PICTURES: Staff shed tears as Thurso charity shop is crowned the best in Scotland

The delighted staff of a Thurso shop were beaming when they received an award for being Scottish winner of the UK’s Favourite Charity Shop Awards.

Highland Hospice’s charity shop on High Street learned that they had won the accolade last month and on Monday morning they received the prestigious award from the chief executive of Charity Retail Association (CRA), the organisation behind the competition.

The title was awarded as part of the first-ever search for the UK’s favourite charity shop by CRA. The shop was one of 6500 that were nominated across the UK and claimed the winning spot in a public vote involving almost 13,000 people. Thurso is one of 15 shops which are spread throughout the Highlands raising income for Highland Hospice.

Robin Osterley, CEO of the Charity Retail Association, presented the award to Susan Imlach, manager of Highland Hospice’s Thurso branch. Travelling up from London to present the award, he said: “I’m here to do a presentation to the area winner for Scotland of our relatively new programme which is called UK’s Favourite Charity Shop.

“So we’re delivering the presentation to the Highland Hospice shop in Thurso. Out of all the shops in Scotland this shop has been designated to be the public’s favourite through a voting process we undertook over the summer. I’m just really excited to be here and present the award.”

Susan Imlach, the shop’s manager, said she was “absolutely delighted” that Thurso had won the award. “I’m also delighted to see all the volunteers here together. I want to thank Kenny Steele, Susan Cooper [commerce manager with Highland Hospice], Lisa Foster [deputy commerce manager with the charity] and Robin Osterley.

“This is our first major award and it’s amazing for the staff who put so much hard work in.” During her acceptance speech, Susan said she dedicated the award to all the volunteers “who work extremely hard to go over and above, week in and week out”.

A few tears were shed by some of the staff as Susan finished off her speech by saying: “I’m only as good as the team around me. You are my team and you’re absolutely fantastic.”

Kenny Steele, chief executive of Highland Hospice, had journeyed from his base at Inverness and said he had always known that the Thurso shop was hugely popular. “Some people might be surprised that our most northerly shop has won this but they have incredible loyalty from the Thurso folks, so it’s not too surprising that they’ve been voted as best in Scotland.”

Kenny said he had been on a bike run that took him through Thurso last summer and witnessed first hand how community minded the shop staff were when he saw them giving out “nips of whisky and tablet” to passengers from the cruise ship that had berthed at Scrabster.

“The contribution this shop makes is huge. Most of the stuff in the shop is donated locally.”

Robin added: “When you think about a charity shop like this one, virtually everything is associated with the community. From the people who donate in the local community to the staff and volunteers who are local, it’s a unique institution as part of the UK economy.”

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