In-person participant 1: hello and welcome back to the charity shop chat with myself Mimi Cartwright. ⁓

Amelia Cartwright: with me Charlotte Greenwood. As always this podcast is powered by the charity retail consultancy and we support charities with expert retail guidance, training and strategic insight to help them maximise income and impact. And don't forget to sign up to charity retail learning in conjunction with the CRA for practical sector specific training designed for charity retailers.

In-person participant 1: So today's episode ⁓ greatly significant ⁓ charity retail is not just small, it's not niche, it's one of the largest retail networks in the UK.

Amelia Cartwright: It's one of the largest retail networks in the UK. But movements like that do not organize themselves. They need leadership. They need coordination. And they need a voice at the table when legislation is discussed, when retail policy is shaped, when environmental impact is debated. And for many years, think 11 years now, that voice has been Robin Osterley, OBE. As chief executive of the Charity Retail Association, Robin has represented the interests of charity retailers across the UK. He's led national conversations on business rates, waste and recycling legislation, retail regulation and sustainability policy. He's helped strengthen benchmarking and professional standards and supported the sector through economic turbulence, regulatory change, the growth of e-commerce and the shifting expectations of modern retail. And also that little thing called COVID,

In-person participant 1: the scenes in meetings most of us will never see Robin has been advocating for charity retail to be recognised ⁓ not just a fundraising tool but as a professional credible and economically significant retail force ⁓ now as Robin prepares to retire as CEO of the Charity Retail Association ⁓ feels like a very important moment to reflect ⁓ acknowledge the leadership that has shaped where we are today ⁓ to look ahead ⁓ what's the next chapter of National Leadership might bring.

Amelia Cartwright: So this is a conversation about legacy, advocacy, and the future of charity retail. So Robin, welcome to Charity Shop Chat, and thank you for the years you've given to this sector. Oh, thank you very much. was a very flattering introduction. And thank you for asking me to do this because it's great fun. Yeah, I don't think you can have a charity shot podcast without having having you on here. So let's get into it then. What made you want to become CEO of the CRA initially then? Well, two things really. When I applied for the job, I was a really quite experienced person in the kind of civil society membership sector, which is a bit of a niche kind of thing. But I was I'd been running membership associations in world of charity in the third sector generally by then for about 20 years. And it came up and then I thought well blimey that sort of kind of might suit me but also I just happened to love charity shops. So that kind of felt like it was a really good fit and I thought well you know if I can apply some of those skills particularly running federations because If you're running a membership association of individuals, that's a very different story from running federations, which is what I had done the whole time, by which I mean membership associations whose members are organizations or companies. And they're incredibly diverse. get really huge ones, you get really tiny ones, you get lots of things in between. And that's quite a specialist activity. because they all need different things and you have to apply your limited resources to members who are different shapes and sizes and have different requirements and that's a really big challenge and one which I've always relished so it just seemed like a really good fit so I applied and I was lucky enough to get always good to hear that we've got male champions out for charity shots because a lot of the time ⁓ you see ⁓ thrifting influence online are women. So it's great to see male voice the room to ⁓ advocate for the sector. Well, I guess I ought to be honest and that ⁓ most of the early time I was doing that, I was ⁓ following wife around. ⁓ Having done that, you know as a result of doing that I went to loads of charity shops and started to get really interested in what they were doing. So it was a genuine interest, yeah.

In-person participant 1: And so on that note, do mind giving us a little bit of a brief summary of your career before coming into the CRA

