The Oxfam Saga - "You've Managed to Upset Them All by Yourself."

Warning - this is a very long post, but I thought it was important to get the whole thing down in one go.

The Oxfam shop has had people going in and out over the last couple of weeks, re-organising inside, creating new window displays and so on. The shop will be re-opening soon.

So yesterday I had a coffee with a lady who is one of the volunteers for Oxfam. She's one of the group of volunteers who worked at the shop up until it was closed last year and she's been involved in the attempts to re-open the shop over the last year.
She is not happy about the way Oxfam management have handled the entire affair.

I had been aware of some of the things that had been going on behind the scenes, from a variety of sources, and she filled in some of the details for me.
She started off by talking about the way Oxfam shops across the country are being changed into a "cookie cutter" template. In other words, if you walk into any Oxfam shop across the UK, it will look very similar. One of the elements to this is that Oxfam shops are now selling more new goods, and they are being positioned at the front of the shops, with the donated goods at the back – and preference is given to displaying Gift Aid items which have been donated. Other donations are given a lower priority.
All charity shops get a rate rebate, and also their stock is donated, and the shops are run by volunteers who work for free, so they have an advantage over other local businesses that have to pay the full rates, and pay their staff, and pay for the goods they sell. The volunteers felt that it was unfair to be in direct competition with local businesses, so they were stocking the minimum amount that they could agree on with higher management (they were quite happy with the Fairtrade stock - it was the other goods they disagreed with).

She was also very unhappy with the way the management of Oxfam had dealt with the volunteers over the past year. At every stage, the volunteers wanted to get back to running the shop, which they were refused permission to do. The management also expressed surprise that the volunteers stuck together as a group, something that they didn't seem to know how to deal with.
At one point a member of the management said that it had been very stressful to get emails from members of the public complaining about what was happening, and another said that they had been shouted at outside the shop, and that people were being stirred up by "ringleaders" among the volunteers. The volunteer they were complaining to replied: "You've managed to upset them all by yourself."
The management were very upset when Kirsty Williams got involved – but she's always been very involved in what goes on in Hay, and this was a matter of public interest.

When the volunteers ran the Oxfam table sale in the Buttermarket last year (which had already been booked) they were not allowed to go into the shop to get stock, so got donations together at the last minute, along with the plant stall – the people who run that had been growing the plants all year. When they sent the cheque off to Oxfam, they were thanked, and told how much difference it would make – even though the volunteers knew that the amount they raised at the table sale was only a fraction of the amount of money that was being wasted on paying the rent on the closed shop.

Eventually, Oxfam decided that what was needed was conflict resolution between the volunteers and the management. There were several meetings, some with the groups separately and some with them together – including a day at Baskerville Hall, with lunch. The result of this was a conflict resolution agreement – a document that everybody agreed to, which stated that the volunteers should be consulted, and kept informed of developments.
So then Oxfam management appointed a new manager – and refused to tell the volunteers the new manager's name. So much for keeping them informed.
Eventually, they found out that the new manager had been the manager at the Brecon Oxfam shop until it was closed.

Readers might be wondering why the volunteers stuck around to continue the dispute with the management for so long. After all, they were volunteers – they could just drop the whole thing and get on with their lives. But this particular group of volunteers had been together for a long time, and they were proud of what they had achieved. Hay Oxfam was consistently in the top quarter of Oxfam shops across the country in terms of performance. They knew they were a successful shop, and they knew that they could be again – they even suggested that they should run the shop as an all-volunteer shop, without a paid manager, and this was refused by the management, too. By this time, there were only about 10 volunteers still involved in the process, but they believed that they could encourage others of the original 40 to return.

In line with the conflict resolution agreement, the volunteers were supposed to be consulted on the new layout of the shop when it re-opened. The management tried to get them to give their ideas individually by email – the volunteers thought it would be far more sensible to get together to give a combined plan of what they wanted the shop to look like.
The management had already decided what the lay out was going to be when they finally got into the shop to see what was happening.

And then there were the training days. Bearing in mind that some of the volunteers had been working in the shop for 30 years, and that it had been a successful shop, so they knew what they were doing – the management sent trainers who seemed to be under the impression that they were training brand new recruits who didn't have a clue what they were doing, and were very surprised when the volunteers started asking awkward questions. Such as why they would be selling new plastic bottles of shampoo and so on – wasn't this in contradiction to the Oxfam policy on plastic reduction? And why was Oxfam offering Nectar Points to people who signed up for Gift Aid? Also, they were told that they would not be allowed to re-use plastic carrier bags donated to them – they would have to throw them away.
The volunteers who went to these meetings were expected to sign forms to say that they agreed with the Oxfam policies – they were given the forms with a pen, so obviously were intended to sign them at once. The policies all sounded very high minded, and the training session had all been about "empowerment" and "inclusivity" and all sounded very fine. Which was a complete contrast to the way those volunteers had been treated for most of the previous year, where they felt bullied and ignored by the management. So they were very reluctant to sign, because they no longer trusted the management. Especially since the new manager would only talk about "moving on" and not looking back at what was past – and claimed not to be bound by the conflict resolution agreement, which she hadn't been aware of until the volunteers brought the subject up.

Then there was the clearance of the old stock – where donated goods from the stock room were thrown onto the back of lorries and taken to be dumped. This was because clothes moths had infested the stock room in the year that it had remained untouched.
But they weren't only throwing out clothes. The ladies from Londis watched them throwing crockery and other items into the back of the lorry. The lady from the Red Cross shop even went down to ask if she could have some of it, rather than see good stuff be thrown away – and she was refused.
The ladies from Londis were not only angry about the stock being thrown out – they had kept the spare key for the Oxfam shop, and when the management came in to collect it, they didn't even say thank you. Also, Londis had the tea and sugar and so on for the Oxfam shop on a tab – the management didn't pay that bill; it came out of the pocket of one of the volunteers. I don't think they'll be running a tab for Oxfam in future.

When the volunteers finally got into the shop and checked, they found that all the children's toys had gone, and also the DVDs – it was claimed that the children's toys were broken, and the DVDs were pirated copies!
There is a new Oxfam policy that the shops will not sell anything for under £1 in future – and what seems to have happened is that they have thrown away everything that would have been priced at under £1. So, mugs at 50p, glasses for 30p, Cds and DVDs, toys, even the container of scrap metal that used to be collected to sell to the dealer – all gone. Apparently donated goods that would previously have been sold at under £1 will be "bundled" in future – so 2 or 3 items for £1 (or 99p – can't have a whole number as the price!)
The new pricing policy is that goods will be £1.99 rather than £2 (or whatever it might be) – and this is apparently to deter the staff from stealing! It means that they have to open the till to give change for every transaction. It seems that the Oxfam management hadn't considered the fact that there are no banks in Hay any more – so good luck with getting the pennies to give as change!
And you'll need more than pennies to buy the vintage Welsh blanket that's now hanging in the window of the shop – I stopped by to check after I came out of Shepherds, and they want £199.00 for it!

Finally, the lady I was talking to gave me a quotation she'd found which she thought summed up the whole situation with Oxfam. It's actually from Melanie Phillips the columnist, who was talking about a completely different subject, but it does seem rather apt:
"Their behaviour provides a ghastly illustration of the signature characteristic of the social justice warrior coupling the most lofty goals for the human race with a total absence of care, duty or respect towards actual people."