Church fundraisers launch own 'click and collect' service

Members of St John's Church Preservation Group believe they have hit on an innovative way of converting donated items into funds, using a combination of social media and conventional jumble sales.

But they have also been prompted to try a new way of fundraising after their previous 'jumble sale room' was targeted by thieves.

Money raised from the sales will go towards the restoration of St John's Church in Kates Hill.

Chairman Deb Brownlee said: "Originally we had a jumble sale room open six days a week at our base next door to St John's.

"However, we identified a number of problems with this, namely it was tying up our volunteer team time and our available space too much and in addition we suffered from some shoplifting and anti-social behaviour problems.

"The last straw was someone stealing our plug-in air freshener. We needed to devise a new way of doing things."

The group now run a Facebook page called 'Selling and Fundraising for St John's Church Preservation Group, Kates Hill, Dudley' and the new system of 'click and collect' has been introduced.

Items are photographed and interested buyers can bid, make firm offers, or ask to view the items at pre-arranged times.

The click and collect is supplemented by regular conventional jumble sales which are buyers are notified about by Facebook, email or text message.

Ms Brownlee said:"In the future we will create our own online shop, but meantime it's really important that people join the fundraising facebook which now has 183 members and we have made our first few sales. We feel that the antisocial behaviour of a few nasty people did in fact guide us to a much better way of doing things, much safer for our volunteers and we no longer have to worry about goods donated to us in good faith being damaged or stolen."

The group hopes to begin restoration work at the Grade II-listed church soon.

The Diocese of Worcester has agreed to lease the church, which has been closed since 2002, to the group.