it's all about, you know, getting money for the cats.

Lesley  17:26  
And so you talked also Sandra about selling things online, which is quite interesting as well. So obviously, you've got the shop as an outlet. So you talked about selling things online. So what do you mean by that.

Sandra  17:36  
So we do have an eBay account that can be used for for selling some books, if we get something donated. And obviously, you know, if you look up and see that it's of value, then we want to get the most for you know, somebody has donated that to us. So and we're so grateful, and we want to get the most that we can for it, because we're grateful that they've donated it, but we also want to make as much money for the charity. And that way you can target it to a more interested party, and you're opening up the, you know, the area to sell it. And also even on the Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, I can put items on it, you know, we know are valuable. And you know that way people come into the shop, because they've seen it on social media.

Lesley  18:32  
Yeah, I know, I sort of had a chat years ago with a charity shop and sale that I used. And she they kind of went one step further. So they had an eBay account. But they also had specialist sellers. So things like vintage cameras, and old jewellery and things like that they had specific people who would take so they had additional people on top of selling it themselves that they would then sort of outsource your pass it on to to get money for as well. So there's definitely charity shops, it doesn't just stop in the charity shops. I think so many people just think, Well, I wouldn't see that kind of thing in the shop window of a charity shop. And it's really important to know that there are these other outlets. And my advice to you then as I've said before, is to go in to chat to someone like Sandra who's sitting at cuts protection at the tail and say, I've got these kinds of things. I'm just wondering whether or not you would sell that or not. And they can be very honest as to whether that would be a welcomed donation, or not, because undoubtedly there will be some things that are more awkward to sell than others and perhaps you know, there's an easier way for you to to pass that on to somebody else, which is not the charity shop. And so I think it's about having that open and honest dialogue, isn't it with the charity shop owner to see whether that's a really useful donation I know that you will accept everything, but perhaps sometimes there might be another way of doing things that makes things a little bit easier or cuts out the middleman or something like that. There must be things Sandra that are more difficult. So I'm thinking about things like jigsaws, your sets of a jigsaw has got 100 pieces 1000 1000 however many pieces of Jigsaw has got something that you would welcome in your charity shop, not 100%, knowing whether or not it's intact.

Sandra  20:19  
Oh, well, definitely we sell lots of jigsaws. And we always have somebody upstairs, well, we'll have to sit down and count and make sure because we would never sell it Jigsaw with a piece missing, because that's very frustrating. And so I want to advise, you know, if you could just check that all the pieces aren't there, there's no point donating really a jigsaw that isn't complete. So it would be good to check that and even celebrate the box, because accidents happen. We have had boxes open and then pieces are on the floor. And the same with DVDs and CDs. You know, sometimes we get donated and cases and then the CD actually isn't in it or, you know, so just simple things like that. takes a minute, doesn't it? Rather than just throwing it in a bag and dropping it on our doorstep?

Lesley  21:11  
Yeah, so it takes so you as an individual, it takes, you know, an extra five minutes or something, but the person at the other end has got to do that tenfold. If they've had 10 to jigsaws. In that day, they've got to count or whatever. And so I wanted to talk to you about things like electricals as well. So there's always a little bit of confusion about electrical items and whether or not there can be donated to a charity shop. So what happens in your charity shop about electrical items?

Sandra  21:36  
So no, we can't accept electrical Gods because they need to be PAT tested.

Lesley  21:41  
Yeah, so if anybody doesn't know what pap testing is, because obviously, it's probably I would imagine called something different around the world. So pap testing is just doing the the electrical safety checks. And what a lot of our charities here have is they do have a pat tester on the premises that will do that. So some charity shops will take electrical items, and some won't. And it's not always clear. So furniture, it's clear, because you can kind of see that they sell furniture, when you walk past it. electricals is a little bit more tricky to work with. So again, just ask the question, give them a phone call, check the website, and it will become very clear whether they will or won't, or whether they do or don't have a pat tester on the premises and can take your old electricals because old electric calls quite often will depend on how old they are, will sell well, you know TVs and all that kind of thing. People they've definitely got a secondhand market. So it's useful to find out which charity shops in your area do have those Pat testers. So one other thing that I wanted to talk about is that more recently, charity shops have stopped or some charity shops have stopped even taking DVDs. So videos are kind of long gone for most charity shops, I would say so most charity shops won't go down the video because it's three or four generations past, isn't it now that we're all streaming things and downloading things. So but even DVDs are becoming a little bit out of vogue in a lot of charity shops. So what what is your charity shop? Do they take DVDs? Or do they not?

