And the challenge of reduced staff numbers has been compounded by an increased workload for some charity shops as many Islanders have taken the stay-at-home orders as an opportunity to declutter their house, leading to a spike in donations.
Jane Allchin, general manager of Cry Jersey, said that their store – which has also been experiencing staff shortages – achieved record sales the first day of reopening last week. ‘[It was] difficult to manage the queue as we were only allowing five customers in at one time in the clothes shop and only three at a time in the furniture shop. Because of our shop layout, we often have to deploy someone to be at the door checking numbers, especially when we are busy.
‘We’ve had a lot of donations – maybe not quite as many as after the first lockdown – but more than usual,’ she said. ‘With furniture we have had to delay a few donations that we are going out to collect and now have a week’s waiting list.’
Jez Strickland, manager at Headway Charity shop, said that many volunteers fell into the ‘most at risk’ category, due to a combination of age and underlying health conditions. ‘We have all been struggling with shortages of volunteers. It is simply a very understandable self-protection against the possibility of catching the Covid virus.’
‘We have less of a pool of volunteers but at the same time we are needing more to manage our operations,’ said Yannick Fillieul, operations manager at Jersey Hospice Care. ‘Last week when reopening it was phenomenally busy and we were a bit short of volunteers. It has been difficult managing with Covid-19 controls and also with more people in our shops. It was the first Saturday we’d been open for a while and normally we’d need more staff to cope with increased demand. We also needed extra controls in place to manage queues and make sure people are following the rules.
‘We found donations were very high when we reopened in May after closing for nine weeks in March. People were sorting things out over lockdown.’
He added that while donations had not been as high this time, multiple low-value items had been handed in.
‘I get the feeling that people are giving to charities rather than going to La Collete and recycling,’ he said. ‘We are now trialling a discount store in our town shop – that’s on the basis that because we have had so many donations, we are discounting some of the lower-value items. All items are between £1 and £4. That’s been really popular. It’s making better use of our donations as we have an outlet for lower-value donations and also we’re finding it’s helping the community. There are quite a lot of people that are coming in to buy their general clothes from us.’
