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By Mark Cox
June 1, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Apparently, Stella McCartney was livid, Donatella went from orange to puce and Anna Wintour stamped on her own trademark sunglasses in frustrated rage.
Why, you ask? Well, the haute couture collective had all just heard they’d missed the best bargains at the fashion sale being held on the Big Red Cross Bus yesterday, as it kicked off a two week UK tour in Stirling.
The double decker – the world’s first mobile charity shop and volunteer information centre – is visiting 12 locations over the next fortnight and could be winging your way soon. (The idea, in a nutshell, is that you pop along to browse and bargain-hunt – but can also try your hand at being a shop volunteer and, if you like it, sign up to help out occasionally.)
Hordes of keen shoppers invaded the bus as soon as the doors opened in Stirling. They had been tipped off by a feature in the Daily Record that they could get loads of designer stuff – including kaftans, clutch bags and maxi-dresses – by names such as Jimmy Choo, Versace and Mary Quant at knock-down prices. Incidentally, as a middle-aged jeans and trainer-wearing male, I should confess I have no idea what most of that last sentence actually meant.
So, besides at times looking like a clothes sale hosted by the Sex and the City cast, the first day was a humungous success. Here’s my top five nuggets:
1. Scores of people visited the shop
2. Ten kind souls brought along bumper bags of donations
3. Daily shop takings were quadrupled
4. Local MSP Bruce Crawford visited and bought and bought a Monsoon bikini. (Only kidding. About the bikini, that is. He did visit.)
5. Best of all, 31 people signed up to become shop volunteers!
Keep an eye for the bus – it might be on its way to your town soon.
Tags: fundraising, Red Cross shops, shop volunteer, Volunteering, volunteers
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 at 4:00 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.
Mark Cox is UK services writer at the British Red Cross.
Other posts by Mark Cox
The British Red Cross values comments both complimentary and critical. However, we will not tolerate the following: aggressive or personal criticism of the blogger, breach of copyright, obscene, defamatory, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or likewise objectionable comments.
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