BHF refuse my donation of an antique Edwardian Windsor chair

lemsip

They simply are not allowed to take furniture, beds ect ect antique or not!

they do not accept 'everything.

They certainly accepted a large solid oak sideboard of ours.

zakouma66

Its not easy volunteering or even being paid in a charity shop.

My mother had things which regarded as valuable eg hand made lace, tapestries and so on. Some of them were quite old. She got it into her head the museum in the town might like them and was quite hurt by a swift No Thanks. We have to accept times have changed radically.

That's such a shame Zakouma66 as many seek out these beautiful pieces, crafters in particular love to incorporate or re work lace and embroidery into their own 'slow-stitching' project or frame and display them. There are lots of us that see the love and skill that have gone into hand crafted treasures.
One of our charity shops saves up these things for a haberdashery sale every 6 weeks or so. It's fab!

I once donated a valuable, rosewood/ivory ingrained very large art work (last supper) for a church auction, requesting the gentleman who came to collect it, to let me know how much money it had raised. Never heard a peep from them. I’m still wondering and slightly angry. I now wish I had sold it and given the money to my grandchildren.

Its not easy volunteering or even being paid in a charity shop.

My mother had things which regarded as valuable eg hand made lace, tapestries and so on. Some of them were quite old. She got it into her head the museum in the town might like them and was quite hurt by a swift No Thanks. We have to accept times have changed radically.

Its a shame some stuff has to go to Landfill ,Surely ,some Charities that help the Homeless would be grateful for Kitchen Items .

We just bought an extending oak dining table and six chairs from a local charity shop to replace the round glass one we had. They took ours away and we saw it advertised last week for more than we paid for the oak one. So they've made money twice over from us.

I think a lot of people are thinking of the general smaller charity shops that sell clothes, jewellery and bits and bobs rather than the bigger shops that sell furniture, like the BHF ones.

BHF did a house clearance after FiL died, stating exactly what they would take (any furniture with fire labels, DVDs, CDs, a few bits of newish clothing) and came and collected it for a fee.

Last Friday my snug was donated to our local children's hospice shop. Sofa, chair, cushions, two pairs of full length curtains, rug and a fire surround. The collection guys were very happy with it all but I had been told that they would inspect all items first, fair enough.
As they left however, they were quite animated, discussing how it should all be set out in the shop 'roomset' area. Made me giggle as they were more beefy builder types than your LL Bowens

DEBRA is the charity that takes most in the way of furniture in our area. Would you be willing to try them?

I donated several older items of furniture to a charitable organisation which then teaches recovering addicts new skills to help them find employment. They sell the renovated items at in my view a high price, so make more money to support homeless recovering addicts.
I was pleased to get rid of otherwise unsaleable items and support a good cause.
One upholstered chair went to BHF. It had a fire label.

Most well known charities circulate their stock. It gets bagged and collected then taken to other branches. Apparently stuff that doesn’t sell in one shop might do well in another. They drop of stuff from the “other” shop at the same time
Seems a bit of a faff to me. Why not just keep reducing the price until it sells. Then send them off.
The problem might be that some have a minimum price policy they have to adhere to. Head office and all that🫤

It is difficult for charities to sell 'old furniture', antique or otherwise. It is not wanted these days.
If items are not sold they have to be taken to the tip and the charity has to pay for the disposal.
A lot of people just try to dump stuff on charities.
I know - I have worked for several over the years.

I took 19 bags of clothing, etc (many items still had shop tags on them) into our local Scope shop last week. I did ask whether they had space to take them all because I would happily take some to Age UK nextdoor if they couldn't accommodate it all.
They started off a little unsure as to whether they had space for it all, but as soon as they saw the quality of the items in the first bag, they couldn't take the rest quickly enough.
They did also say to me that if there was anything they couldn't sell, they have other shops (and other charities) that they pass items on to, rather than binning things.
I used to share my donations around a variety of charities, but after hearing about this proactive sharing attitude, I'll be sending everything to Scope from now on.

There are a couple of BHF furniture shops around me, and they also sell on Ebay, so shouldn't have been any problem.