Amelia Cartwright: ⁓ I started, amazingly, started life after leaving university ⁓ in sales of office equipment. ⁓ very first job I had was selling photocopiers, ⁓ was quite an uninspiring kind of thing to do, to be honest. ⁓ you you needed to eat. ⁓ yes, I did sales and then I moved into marketing in ⁓ and spent a lot of time ⁓ with ICL, which was a very large computer company in those days. We're talking in sort of, you know, late 80s, early 90s. And there was a kind of morning, or perhaps a series of mornings, when I woke up thinking, you know, I don't really want to be doing this anymore, selling stuff to people who probably don't want it. And even if you could persuade them to buy it, then it didn't work. ⁓ The IT world was very different then to how it is now. And it was really hard to get any, you know, positive outcomes out of it. So I moved into the arts actually at that point ⁓ and my first job in the arts was running a small record company, classical music record company. And from there I moved into an organization which was then called the National Federation of Music Societies, is now called Making Music, which is the largest membership association in the UK ⁓ looking after amateur musical groups. we had about 3,000 members. And that's where I sort of cut my teeth in terms of learning how to run membership organizations. So I did that for 16 years and had a year in sport and then dished up in the CRA. So probably three different careers really, I guess, two of which were in membership. So IT sales and marketing, and then membership in music and now membership in charity retail. So when you first became CEO of the CRA then, what was the sector like and was it as you expected it to be having been kind of coming in as an outsider's point of view? That's a really interesting question because it wasn't what I'd expected actually. When I, well at least certainly when I first went for interviews, started doing the research for my interviews, what I discovered was really quite unexpected to me. I thought charity shops, the be all and end all of charity shops was making money for their parent charities. And of course that remains their principal activity, their principal reason for existence. But what I discovered as I got into the process of trying to get this job was ⁓ the huge sustainability aspects of charity retail. And then more subtly the... the whole community hub thing, the way that charity shops act as a center for huge numbers of people in their community in a whole variety of different ways. So the answer to your question is I wasn't expecting those two things at all actually, and it was extremely interesting to find out that. And I remember asking my interview panel when they come to that point where they say, have you got any questions for us? And I said, my question was, Why is it that the public knows so little about the sustainability aspects of charity retail and interestingly No one was able to answer that question. So I thought okay. Well if I get this job, this is gonna be interesting challenge First job on the to-do list. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So yeah, so it wasn't quite what I expected really What what I think what I think was what I expected was the great ⁓ sense of common feeling and the fact that everyone is working towards a similar goal and the extent to which people are prepared to share with one another, you know, tips and tricks and well, much more than that in a lot of cases, whole huge pieces of documentation and all that kind of stuff in order to make everyone's life a little bit better. And I, you know, that's what I'd learned from my life in charities. it was pleasant feeling to realise that everybody had ⁓ those goals in mind.

In-person participant 1: That's great. ⁓ It's really interesting as I'm coming into the start of my career in ⁓ the sector to have such similar ⁓ first glimpses in ⁓ a world we're living where retail is so turbulent and ⁓ so paced and ever changing really. It's really... ⁓

Amelia Cartwright: It's really interesting. in my

In-person participant 1: amazing to see that charity retail kind of stands strong as sustainable and as a community hub because that are the two real reasons that I knew that I wanted to be in the sector.

Amelia Cartwright: to real reasons that I knew that I wanted to be in the centre. It's the USP really, it? Well, USPs in this case. I think it would be... odd if Charity Retail was just trying to compete constantly on the same playing field as Marks and Spencer's or Next or something like that. mean, there's almost a what's the point about that really? But if you're actually able to leverage those special things about community and above all about improving the health of secondhand shopping in general and the public's understanding of it and acceptability of it. and that's where you get your real difference from. That's what makes it stand out.

In-person participant 1: Absolutely, I completely agree. as we're reflecting over your career and over your tenure, do you have any achievements that you are most proud of or that most stand out? stand out to you.

