Uniting Church Op Shop
When Marilyn Carle moved to Braidwood, the first thing she did was join St Andrews Uniting Church. From there, it was a short step into the ‘Wednesday’ op shop, which, after years in a tiny shopfront next to the supermarket, now occupies two spacious sheds in the St Andrews grounds.
But a fair bit of it still sprawls out the front. ‘People keep mentioning it this morning,’ Marilyn says. ‘It's like a rude word – “Oh, you need another shed.” I know, I know! It took two years to get one, but honestly, we could fill another shed. [Op shop volunteer] Velma’s storing some things at her place.’
The op shop is an Aladdin’s cave – and so long as Marilyn is there, it’s going to remain that way. ‘We’ve got one lady who has always wanted to do displays,’ she says, ‘and we don’t have the space. But we also want to keep it as an op shop. People always say they like to have a rummage.’
Where op shops run by other charitable groups, such as Vinnies and Anglicare, have become commercial ventures, the Wednesday op shop has no overheads, no paid staff, and no sales targets, allowing its volunteers to keep costs down.
‘A lot of local people come and they just say this is the “real” op shop, because we don't charge,’ Marilyn says. She prices things individually, but the shop also offers a full bag of clothing for $10. As well as clothes, which include suits, coats, and school uniforms, the sheds offer bedlinen, curtains, sewing supplies, books, homewares, and toys.
‘We are just a little op shop, but between the four of us we serve the community. Someone came this morning who was setting up a flat. So they got all the crockery, all the glassware, the chairs, a table – they got the lot here at a very reasonable price.’
How long has the op shop been running?
The shop has been running for over forty years, first in our little shop in town, and now, of course, here. I’ve been involved for 12 years now.
There's op shops in our whole parish, which is Canberra and southern New South Wales. We've just started having online get-togethers, and listening to them on Zoom; everyone does it differently. Some of them have only opened once a month, but they have meals, or a lunch for those who need it. Some have coffee shops, all sorts! Now, we could start a coffee shop too, but we couldn't manage it at this stage.
But people drop in for coffee anyway.
Now that we're here and we have the facility [after relocating some of the shop out of the kitchen], we do. We have some dear old folks come, and you say, ‘Would you like a coffee?’ And they say, ‘Oh, I thought you’d never ask!’
We have regulars now, and we do see it as part of our mission. We're church first, and we will look after people before anything else.
Where do the funds that the op shop collects go?
We give annually from all the money that we make from the shop. We have a church council which runs the church, of which I am the Secretary and unofficial caterer, and we have a fellowship group. It used to be called Women's Fellowship, but now Fellowship. But it’s mostly women, or entirely women, and we organise it.
We might make $10,000 in a year, and we give to local charities, the local schools, the Braidwood Life Centre, and the Education Foundation. And then we give to Flying Doctor. Fred Hollows’ Exodus Foundation, which is with Wayside Chapel, where our minister Graham comes from.
Catherine Hamlin, with her Fistula Foundation, is another one. We're very, very into that one, because quite a few of us know all about that, and Frontier Services.
We also collect stamps! We pass things on as well; very little goes to the dump. The Lions Club here takes all the sunglasses and cases, and they send them to a prison in Queensland, who repair them and send them to the islands. And we used to collect bras, especially for cancer patients, which went to people in Fiji.
The Wednesday op shop is a pretty sustainable operation, given that you have a core group of volunteers and no running costs to deal with. But if anyone wanted to pitch in, where could they best help?
Well, possibly if we got someone – other shops have paid staff, and they have someone to do online selling. We're just a very small group. So possibly someone that could work with us online… That would be amazing.
Location: 47 Elrington St, Braidwood
Words: Jessica Friedmann
Photos: Christopher Morris