Charity shop closing following 'perfect storm' of difficulties

A charity shop in Alton will shut at the end of October after being hit by a “perfect storm” of events.

The Tricycle in Normandy Street is closing its doors after 14 years of helping people in Africa through the charity IRFF UK, supporting Kidney Care UK, and donating to a different local charity each month.

Speaking about the closure, The Tricycle’s owner Tessa Thonett said: “It’s really sad. It was a perfect storm last year.

“First the manager who had been here since we opened in 2012, Michelle Jackson, left because she wanted a change.

“Just before Michelle left it was starting to slow down because of the economy, but she handed in her notice just after my husband Markus had a very extreme operation. He had seven organs removed or partially removed.

“My head was not in a good space and I hired someone who gave a good interview but was not experienced or willing to learn. They were there for four months and the shop really went downhill.

“Then we found Joanna Wakeford, who was all heart and really hard-working. Had we got a really good assistant manager as well then, we would have scraped through, but we only got her - Sonia Khawar - a month ago.

“Sonia is from Pakistan, where she was persecuted as a Christian. She is a really wonderful woman with such a good attitude.

“Poor Jo had been working on her own so it was closed on Mondays, which gave us less ability to make money. And there was Rachel Reeves’ budget, with higher National Insurance and minimum wage costs, and all the wars, and the price of everything going up.”

Tessa also had trouble maintaining the kind of stock that customers wanted to buy.

She said: “We were completely submerged by cheap Chinese clothes that aren’t worth anything. People were going to Vinted to sell their second-hand clothes online rather than donating them, so the quality of donations was going down. We were struggling last year to make it work.”

Giving the news of the closure to the shop’s team of volunteers was a tough task for Tessa.

She said: “The volunteers are a little community, like a family. It was the hardest thing to say we had to close, but the shop was making a loss. We haven’t made any donations since January. There were too many things to fight against.

“The IRFF provides schools, wells, soup kitchens and period poverty projects. It helps 4,000 people in Africa every month, so it was an incredibly difficult decision. I was hoping and praying it would get better but our reserves just got too low.

“For almost all of those 14 years the shop was doing so well, and there was a wonderful friendly atmosphere in the shop. The customers are really very sad to see it closing down. They will have to buy their items elsewhere without the friendly atmosphere. It was a special shop.”

Artists Tessa and Markus were inspired to open a charity shop by their experiences when they and their four children lived in Africa.

Tessa said: “Markus and myself were living in Africa for three years to start projects. We came back and wondered how we could help. We decided the best way would be to send them money.

“Michelle was working at Scope but she wanted a change and agreed to open a shop with me. It was amazing how it fell into place.

“People got in touch with me and we had three house clearances in our barn. We had plenty of donations to cover the first year. Markus made the shelves and did the sign writing, we had lovely premises and it went from strength to strength.

“My dear friend Ruth Powell used to work with me every Monday and was an incredibly good-hearted person who was able to fund me in the beginning. I paid her back in two years because the shop did so well.”

The shop opened on August 18, 2012, with David Kamsler cutting the ribbon, and its birthday will be remembered in the hearts of its volunteers after it has gone. The closing date will be October 31, when the lease runs out.

Tessa said: “It was an amazingly different shop in the way it treated people. Every year around August 18 we had a party for all the volunteers, and another party for them at Christmas. They all said they would carry on having their Tricycle parties. They’re so united and an amazing bunch. I’m so proud of them.

“I’m also especially proud of Jo for this last year, she’s just been amazing. And I’m so grateful for Michelle. I so trusted her and she really blossomed. She was so capable and didn’t need me breathing down her neck. I left her to run the shop and it really grew. She was such a good woman and I was extremely sad to see her go.

“It was Michelle’s idea that we helped locally, and that was a brilliant idea. It meant we were helping people like a little boy who needed a wheelchair and adaptations to his house, right up to the air ambulance and Step By Step. There were many local charities that we helped.

“I can’t praise Michelle enough for the years of effort, and the way she looked after the volunteers was wonderful. She really was amazing.”

Tessa and Markus moved to Hastings after the Covid lockdown showed her she could run the administrative side of the shop from home.

She said: “We have just opened an art gallery in Hastings. I’m 74 and I’ve invested my whole life in helping other people. Now I can do a bit of what I truly love as well as helping other people. The gallery helps other artists because I can put up their work.”

Tessa wanted to thank her “wonderful group” of volunteers - Janette Jordan, Pauline Moore, Andrea Nicholls, Barbara Harvey, Jamie Ironside, Anthony Sheenan, Anthony Rowell, Kirsty Spooner, Maggie Weaving, Sandy Constantine, Steven Dawe, Michelle Bethney, Elizabeth Craigen, Sally Leech, Pauline A, Dave O, Kim and Lisa.

She said: “This shop has run on heart from the beginning. The shop was like my baby. It was that kind of feeling I’ve had for it all these years. I was very proud of it and terribly heartbroken that it had to close.”