Amelia Cartwright: I think if you really force me to make a choice, because mean, obviously, there are so many millions of brilliant achievements, it's very hard for me to actually choose between one and the other. if you force me to make the choice, I think probably the thing that I'm most proud of is that four of the people who I employed and I'm... worked for me went on to become chief executives in their own right. ⁓ I have a very sort of, I hope my team would acknowledge this, but I have a very kind of delegatory kind of style of management. I like people to get on with things themselves really. And if they need to learn their trade, hopefully I will help them do that, but I'll give them the space to do it. so that they can become experts in their own right and try and keep out of their way while they're doing that development work. And I think that sort of works with most people. I guess it doesn't always work with everybody, but for most people, I think they appreciate that and they're able to thrive in that kind of environment and flourish. And the fact that four of my people went on to actually run quite substantial organisations in their own right, I think is probably the thing that makes me proudest over the course of that career. There's probably a few other things I could mention, but maybe we'll get on to some of that. That is a great achievement though, because you can see the impact that you've had on those people and you've passed on those skills and what they've gone on to do. So that's a great answer. Okay, so moving on then. Charity Retail is a major economic and environmental contributor. You Do you think it now has the level of recognition and influence it deserves nationally? No, ⁓ I don't. ⁓ are constantly to put our hands up and say, ⁓ you remember us. ⁓ I mean, I think that's ⁓ any fault of sector, by the way. ⁓ I think the sector is doing its best and actually I think it just reflects how charities in general are considered by the government and authorities. It isn't really, it is considered a poor relation in lots of ways and I'm not quite clear why that should be because as everybody knows there are some absolutely enormous charity retailers that dwarf quite a lot of commercial retailers in terms of their size and scale and efficiency and all that sort of stuff. ⁓ But they do tend to get ignored compared ⁓ to smaller, perhaps slightly more glamorous commercial organizations that are out there making lots of money and making their proprietors or shareholders very, very rich. So I think there's still a way to go with that. I think it's probably better than it was. And I'm not saying that was down to me, but I mean, think the whole thing has moved on quite significantly over the last 10 or 15 years in terms of profile, in terms of the acceptability of buying secondhand. And I do think that there are people in government who listen. And I certainly think that DEFRA, the department that we deal with most, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, really actually does understand charity retail quite well and the part that we play in the whole kind of facilitation of reuse. I think they do understand that quite well and they've been very supportive particularly since lockdown in lots of different ways. ⁓ So I think it is better than it was but there's certainly there's still plenty to play for in that respect I think. I think one of my favourite pieces of work that the CRA did was the social value. Yeah, because anecdotally everyone knows the value that charity shops bring aside from money in the till but to be able to quantify that in that way I think has been brilliant to talk about, know, people haven't seen that represented like that before and what was it? £75 billion of social value? £75 billion, yeah. Generated by charity shops, which is incredible and I hope that, you know, makes people sit up and pay attention to what charity shops bring to the high street and the economy in the communities. Yeah. You'd certainly hope so, It's a figure that's quite difficult to get across to people, exactly what's behind that figure and to help them understand it. mean, it's just a very, very big number and it doesn't have a sort of analog in the real world really, but... you know, what you can do is you can compare that number with the kind of social value that other types of organizations provide. And if you do that, you see the charity retailers doing incredibly well in terms of providing that sort of those benefits for customers, donors, staff and volunteers that ⁓ really other organizations struggle to do because they don't have that immediate personal impact. And if you go and work, I mean, just confining to retail. If you go and work in any number of high street retailers, you're unlikely to come out of that at the end of the day feeling that you're a lot better than you went in. But I strongly suspect that a lot of our staff and volunteers, as well as donors and customers, absolutely do do that. They'll come out of their working day. They'll probably be bit knackered. But they will feel that they've done a decent day's work in aid of a decent cause. And you're not going to say that if you are doing it in a commercial retail environment. yeah, mean, I think that underpins a huge amount of it, for sure. So.

In-person participant 1: So we're talking about the sector's voice ⁓ and how we need more conversation around How has the sector's voice strengthened over the And which voices and demographics do you wish we could hear more of?

