Ray Goodman Named Volunteer of the Year for Transforming Donations into Vital Hospice Funds

Turning books and CDs into profit has earned Martin House volunteer Ray Goodman a national award.

National Award for Outstanding Volunteering

Ray was named Volunteer of the Year in the Charity Retail Association awards, in a ceremony in Harrogate last month.

He was awarded for his pioneering work to turn the huge number of books, DVDs and CDs which are donated to the hospice into income to help us provide our vital care to children and young people. Traditionally, these items can be low value and hard to sell, but Ray took the initiative to turn these donations into a profit, making £28,700 last year alone from sales.

Maximising the Value of Donated Items

Ray dedicates his time to researching donations, identifying where best to sell items to maximise the money we can make from them. This includes taking rare or antique books to auction, selling items through our eBay page, and other online sites.

He also liaises with our shop managers to understand what their customers want from media items, which means the shops get stock they can sell, which increases our sales but also saves us money as we aren’t transporting unsold stock back to our warehouse.

Stephanie Rimmington, head of retail at Martin House, said:

“Ray’s win is so well-deserved. He dedicates so much of his time to making sure we make the most of the donations we receive – we just wouldn’t make this money without him.

Ray also takes new volunteers under his wing, and thanks to his guidance we now have another volunteer who does the same role with donated tech items, like mobile phones and laptops.

We’re so grateful to Ray and our hundreds of volunteers for all their support. Without the time and effort they give to us, we couldn’t run our shops and raise the money we do to support the work of Martin House.”

You can find out more about volunteering for Martin House by clicking here.