5 minute read
Becky’s After Party
Gerry would ride 500 miles
and would probably ride 500 more
We don’t think Gerry Hardwick, who rode his bike 500 miles around Wirral, Cheshire and North Wales, with a little help from his friends, would mind us referring to him as ‘Big Gerry’.
He freely admitted that his ‘once upon a time, six pack’ had developed into a ‘PartySeven’ in recent years (our older readers will remember the 1970s reference to a larger can of beer). By resolving to find his fitness and smash through the pain barrier, his challenge was highly commendable. Gerry wanted to help raise some funds to say a heartfelt thank you to our Hospice at Home team who had given “such attentive care” to his dad, also Gerry, and helped mum, Ann, get some much needed rest and respite when Gerry senior’s chronic COPD reached its final stages. Gerry duly completed 500 miles within the 28 day target he had set himself which has helped him raise a nice £870 + gift aid for the hospice so far. We’re glad to say, that all of our charity shops have been fully open for several months now and they’re doing brisk trade once more. The hospice has seven charity shops, in Birkenhead, Claughton, Heswall, Liscard, Moreton, New Brighton and West Kirby, and they are all accepting your pre-loved items for re-sale again, observing all of the current safety recommendations. All of the shop address details and the processes for donating larger items of furniture are at www.wirralhospice.org/charityshops If you love your bike and would like to do a ride to raise funds for Wirral Hospice St John’s, please drop an email for some friendly help to events@wirralhospice.org
OPEN FOR YOU
Open for Business
There’s also a service for workplaces to encourage colleagues to have a clear-out and, on a pre-arranged date, we’ll send out the van to pick up all the goods that are collected. If you represent a business and this appeals to you we can send you a pack with details if you send an email to events@wirralhospice.org
Open for Quality
Finally, have a ‘virtual root’ through our hospice eBay site where any high value, quality items that our supporters donate are on sale. You never know you might just find your Christmas outfit or that collector’s piece you were looking for! Find a quality bargain, visit
www.wirralhospice.org/onlineshopping
Mags puts all the Charity Shop pieces in place
For the last four years retail operations at our Liscard charity shop have been running like clockwork, under the direction of experienced shop manager Margaret ‘Mags’ Andersen.
Mags has been in the retail game for more years than she will admit to, but her charity retail journey started as a volunteer back in 1997, for our friends at Claire House. Her flair was quickly noted and she was soon offered a job and spent many happy years at their Poulton, Seabank and Wallasey Road shops as manager. She is a tireless worker and held in the highest esteem by her fellow managers and shop volunteers alike. Watching Mags work on the shop floor is like watching someone doing a giant jigsaw. Liscard has 1800 sq ft of floor space so plenty of room for larger furniture items as well as a wide selection of pre-loved clothes, accessories, bric a brac, toys, jewellery and an extensive stock of fiction and non-fiction books. As the sofas, three-piece suites and cabinets are sold and moved out, more come in, in all shapes and sizes, and the shop floor is quickly re-arranged to slot the new items, and any not yet sold, are moulded into a new arrangement. If it was viewed from above for any length of time it would be like watching a giant kaleidoscope of moving furniture. Mags is always at the heart of everything in the shop; directing the seemingly continuous turnover of stock, taking enquiries from customers, saying hello to regular shoppers, leading her volunteers and helping to dress a new window display.
Phew! In another life Mags could have been a New York traffic cop!
During the major lockdowns, Mags worked alongside our shops development manager, Paddy, to help clean from top to bottom, re-shape where necessary and build new displays in ALL of our seven shops (the others are at Birkenhead, Claughton, Heswall, Moreton, New Brighton and West Kirby). Before the shops could re-open Mags also created an innovative ‘click and collect’ service using the shop’s window and a turnover of interesting items displayed in it. People became not only figurative but literal ‘window shoppers.’ A notice in the window with ‘if you’d like to buy any of the items on display please go to our eBay site. This attracted passers-by and soon the goods were being sold online, hand over fist. In her ‘real life’, Mags had moved from the little village in North Wales where she grew up, Clocaenog, on the edge of a beautiful forest to be closer to the ‘Big City’, she means Liverpool rather than Wallasey. She has daughter, Pam, with granddaughter Zara, 12, and son Joe, close by. She really enjoys a good night out with partner Steve, when they can co-ordinate their schedules because Steve is a chef and works many evening shifts. Mags is proud of her background. Whenever the occasion calls for it she can converse fluently in her native Welsh language and is still visiting her mum, May, now 90, every week where she lives near Ruthin and the Clocaenog Forest. Back at the shop Mags works with twenty volunteers who come in across various shifts across the week. She loves them all, “They’re a great team of people. I’d never ask any of them to do anything they’re not comfortable with or that I wouldn’t do myself. I couldn’t fairly name any one of them as they are all outstanding people. They love the hospice and know what they’re doing makes a real impact.” To get the counter view I remember asking long time hospice stalwart charity shop volunteer Ann, known as Irish Ann, to sum up her view of Mags and, in her engaging Irish brogue, she said, “I don’t call her Mags, I call her Margaret, it’s a beautiful name. She knows this business inside out. She looks after us volunteers and has all of our best interests at heart and we love her.” What could be a better accolade than that?