Amelia Cartwright: I think it's strengthened, yeah, it's interesting you link that question to demographics, because I think actually the fact that it's strengthened is actually largely down to a sort of spreading of the demographic, particularly with regard to customers and volunteers. So when I first started 10 years ago, and again, I'm not saying it's anything to do with me necessarily, but when I first started 10 years ago now, we were still looking at quite an an aged population of volunteers. And donors tended to be a little bit more ⁓ diverse in terms of age. But you didn't get a huge number of young people donating in those days. And I think a lot of that has changed. We now have quite a lot of young volunteers working in charity shops, actually, and a huge number of younger people donating to charity shops. And I think this has helped enormously to spread the word and to, yeah, I keep using the word normalize secondhand shopping. you know, I mean, there's a really good example of this actually. And this, I'm actually gonna give a bit of credit to Vinted here. ⁓ My son, who's 24, ⁓ in ⁓ June, would never set in a charity shop at all. ⁓ He just simply wouldn't. ⁓ And then he, ⁓ like a lot of kids of his started to... ⁓ see vintage as an opportunity to earn a little bit of money and to buy stuff that he could see really easily online and so on so on. And having converted himself, there was no influence from anybody else, you just did it, having converted himself to secondhand shopping in that way, he now is a fairly regular visitor to charity shops and he donates a lot to charity shops. So that just seems like a part of a pattern that we're seeing really, which is that more and more young people in particular are doing this. And they're doing it largely for sustainability reasons. They don't need necessarily to do it for economic reasons because there's plenty of sources of really cheap clothing out there, unfortunately, very low quality cheap clothing in lot of cases, but there are plenty of sources of cheap clothing. So why are these young people buying in charity shops? Because A lot of it is about sustainability and they find that really important. They want their shopping choices to make less of an impact on the planet and they want their hard earned pounds to go to a good cause rather than some hedge fund in London. And I don't want to sort of, I don't want to ignore the value of older people. I and I am one, so it would be very senseless for me to do that. know, clearly it's... It's hugely important that there are older people still buying and donating and volunteering in charity shops. And we love them equally. But it is really interesting to see the extent to which younger people are getting involved.

In-person participant 1: Definitely. And it's really interesting that you mentioned Vinted in that way because a fair few of our conversations, I'd say, are ⁓ Vinted becomes ⁓ a quite difficult topic because they have obviously noticed a hit in their because of ⁓ rise of Vinted. I know I personally have sold stuff on and Vinted in the past, ⁓ which means that I'm getting that money instead of the organisation I would donate to. ⁓ However, I think it's really exciting to put vintage in the light that you have because it is true. My generation, vintage is an algorithmic way to shop secondhand, which my generation desperately needs. Like for some reason we've decided like we need efficiency. need like, we need to have everything so incredibly quickly just because we've grown up in the age of social media.

Amelia Cartwright: that we need to have everything so incredibly quickly just because we've grown up in the age of social media.

In-person participant 1: ⁓ And so that is how Vinted comes in as ⁓ you can go on Vinted and you know you're going to be able to find exactly what you want, which is different to charity retail. But to know that Vinted has been a pathway into sustainability means that we're all on the right side of retail, ⁓ even though we we kind of cross over in parts. That's really interesting.

Amelia Cartwright: a pathway into sustainability means that we're all on the right side of what we sail, even though we kind of cross over in parts. So you mentioned it before, how do you get the right balance when representing such a broad range of charities who may have different priorities? You you've got your nationals with hundreds and hundreds of shops, and then you've got some of the smaller charities who only have one shop. How do you balance that with the CRA? Well, I think you have to recognise that they need different things from us. The CRA was set up well as it then was the Association of Charity Shops was set up in 2000 by a bunch of large charities and primarily what they wanted was representation. They wanted a voice. They didn't feel that they could necessarily poke their heads above the parapet and start making a fuss around government and you know because it was because A, it was difficult for them to do so, and B, there were constraints, and there still are constraints on the extent of amount of lobbying that a charity can actually do outside of its own charitable objectives. And lobbying for retail outside of your charitable, would be outside of your charitable objectives. So by setting the CRA up, they gave themselves, an ability to do that. And I think to a large extent that's still what the largest organizations need. They need someone to go in to bat for them so that they're not so exposed when they're having these conversations. Smaller organizations, by contrast, just want to know what to do in a lot of cases. ⁓ They are not as well resourced. They won't have ⁓ really... extensive HR departments or IT departments, they want to know where to put their limited resources and we can help them with that. So given there's only 10 of us in the organization, ⁓ that is a challenge, but it's a challenge that we feel really, that it's really important to meet. mean, an example would be that we set up, it was probably about eight years ago now, our small retail chains activity where we go around the country bringing really small of shops, one to 10 shops together, ⁓ round a table where they talk to one another about their special problems. ⁓ So I think ⁓ the answer to your is that the way you do it is by ⁓ mobilizing and utilizing your own ⁓ getting them to help, provide provide speakers, talk to one another, give their opinions to one another. ⁓ And that's how you grow. from a 10 person organization to a thousands of person organization, because you've got thousands of people at your, not exactly at your disposal, but who might be prepared to help under the right circumstances. So I think that's how you do it. ⁓ But it is a constant challenge. And as I said earlier, it's one of the things that I find most interesting actually about running organizations like this, which is the way that you can... Adapt yourself to various different members and get the members to help you with that process

