I can't remember when I last posted an image of a sunset. The stock photography company I work for reckon they've got enough and I can quite believe it. But they're irresistible. I can't pass one up, no matter how hard I try. Some evenings I even go out down to the fields at the bottom of our village for the sole purpose of shooting a few of these clichéd images. And then I inflict them on you.
A couple of days a week I work as a volunteer in a charity shop in Pershore, sorting and pricing books. The income we generate supports a local hospice which provides care to life-limited children and their families. It's a worthy cause made necessary by the fact that the British Government provides minimal financial support to the children's hospice movement within the UK, giving them only about 5% of their funding needs.
So given that paltry contribution from our lords and masters, it is obviously important that the people using the shop help out as much as possible. So why, you might ask, do we have customers who ask for a discount, who haggle, who try to get money off because of some tiny defect (these are not new goods, after all, they are all donated) and, and this really does take the biscuit, steal - shoplifting is a recurrent problem.
Perhaps we should have pictures of all the children we help on the wall behind the till. Then we could ask our less generous clientele which particular one they'd like to deprive today. Strangely enough, though, I don't think it would make the slightest bit of difference.
4 comments:
It is truly a noble cause...and amazing how callous people can be to actually haggle and even steal from a charitable organization. I think you've got a great idea there, hang larger than life pictures of the little children in the shop...not that it will stop the truly callous, but a healthy dose of guilt would be deserved.
There's no explaining our species...I can find no reason for most of what we do. It's one reason I live alone ;)
It is good of you to donate your time, to realize that when you help another you help everyone in a way.
My son Bren is also a sunset fanatic - you two will have to meet.
Yes, beats me too.
Thank you, Susan, Pauline & Lee. The lastest thing is people donating complaining that we are not being obsequious enough to them when they bring their stuff in - I hasten to say it's not me - I could get an honours degree in toadying to people. And it's only a very small minority. But it's still irritating and unnecessary.
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