CREATIVE volunteers at Tavistock’s Oxfam Bookshop were presented with a trading excellence award from Oxfam head office for their interesting ‘upcycled’ goods.

A small team of volunteers at the book and music shop have been making upcycled items for a number of years, out of donations that cannot be sold.

Over time the team itself has evolved, the range of items has expanded and as sales have increased, the space allocated in the shop has grown. It has become an integral part of the shop which generates valuable extra funds for Oxfam. The range includes greeting cards, gift tags, envelopes, bunting and bookmarks and much more.

The Tavistock shop was blindly chosen out of the 600 shops in the charity’s network to win the trading excellence award. The award is given for a team that has demonstrated ‘entrpreneurial spirit’ and ‘an innovative approach’ to any aspect of Oxfam trading resulting in extra income.

The award was presented to the team by trading director for Oxfam Andrew Horton.

Shop manager Val Sharpe said: ‘This is all really exciting and positive news given the difficulties at present of being shrouded in scaffolding. The three key members are Sarah Shepherd, Helen Moore and Linda Worsey and a few other also help out when busy e.g at Christmas, when the range increases.

‘At a time of increased focus on recycling and reuse, this award is timely. It also fits with the community recycling which the shop aims to deliver overall. All donations come through the door, local people getting rid of stuff and the shop works to find new homes for as much as possible and create as little waste as possible.’