St Peter's Hospice Shop Manager

Jean joined St Peter’s Hospice in 2003 as Manager of the Yatton shop and moved to Backwell when the shop opened in November 2009.

“My job is to promote St Peter’s Hospice in the Backwell community through the shop and our volunteers and to help raise money to go towards patient care throughout the region.”

No day is ever the same running the shop but dailytasks include:

• Keeping the shop clean, tidy and well stocked.
• Briefing volunteers on their duties – I have a team of 14 local volunteers who help me and my Assistant Manager Helen.
• Sorting donations – we get approximately 35 bags a day that have to be sorted. Anything we can’t sell goes to the recycling company, we get paid for textiles, shoes, books and mobile phones. We are the ultimate recyclers!
• Preparing stock for the shop – we steam clean every item of clothing and price according to quality, brand and location of the shop. Our donors like us to get the best possible price for their donated items especially designer goods.
• Restocking the shop – up to 100 items a day are put out in the shop – clothing, shoes, accessories, books, bric a brac, toys and music.
• Rotating stock – if stock doesn’t sell within two weeks we will send it to another St Peter’s Hospice shop, it might not be right for our customers but could be bought somewhere else.
• Windows and merchandising displays – our displays are changed daily as things get sold. We update our windows weekly, to reflect the latest trends and the seasons.
• We introduced Gift Aid 18 months ago, we can claim an extra 25p in every £1 from the government for everyone that signs up and donates to us. Every Gift Aided item has to be tracked through to sale so we can keep an accurate record of the donors goods.

“Every day is different in this job. You only need a few compliments from customers or find some great items to sell and it makes the hard work worthwhile. Ultimately I know we are helping our local community, we can see that the money raised is helping people so that’s got to be a good reason to go to work.”