In-person participant 1: So we've spoke ⁓ this conversation about sustainability. Do policymakers fully understand the environmental impact of charity retail ⁓ and how can we ⁓ start to shout about that more ⁓ in our retail spaces?

Amelia Cartwright: I certainly think that DEFRA does, the government ⁓ who look after environmental and waste-related ⁓ matters. ⁓ ⁓ I'd love to see more understanding of it with local authorities, local authorities who are actually responsible on the ground for a lot of these kinds of sustainability issues. ⁓ I mean, have a degree, probably, I may be unique in this, but I do have a degree of understanding ⁓ and sympathy with the local authorities because they are so up against it in every single one of the areas in which they operate that looking after charity shops better is hardly very high on their radar. But nevertheless, charity shops could be local authorities' partners in a much more constructive way if local authorities were prepared to listen and had the resources to actually make those partnerships happen. So ⁓ I mean, I do think there is, again, a lot more work that could be done there. ⁓ And I think the people who don't understand, well, certainly, you know, DCMS, who have a who have overall responsibility for charities within the government don't have a clue. In fact, they don't have a clue about many things actually, but certainly charity retail will be quite low on their list. The Treasury probably, you know, who control the purse strings and are very influential in where government, well, completely influential in where government funding goes. I don't think they get it very well. And as I say, local authorities who would be in the prime position to both help and be helped by charity retail. Some of them, there are good examples of local authorities, don't get me wrong, but most of them don't really feel that that's particularly significant. there's an example of that, which is that fewer than one in seven local authorities give the extra 20 % discretionary rate relief to charity shops. Yeah, and it's getting lower all the time. ⁓ And again, for understandable reasons, but you're kind of kicking the people that actually can really help you with some of these things. I think you're right. think top down it's got to happen, but it's got to work from the bottom up as well. So we talk a lot about strategy and policy, but ultimately it does come down to people as well. So how important is investing in retail teams and leadership development, especially with everyone making cuts at the moment with rising costs? And what role do things like charity retail learning play in supporting that? ⁓ Well, To answer the first question first, think charity retail learning which we set up a few years ago in conjunction with the charity retail consultancy you guys was has a huge part to play because for the very specific reason that it that all the courses that we do from charity retail learning are Absolutely tailored to charity retail. It's not easy. It's not sorry. It's not difficult to go out and find a course in you know, don't know, merchandising or space management or something, but it's impossible to find one in space management and charity retail unless you look at the CRL ⁓ timetables. ⁓ So I think that's been really helpful actually and gives our members a really good and easy way of finding out stuff that is specific to them. And it's, you know, I think particularly in the frame here are shop managers. think running a charity shop must be one of the hardest jobs in the UK. They're asked to do an incredible number of different things, including being, in a lot of cases, unpaid social workers for volunteers. And the amount of support they get for that, for those kinds of activities is more limited than I'd like it to be. Well, on the other hand, I'm not a charity retailer and I don't have to ⁓ juggle the ⁓ of an in order to provide those kinds of development opportunities. ⁓ But ⁓ think way you look at it, ⁓ if you your shop managers ⁓ and just ⁓ okay, know, bring me the results at the end of the year. ⁓ and get on with it how you like that's really a recipe for stress actually. And the wellbeing of your charity retail staff is gonna suffer. So I do think they need more support. We worked with an organization a few years ago to do a survey of wellbeing in retail in general. And it turned out that actually charity workers were in retail were were actually slightly better in terms of wellbeing than their counterparts in commercial retail. But it was only a small effect. And I think a lot of charities should should look very carefully at the way that they support their on the ground shop staff, develop them and look after their wellbeing. That is partly why we set up this podcast. It was because not all charities can afford to send loads of people, loads of staff and volunteers to conferences and things like that. the podcast really is a really accessible way for shop managers to get involved, to hear the knowledge that's being shared, get the tips from other charity shops and volunteers, and you can use it in your own time. So as we...

