Red Cross Blogs

Time to stick the boot in

By Alix Miller
September 9, 2009 at 3:11 pm

On Sunday, while much of London was having a lazy day reading the papers or in front of the telly, I was selling some second-hand tennis balls.

Yes, you may wonder who would want to pay for something most people would chuck away. But it was just another  transaction in the wonderful world of the car boot sale – a parallel universe where even seemingly useless rubbish becomes desirable and is given a fresh lease of life. It’s a place where one woman’s second-hand tennis balls are another’s chewable toys for the dog.

As you will know if you are a regular reader of my blog, my Mum and I are raising sponsorship for the 3 Peaks Challenge by Rail which we are doing as part of a team of four in a couple of weeks.

So, in an effort to meet our fundraising target of £1,600 (my Mum and my contribution to our team’s sponsorship efforts), we both had a good clear out, crammed all our unwanted clutter into the car and pitched up at Battersea Tech College’s car boot sale, in south-west London.

It was an exhausting day, but very successful. After costs (£35 fee for our ‘premium’ plot), we managed to raise £145 for the Railway Children and to shift about 80 per cent of our unwanted stuff. We sold everything from clothes and shoes to a set of weights, an espresso machine, books and my second hand Jimmy Choo leather handbag (bought in a Red Cross shop), which went for £20.

For me the car boot sale epitomises what’s great about London life. It’s a multi-cultural melting pot full of quirky characters and with a community spirit all of its own. At one point during our sale there was some interest in a cordless drill we were selling which a friend had donated. However, my Mum and I didn’t have a clue how to work it. An Iraqi man sprung to our aid by offering a quick demonstration of the drill, first to us, and then to an interested punter, and then joked he should take a cut of the proceeds of the sale.

The humble car boot sale, which attracts bargain-hunters in their droves, is also a reminder of the struggle faced by many Londoners to make ends meet.  But you can also see how resourceful people can be at these events despite their stretched finances.

For example, take the Ghanaian lady who wanted my TV. I offered it to her for £8. She then debated how she could get it home. I didn’t have a box for it and she was planning to carry it home on the bus to Borough some miles away, even though she was already laden down by several bags. In the end, we put the TV in a big heavy duty bag and reduced the price to £3. With the money she saved she was able to get a cab home.

Why don’t you get the car boot habit and shift a load of junk? You could donate the proceeds to the British Red Cross for that extra feelgood factor.  Check out Time Out’s guide to the capital’s top ten car boot sales.  Here are my tips for success:

1 Don’t go it alone – you need two people to man a stall.

2 Bring a long table (and hanging rail) to display your wares, lots of plastic bags, a float of £50 (in a mixture of different-sized notes and change), a moneybelt and that all-important flask of tea.

3 Pitch it right – don’t overprice your wares. You may have paid £80 for something new, but few things sell for more than a tenner in car boot world.

4 Do deals. Maximise sales by offering, for example, one item for £3, two for £5.

6 Drop your prices after the first couple of hours.

7 Smile and talk to the the punters.

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Tags: 3 peaks challenge, charity shops, fundraising

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Fundraising and events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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