This year’s May Day bank holiday, May 2, marked the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Settle Area Swimming Pool Charity Shop in Duke Street.

And what a five years it has been. Over that period the shop and related on-line sales have raised more than £275,000 and in doing so have both helped keep the pool afloat and paved the way for the major redevelopment now taking place.

But this was not a project that was a sure-fire success right from the start. The idea of charity shop to help finance the pool was conceived in a time of financial crisis.

By the mid-twenty-tens, after years of cuts to local authority funding, Craven District Council decided it could no longer continue to make a regular annual grant to Settle pool. At the same time North Yorkshire Council decided that it would have to axe the recycling credit scheme, which had effectively doubled the income that the Friends of Settle Swimming Pool, the other charity at that time associated with the pool, received for its paper recycling project.

If the pool was to survive a new source of funding was urgently needed.

A group of pool trustees took inspiration from Kirkcudbright, a Scottish town with a population similar to that of Settle. It had a community pool that was supported by a charity shop which regularly generated income of £40,000 a year.

But would the Kirkcudbright model work in Settle? There were a number of crucial questions: could suitable premises be found? Could we get enough volunteers to organise and staff the shop? Would we get donations and customers? And the overarching issue – could Settle, which already had two thriving charity shops – Age Concern, and, at that time SCAD, support and welcome a third?

The possibility of renting premises on the narrow bit of road opposite The Royal Oak, was considered, but once the former shoe shop, on Duke Street, between the Premier store and the Golden Lion, became available that was clearly the preferred choice.

The shop supporters took their case to the Pool Management Committee and to the Friends of Settle Pool, who despite some doubts agreed to underwrite the project for six months to the sum of £8,000. In the end that money was not needed. The guarantee was enough to get the project underway and with a lick of paint, some donated facilities – till, racks, coat hangers all was ready for the opening.

The first sign of success came 15 minutes before the official opening time, when a man knocked on the door and offered £15 for a clock that formed part of the initial window display.

As reported in the spring 2018 issue of Community News, within weeks the shop was generating between £500 and £700 a week and after six months it had contributed £13,000 to the pool running costs.

Things were going well but there were problems. There were limited facilities for sorting donations and it was hard to handle any large, and indeed valuable, items that supporters might offer.

The big change came in the spring of 2020.That was when Covid hit. Like every other non-essential retail premise in the country our charity shop had to close as the nation went into lockdown.

When things began to open up again a few months’ later shops were allowed to open but not swimming pools. That was a blow for Settle swimmers, but an opportunity to use the pool foyer as a collection and sorting point for donations.

Covid security had to be observed. Donors had to leave their goods in a certain area where they were quarantined for three days before being sorted. The extra space and car parking facilities in front of the pool proved a boon for donations, as did the fact that many folks had spent the lockdown months clearing out unwanted goods.

But when the pool was allowed to re-open another problem arose. Surplus donations that could not be accommodated at the shop were already been stored at various containers around the town but where might we receive and process new donations? The answer was to use the space across the carpark from the pool that had previously been home to the paper recycling containers. Such was the success that within a few months a second container was needed for the larger ‘on line’ sales items which could not be housed at the shop.

For a time it looked as though there might be a problem when the paper recycling resumed. But despite numerous attempts to recruit new paper recycling volunteers, by the autumn of 2021 it had become clear it was neither feasible nor profitable to resume the recycling and so the space was now effectively permanently available for the receiving and processing shop donations. And that is the system now in operation. Donations are received and processed on Tuesday and Friday mornings (9.30am-12.30pm). The larger ones and the sort of the things people would not expect to find in a shop are put on line for sale on behalf of the pool and stored until sold.

But behind all this is the untold story of the shop’s success: namely the number of volunteers who have come forward and in many cases offered valuable and specialist skills.

It would be nice to name them all. But the list would be long and it would be hard to make it comprehensive.

Just to give a flavour, we have several women who devote far more time than is good for themselves to photographing and putting on line, for sale on behalf of the pool, every sort of item, from chimney sweep brushes, to beds; from dining tables to bikes; they have even sold a boat on behalf of the pool. It would be tempting to say people have donated everything but the kitchen sink. But that would not be true. We have actually received at least two sinks – suitable for use in a kitchen.

And then there are the specialists – the man who checks that watches work; the ones who look out for valuable items among the furniture and possible antiques; the electrician who PAT tests goods; the man who checks DVD and the other who inspects all the old LPs; the ladies who deal in haberdashery and toys; and others who sort jewelry and games. Remarkably there are even those who make sure there are no pieces missing from the donated jigsaws.

Have we missed any? I am sure we have: not least important are all those who fill in the regular shifts at the shop or the container managing the throughput from donation to sale.

All of this has given a solid funding base for the pool’s business plan going forward.

Thanks to all who have contributed to our first five year – oh and are you watching in Kirkcudbright? We do hope so. Here’s to the next five years and more.