Spring is an especially busy time for Fran Tutt, Oxfam Festival Shop Manager and her deputy Charles Price.
They’re preparing for a long summer ahead taking Oxfam donations to sell at music festivals - from Glastonbury to Download, Womad to Bestival.
And just to keep them on their toes they’re also planning a trip to the Royal Windsor Horse Festival in May - their first major event of the year.
Merchandise, already sorted and packed into bundles - everything from sequinned tops and jumpers to knitted blankets, waterproofs, jeans and wellies - fills the Oxfam Wastesaver recycling warehouse in Batley, which is also home to the charity’s online operation.
READ MORE: Festival calendar 2016: Our guide to the best musical events in Huddersfield and beyond
Last summer Oxfam made £225,000 in 30 days at festivals. It is the only charity to sell recycled clothing at music events and over a decade or so has built a reputation for providing what the punters need and want.
As Fran explains, each festival has its own character and requires different merchandise and varying numbers of volunteer helpers. “Womad, for example, is a family-friendly, hippie festival where we sell a lot of brightly-coloured clothing, “ she says. “But Leeds Fest has quite a young crowd and is often someone’s first festival, so we do well with ‘welfare stock’, that’s things to keep people warm and dry - they often don’t think to bring an extra jumper.” For rock and metal fans at Download they’ll be packing khaki, camouflage, studded jackets, band t-shirts and denim; while Boomtown customers will want clothes to dress up in.
This year the Oxfam teams are hoping to attend eight summer festivals - some have yet to confirm - and before each one they will assess what they think will sell. “We spend quite a lot of time talking about the weather,” says Charles, “and then it doesn’t do what we expect. But we have staples such as sleeping bags, waterproofs and wellies.” Hoodies and jumpers are also important stock for British summertime events.
Glastonbury is the big one, of course, and for that festival Oxfam will need around 70 volunteers to run four shops. Volunteers work a shift system of six hours a day. This means that the shops can stay open for 18 hours at a time. “We get a big age range among volunteers,” said Fran. “There are a lot of students but we also have people in their sixties and seventies who come and really enjoy it.”
In order to be a festival helper it’s necessary to have been an Oxfam volunteer for a minimum of three months. Applications open this month and this year the charity is looking for 110 volunteers in total. Some will be regular festival attenders, but not all. Anyone who’d like to apply next year needs to think about getting that all-important volunteer experience in the next 12 months.
Charles says volunteers have to be comfortable with the thought of sleeping under canvas and all the privations that brings. “The work is a lot harder than some people might expect,” he added. “We arrive to a big, empty marquee and put everything up - rails, clothing, bunting and lighting. We get to know our customers well because we’re camping and living in the same area as them.”
READ MORE:Fashion and Beauty: Turning unwanted clothing into hard cash for charity
READ MORE: Thousands expected to join St Patrick's Day parade in Huddersfield
Although festivals are big earners for Oxfam, the charity is always on the lookout for other events to cash in on. Last weekend, for example, Fran and Charles were at the Tattoo Tea Party in Manchester, a two-day celebration of the art of tattooing and all that goes with it. For such an occasion they packed 1950s rockabilly dresses and jackets.
And from today (March 10) they are in Birmingham for the three days of Crufts, the world’s biggest dog show. As Charles explains: “For Crufts we’ll be taking outdoor stuff for dog walking and some amazing dogwear. For the Royal Windsor Horse Show we also do outdoor clothing, with high end brands such as Barbour, as well as cashmere and Liberty scarves.”
The fact that festival organisers have so much choice of merchandise is the result of the 90 tons of clothing and goods that arrive every week at the Wastesaver depot. This quite staggering amount of unwanted clothing, household goods and bric-a-brac comes from the charity’s high street shops. Anything that doesn’t find a buyer within three weeks is bagged up and despatched to Batley. There, goods are sorted and earmarked for online sale, the festival shop or one of a number of Oxfam projects around the world.
* Oxfam is launching a new fund-raising venture at its Northern Logistics Centre in Batley - evenings of personal shopping at the Online Hub. The #Oxstyle experience will offer shoppers the chance to choose from the 8,000 or so pre-owned garments, accessories or homeware items in the warehouse. Jo Thackwray, e-commerce and festivals manager at the centre, says individuals or small groups will be able to book visits to the hub. “We’re going to be open on Thursday evenings from about 5.30pm,“ she explained, “and we will do refreshments before the shoppers browse in the hub. We have facilities for changing and people will be able to buy on the day. If they bring donations and there’s a Marks & Spencer item they will get a £5 M&S voucher.
“The idea behind the evenings is to highlight the online shop and let people see the amount of stuff we have.
“The first group we’ve got booked in are the organisers of the Batley Vintage Fair and they want to kit themselves out in vintage clothing, so we’ll be helping them to do that.”
To book a personal shopping place contact jthackwray1@oxfam.org.uk
For details of the online shop visit www.oxfam.org.uk/shop