Sandra  23:03  
We do and like I said, we really will take everything because it's somewhere, somebody somewhere will will want something. But in our shop, we do have DVDs and CDs. And along with all the books. So it's what it is Larry are in our shop that is shelves for those sorts of things. And again, we have our regulars that come in all the time, because obviously every day we have donations. So you just don't know what's going to be there. And so we have people who come in and they know the shelf, and they know what what's on there. And they can tell when it's something new.

Lesley  23:39  
So what do you think is your biggest seller? Is this is this a tough, tough questions, and I'm gonna put you on the spot and say, What's the thing that sells most well in your charity shop as a category?

Sandra  23:50  
Well, ladies clothes I know that's a broad category, but it's definitely ladies. So obviously we're a holiday destination, aren't we? So we have lots of people. And I don't know if it's fair to say that the age population of the visitors is a bit older in London now. And so we have a lot of ladies come in and buying tops and even you know, they're staying in the hotels and they have nights in the hotels and they come in for a sparkly tarp or something to wear that night or they've come away on holiday and they've forgotten something. You know, whether it be a handbag or a tarp or a pair of trousers. So it's handy from that point of view that I'll just pop in and get something because if gotten to pocket

Lesley  24:40  
Well, there you go charity shops in London. No, and that's that's the scoop on the charity shop in London. No, it sounds amazing. I think it's such a worthwhile cause. I think it's fantastic for you to be doing something that you feel passionate about in terms of feline welfare. I think it's amazing because it's all about sustainability which is formed A big part of your life as well, Sandra. And so, you it was really interesting that you're doing that now. So do you feel like you're going to continue that for a while?

Sandra  25:08  
Oh, definitely. In fact, I can't rate highly enough being a volunteer. I mean, I love it. And I've made great friends. You know, it gets me out of the house. It's lovely. Yeah, I would definitely think about volunteering if you have the time, because it's such a two way thing, because you're getting so much from it, but you're also helping out the charity shops.

Lesley  25:31  
Fantastic. So Sandra, I mean, I'd like I feel like we could have more podcasts we did episode 131. We've done episode 138. Now, and I feel like we've got more that we could chat about. But we need to give somebody else a chance though. It's a tough cast. So I just wanted to say a huge thank you. For me. It's been so lovely to be able to interview one of my best friends and most long standing friends. So thank you so much for sharing your valuable time with me today. I'm sure it's been super useful for a lot of people because charity shops is something that we declutter is absolutely love to know what's going on. Because the end of the day is such an integral part of the process of decluttering. To be able to donate your items to things that you feel are going to give them a second life and repurpose them. So that's really, really important. So to understand what you can and can't take what's useful, what's not, is really important part of the process. So thanks so much for sharing that. So thank you for being here, Sandra.

Sandra  26:28  
You're welcome. I've enjoyed it.

Lesley  26:30  
So that's it for this episode. We hope you've all enjoyed listening, and are inspired to take action and we appreciate you so much for taking the time to listen. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it with other people. Maybe your friends and family would love our show to who would not love talking about charity shops. On our show notes page. On our website, you can find all the sharing buttons and we are going to drop links to Sandra's Instagram page, and information about the cat's protection charity as well. If you want more handy tips and advice from Ingrid and now you can find this in lots of places. We've got our lovely Facebook group called the declutter hub community where you'll find loads of inspiration and support. We've got Instagram and we've got a Facebook page too. And you can find us at a declutter hub, we would love to see you there. Don't forget to take a look at our membership as well. If you are really struggling and feel overwhelmed on your decluttering journey, we can absolutely help. And if you're not sure whether a membership is the right thing for you, we offer a free 15 minute discovery call. So you can ask us anything about the membership to see whether it's the right place for you to be. If you don't want to miss our next podcast, please do subscribe to the declutter podcast and it will pop into your notifications each Friday. We've been asking for reviews which make a huge difference to us. So if you've enjoyed today or any other of our podcasts, we would love you to take a couple of minutes out of your day to leave us a review. Ingrid and I absolutely love reading them. So thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Outro  28:00  
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