It’s Christmas everyday at the Bowerbird

The first, second and the third time I went into the Bowerbird Op Shop, the volunteers were laughing their heads off while having treats and cups of tea. Must be fun to work here, I thought, while grinning till my face ached at the actual op shop prices and Such Great Stuff! The Bowerbird has kept me warm every winter since, supported many craft projects and even helped me get through weddings with a modicum of style. It’s nice when browsing to see something I donated, but possibly the best thing was seeing someone stylish buy a skirt that had once belonged to my mother. To find out how this brilliant place works, I sat down with Trisha, who has been part of the Bowerbird since Day 1.

Ten years ago, when Ros Hewett came up with the idea for the op shop, a mutual friend took her around to Trisha’s place for a conversation that helped get it off the ground. ‘Previous op shops in Cobargo had failed for various reasons, which is why Ros wanted us to be set up properly and legally. She wanted the shop to raise money to give back to the community and for everything happening here to be transparent so the community could know their money was safe. We have people from Canberra, Wollongong, Sydney and Victoria who specifically keep stuff to give to this op shop because they know it’s a community-run op shop and that all the money goes back into the community.’

From the outset, the Bowerbird has maintained the principle that everything would be run by volunteers; no one is paid to be on the management committee, or for legal or admin work. ‘Susie did a lot of the background legal stuff at the beginning, and over the years many people have assisted in ironing out issues and streamlining the way we run. Many volunteers collaborated to run the shop and make it the success it is. You learn a lot but it’s also fun and such a purposeful thing to do with your time.’

The op shop allows for recycling, upcycling, reusing and repurposing. ‘There’s a lot of stuff here that would end up in landfill if it didn’t have an outlet to be potentially cleaned up and sold. We consider clothing our bread and butter. Most things go for $4.00 and jackets and dresses are $6.00 and then occasionally random things that are worth hundreds of dollars, we’ll put $10.00 on them, sometimes $20.00, and that’s as expensive as we usually get.’

To mark its ten-year anniversary this year, the Bowerbird is letting the community nominate organisations for a grant. ‘We opened it up for nominations for six weeks, advertising online and through The Triangle. Ten organisations have been nominated and, until October 11, everyone can vote by making a purchase at the shop and filling out a ballot. We’ve committed $22,000 in prizes to be distributed among the ten organisations and have invited everyone who nominated and all the organisations to an afternoon tea at the School of Arts Hall on 26 October, where the prizes will be given out.’

This is just one of several grant opportunities created by the Bowerbird. Recently, Trisha came up with a great idea for a community engagement grant. ‘Organising an event, like a trivia night to raise money, costs money. You need outlay to start up your event, to book the hall, to buy the raffle tickets or print a program. You have to buy the sausages before you can sizzle and sell them. To help community organisations help themselves, we’ve done a startup community engagement grant of $250 for groups that don’t meet our other criteria. To be eligible for our general grants you have to be a non-profit organisation with a bank account in that organisation’s name. A lot of smaller groups don’t have that yet or will never have that, because they’re just doing a one-off community event and we want to support them too.’

The Bowerbird has given out more than $250,000 dollars over its ten years to community organisations that do meet their criteria, which is certainly an inspiration to give and buy up big. ‘We usually do our general grants for community organisations every three months. If a group needs the money urgently, we will usually just call a meeting and push it through. We all read every grant application, and all get a say, but we’ve never denied one that meets our criteria.’

As Christmas approached a few years ago, Trish had another one of her ideas. ‘Working on the census one year meant I’d seen a lot of people on their own, with no family or no family nearby. My neighbour Greg was in this situation. I thought if Greg is alone there are others, why not start a community Christmas event? Lots of other areas have Christmas events but not many run it on Christmas Day, the day you really need it. We opened it up for everybody, you don’t have to be poor, or isolated and you don’t necessarily have to be alone. Corrine, the Bowerbird President, does a lot of the cooking with help from others like Linda Sang. I do a lot of the decorating and prepping. The first year we booked the CWA cottage because we thought it would be nice and cosy, but we got a pretty big turnout of fifty people, and it got a bit hectic when people wanted to dance! Since then, we’ve been in the School of Arts Hall, which has been great. Last year worked best with a buffet and great big banquet table that went all the way down the hall.’

It’s thanks to people like Trisha, Corrine and Ros, along with all the vollies, and everyone who also donates and shops from the Bowerbird, that Cobargo has the best op shop in the world.

You can hear Trisha on The Triangle Community Podcast October edition.

Flick Ruby

Photos: Trisha Olsen at our beloved op shop. Photo by Flick Ruby