When my brother died, i tried to donate a mattress which had been used once ( if that) there was a tiny mark (the size of a 5p piece) on the underside of the mattress. Easily removed. Refused by the charity but then so was the base and matching furniture.
My cousin tried to donate a piece of antique furniture which again was refused - sold to an American via ebay for thousands of pounds
It is how the refusal is provided that is the problem as many charity shop workers are rude. Hence when my brother died one charity had nothing and another had lots. The latter was polite and friendly. The former totally rude .

They've probably run out of storage space.

No one gets paid in our shop. We are lucky in that the organisation we help to support leaves it to the 3 of us.
We like that way.
But we do know how every penny we raise is spent.

When DD and SiL were moving into their second home, he took some bags of clothes to one of our local hospice charity shops. It was all good stuff; a lot of SiL’s John Lewis, M&S, Lands End, Hobbs, Karen Millen, Joules….. SiL was unshaven and in a state of some scruff, as he had been working hard packing boxes. The assistant looked him up and down and without even looking what was in the bags, said “we aren’t taking donations today.” He said “It’s all good stuff!” She said “I’m sorry.” It was their loss and he took them elsewhere where they were delighted to have them. The particular hospice was dear to all our hearts and it was very disappointing.
Regarding BHF, some years ago, my son and four of his friends ran the length of the Pembrokeshire coast path to raise money for two charities. One was the hospice that his wife spent her last days in, and the other was BHF in memory of the mother of one of his friends. That, and a charity auction that was held at his RAF station, raised several thousand pounds. The hospice accepted their half and were very pleased to allow the RAF to get some publicity photos for the RAF News. It took eleven weeks and several emails to get BHF to respond and send someone to accept their cheque. They were not exactly fulsome in their gratitude, and no publicity. Horses for courses I suppose.

When I moved house I had lots of stuff to donate to BHF. They wouldn't take some book shelfs because I had painted them which I understood. I also had a very sturdy garden table but no chairs and they refused this as they said it had to be a set. I am pretty sure that someone could have bought some chairs to go with it and this made no sense at all. They made it very difficult, it makes you wonder if they really want our stuff?

After my mother died I thought BHF might like some of the furniture from her house. The person who came marched round the house rejecting most items but took one wall unit remarking that it would only fetch £35. He wouldn’t take the dining chairs as he couldn’t see the fire certificate but later I found it stuck under the seat. Whilst he was there he took a call on his mobile and said to the person on the other end he was nearly finished as everything was rubbish which was nice to hear when you’ve just lost your mother.

A few years ago I had a red fabric three piece suite to donate to BHF. It was in very good condition but when the guys arrived they pointed out that one chair had lost its fire retardant label. Obviously it did have one but I threw it away when it ripped off. They would not take that chair even though it was identical to the other pieces. I ended up taking it to the recycling centre where it was put into a container. I like to think the container was the ‘rest’ place for the workers otherwise, what a waste!

TizLiz
A lot of managers in the big charities are hassled all day from central office.

MOnica
I can’t wait till tomorrow to tell the girls the new name for our charity. Poundland & B&Ms. That sums up our shop in a nutshell 😂
I was trying to think of the strangest donation. I think is the Pneumatic jackhammer drill. Fortunately I have 2 neighbours who are builders.

We had a small charity shop next to our work. We used it as a hardware store - light bulbs, plug, mugs etc.

We had to buy a lockable wheelie bin as donators would come out with their rejects and drop them in our bin.

It closed after the volunteer manager got fed up with the district manager arriving in her expensive company car and complaining she wasn’t making enough money and was rude to her. No taking into account the large number of donations received which were collected regularly to take to the warehouse - never seen a charity advertise their warehouse before on a tourist Facebook page.

I think accountants run these businesses making no allowance for the local community

It's just a question of taste, isn't it? Not everyone likes old things, whilst others will pay a premium for them.

There is plenty of small pieces of older furniture around that looks perfect in houses with smaller rooms. I have just spent a weekend with my Ds and DBiL who have a small house and every room had small pieces of furniture, a pew, dining table and seperate chairs - not a set, ocasional tables, book cases etc etc.