In-person participant 1: So as we begin to close down today's podcast and as you prepare to retire from the CRA, it is now entering a new chapter. CEO inherit and what opportunities would you like them to make happen?

Amelia Cartwright: It just so happens that there's a lot of change ahead I think. In particular, What we've seen already is the extent to which shops are changing their own nature, often becoming quite a lot larger. In some cases, a fair few cases, moving out of town centers into different types of locations where you can have bigger space, which is great, but where a lot of the community stuff that charity shops are so famous for is harder to achieve. So that's one thing. I think we are looking at a world where costs are going to be a problem for some time to come, if not forever. So there's going to have to, in order to maintain the profitability of charity shops to support their parent charities, there's going to have to be a ⁓ real close attention paid to that cost versus income ratio and the profitability of the shop. and then on top of all of that you've got AI around the corner and the question is How can that really be utilized to the benefit of charity shops? And indeed the benefit of the environment because AI doesn't come for free You know it comes with an enormous power requirement and it comes with some issues over You know the way the dentist data centers are run modern slavery being implicated and all those kinds of things. And these are things that are very much contrary to the ethos of charity retail and charities in general. So how do charities best leverage AI, which they are going to have to do, no question of it, ⁓ without throwing the baby out with the bath water in that way. So I think there are a few challenges ahead for my successor. But I'm absolutely certain. So as we stand at the moment, beginning of April, when this recording was done, we have 70 applications for my job, which is a goodly number. 70 people want to be you, Robin. No, I don't think so. So, so I did tell them it was a good job. Yeah, so, you know, hopefully we will get someone who is bright enough and enthusiastic enough and energetic enough to meet all those challenges and I'm sure we will. So it's a great time for me to be going and handing out to somebody else like that because there's lots of really good stuff for them to get their teeth into and I won't have to do it. Some very big shoes to fill though. So just on a personal reflection then, what has this role meant to you personally? Well, When I joined, I wasn't sure that it was going to be my last job before retiring from full-time work. And it has proved to be. And the reason is I couldn't kind get away from it because I've really, really loved the last 10 years. I wouldn't stop now if it wasn't for the fact that I'm turning into a bit of a dinosaur and I will be 70 in two months after I leave. ⁓ I do feel that it has been a fantastic way for me to end my... career and it's been enormously enjoyable in all sorts of different ways. The diversity of each day, ⁓ you wake up and you've got some rough idea of what's going to happen, but you know, as a Chief Executive you have to have a finger in a lot of different pies and ⁓ knowing that there's all these different things going to happen during the day and we're just going be doing the same thing the whole day has always been exciting for me. I mean, I've been a Chief Executive since... 1997. that's that's always been the same. but I think what's so great about charity retail, I mean, you know, it's going to sound like a tremendous cliche, but what is so great is about is the people that are doing it, their dedication, their fantastic resilience and their ⁓ creativity and the fact that, you know, almost all of them could go out and earn twice as much. in commercial retail or commercial, just industry in general. But they choose to stay doing what they're doing because of their love of the good causes that we represent. That's humbling in lots of ways. I don't often call myself humble, but that does make me feel fairly humble. think that those have been my reflections. The last sort of ⁓ 10 years been, ⁓ well, yeah, most enjoyable of my working life. Not everybody can say that, actually, so I'm really lucky ⁓ in the that I'm ending on a high, a ⁓ personal high. Yeah, I was literally just about to say that, ending on a high. That's always a great way to go out, isn't Yeah.

