From Volunteer to Trading Director: Trevor's Oxfam Journey

“It was 25 October 1984, Michael Burke was doing his report from Ethiopia during the Famine on 24 October on the nine o’ clock News. I was at home, watched it and thought, I should do something. So the next day, I rang Oxfam and they said to come in.”

“The first job I had was shaking a bucket outside the City Hall. Basically, I was raising money for Oxfam, so things haven’t really changed, I’m still raising money now.

“I did my six-month work experience in Oxford, which was then headquarters, as it was Oxfam UK and Ireland (combined) at that stage. I worked in Oxfam House in Summertown in the Shops Unit. I was ordering hoovers (vacuums), cash registers, sack holders for the shops over the UK and Ireland.”

“I came back to open the Dublin Road shop in 1986. Really, I was coming back because Hannah (Trevor’s wife who he met when she interviewed him for Oxfam) was in the office - that was the real reason.

“I became the first paid shop manager in Oxfam. Then I became peripatetic shops manager (a mobile manager who works across multiple shop locations), responsible for Fair Trade.”

“I’m proud of the fact that throughout the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The sectarian side of the Troubles never affected Oxfam. We had both sides of the community working in shops together through many difficult times.”

“We had a really difficult period during the Omagh bombing. We lost two of our volunteers, Lorraine and Samantha, both were teenagers. Brian was the brother of another volunteer in Oxfam, so we had three deaths. We got through that because of the staff, the volunteers and the community.

“I think we should be proud of the fact that throughout all the Troubles the shop kept people together from both sides of the community through really difficult times.”

“The only equipment we had in the office were landline telephones and typewriters and that was it. There was also a printer that you had to turn the handle to print and it printed on this big drum.

“I remember it like yesterday (when the offices first got a fax machine). We had someone on the phone in Dublin standing beside their fax machine. We put our fax in, it came out in the Dublin office and we got them to read out what we’d said on the fax. We thought ‘My God things can never get better than this, this is unbelievable’.”

“That was probably Hannah, the reason I was sticking around. There was not really one moment that made me think, ‘this is for me,’ It was more ‘she is for me!’”

“Simple, it’s all about the people. You can have the best product, best location, best processes, but if you don’t have highly motivated team players it’s not going to work.”

“I learnt over the years, even though you may have this fantastic person, there’s always somebody as good, if not better out there, so don’t worry if someone goes, there’s always somebody else out there.”

“I think what has surprised me is the length of time it’s taken the confederation to accept the importance of Trading to the organisation and how they can be used to highlight Oxfam’s mission to the consumer and public as Oxfam Ireland have done so successfully.”

“Running a business within a charity is extremely challenging because you’ve got to keep the balance all the time. For many years, Oxfam shops were there to raise money, but really, they were the face of Oxfam. We were trying to promote the international programmatic side of our work, but over the years we realised we needed to get more commercial, more professional and become a fashion retailer and that probably started about 12 or 13 years ago.

"I knew in the future it would be more difficult because there was a lot of competition from other charities setting up retail operations. Then, I could see the whole sustainability, circular economy coming, so we’d then have competition from the commercial sector.

“People don’t understand the difficulty and constant pressure shop staff are under. Whether it be from their line manager, donors, customers, volunteers. The workload is extremely challenging.

“The hard work, how they embrace constant change and the sheer resilience of our trading staff and volunteers never cease to inspire me.

“As I said before it’s all about the people.”