Oxfam's first shop manager wins Pride of Britain award
Howard Lake | 2 December 2006 | News
Joe Mitty, Oxfam’s first paid employee in 1949, has won a Lifetime Achievement in the Daily Mirror’s Pride of Britain Awards for his contribution to establishing Oxfam shops.
Joe found out he had won the award when Victoria Beckham paid a surprise visit, arranged by the Daily Mirror, to the Notting Hill Oxfam Shop where Joe was meeting staff.
Joe dedicated the award to the 21,000 volunteers who give their time each week to work in Oxfam Shops, because “they are talented, ingenious, hard working, they are the reason Oxfam Shops are such a big success,” he said.
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Joe started work for Oxfam in 1949, runing the charity’s administration at its office in Broad Street, Oxford. He turned round the income from the first Oxfam shop on the ground floor from a part time £1,500 a year operation to a £10,000 a year professional shop in 1953.
Joe helped expand Oxfam’s network of charity shops nationwide, becoming Oxfam’s Head of Trading before retiring in 1982, when there were nearly 800 Oxfam Shops.
Incidentally, Victoria Beckham’s visit to the Notting Hill Oxfam shop, the shop has seen “a 70% increase in clothing donations”, with the result that the shop now receives at least 20 bags of donated items within the first hour of opening the doors in the morning.
The shop has also reported a 300% increase in the number of people going into the store that is located near Portobello market. Oxfam says that other Oxfam shop managers around the country have also reported “a noticeable increase in young and trendy people visiting the shops in search of high glamour at affordable prices.”
Joe was interviewed in Oxfam’s ‘Ask Oxfam’ section recently, where you can also view a video of an interview with him.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.