In-person participant 1: So for those people who are here still representing the sector, if you could leave one message for the shop managers and the retail leaders listening today, what would that be?

Amelia Cartwright: You know, you save the most difficult questions a lot. I think my main message would be keep on keeping on actually. You are never going, you we encountered 2022 and 2023 where everything seemed hunky dory, that charity retail was doing fantastically well, unbelievably profitable, people were swarming in the doors as customers and... and donors and then the 2024 October 2024 budget hit you know and things changed significantly in people's attitudes. There's never going to be a time when there isn't change in charity retail and there's never going to be a time when it's going to be you know entirely straightforward. So the message is you're doing the right thing by working in these organizations. keep at it and don't get disheartened by, know, those people who've been in the business much longer than me tell me that it is a cyclical business. There are good times and bad times. And okay, it might be slightly tough times at the moment. They're not as bad as they were last year, I think. It might be tough times at the moment, but they will be good times as well because you are such a creative and resilient bunch. I still have nightmares about that budget. set our budgets high after those golden years and then it was like, ⁓ pull it back, pull it back. ⁓ So what's clear this conversation is that charity retail just grown in scale, it's grown in confidence ⁓ and professionalism and that doesn't happen without sustained leadership. ⁓ moments of transition are also moments of opportunity. ⁓ the Charity Retail Consultancy, we support charities to strengthen retail performance and leadership. so that collectively the sector continues to grow stronger. And when individual organizations invest in excellence, the national voice becomes more powerful too.

In-person participant 1: So Robin, you think we left the hardest question to last, but this is the toughest, this might be the toughest of them all. At the end of every podcast, we like to ask our guests to give a charity shop shout out. So this is just as a celebration to celebrate each other in the sector, bring each other up.

Amelia Cartwright: Uh-oh.

In-person participant 1: and song heroes because there are so many in the

Amelia Cartwright: No, I'm not going to do that. It's like asking you to pick your favourite child. And you can imagine why. you we have 460 or so members running 8,600 or so shops and there's no way I'm going to pick out one of them.

In-person participant 1: Very wise.

Amelia Cartwright: They're all at one level or another doing a wonderful job and I would commend them all.

In-person participant 1: I think that's a very fair enough response. Thank you. ⁓ If you'd to speak about your team or people who have helped you within the sector, that's also a space for this.

Amelia Cartwright: Sure So one thing I guess I ought to add is is the extent to which I mean I did when I joined in 2015 I I didn't know anything at all about charity retail and the support of especially Susan Meredith actually and Julia Edwards in my team who joined what Susan Susan's been in CRA forever. Julia joined a few months before me. Their support in particular, helping me understand what goes on in charity retail has been superb. But also, I've been lucky to have a really, really supportive board and all the other people that worked in CRA over the years, over the last 10 years have been amazing too. We're lucky to have a very, very talented bunch of people in our team. and also very supportive of my limited efforts to help the sector. So yeah, I'm just very lucky to have been involved with all of those people and it's a great thing to look back on. Well, I'm not looking back on it just yet. I will look back on it in a few months time. Yes, well you're relaxing somewhere on a sun lounger with a and some sun. Robin, thank you not only for joining us today, but for the years of leadership you've given to the charity retail sector. You've made a huge impact and we wish you all the very best in your retirement, but not now. You've still got a little bit of way to go. If you enjoyed this episode, follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn at Charity Shop Chat and at the Charity Retail Consultancy. Leave us a review and share it with someone who cares about the future of charity retail. Follow the CRA at We Love Charity Shops. ⁓ ⁓ you. ⁓ So that is all us today. as always, charity shops are full of stories and we love them with you. So until the next episode, bye.

In-person participant 1: Bye.