By Jenel Hunt
The hanging clothes were on rails made from lengths of bamboo cut from just across the way. Suitcases stood side by side, their lids gaping open. Inside, only the top layer was messy.
And that, organiser Kath Ives said, was the tiniest problem with the first few hours of the Whistle Stop Heritage and Community Garden’s first rummage sale as part of its Trash and Treasure Market, situated in the open air on the far side of the railway line off Davadi Street in Stanthorpe.
“People have been a bit too polite. They’re not rummaging!” she said.
But that’s what you’re supposed to do – dig your hands inside a suitcase, fossick around until you see a favourite colour and draw out the item like a conjurer pulling scarves from a hat.
Maybe next time they’ll have to put up a sign to assure browsers that it’s okay to leave everything a little less tidy than they found it.
There would be a next time, said Kath, but it wouldn’t be in winter.
“We put up a change room but it’s a bit chilly for trying on clothes,” she said.
“I’m thinking spring and autumn might be better weather.”
The rummage sale was run like a giant stall – it cost $5 per suitcase to put goods up for sale, and while people were meant to pocket their profits some donated the money they made to Whistle Stop. It was a fund-raising effort, after all.
In the old Goods Shed, a little building that is Heritage listed, Carol Parkinson had a different kind of problem.
“We decided to have books for sale as that was something people seemed to want. People started giving us books and we filled some bookcases and tables … and now we need someone to donate a few more bookcases because we’ve run out of shelf space,” she said.
At $3 a book or $10 for four, it’s a good little money spinner to help keep the Whistle Stop gardens going.
“It helps us pay for what we can’t produce. We have our own compost and mulch but we also buy more, and there are pumps and mowers to keep going as well,” she said.
The Goods Shed also has treasures among tables of kitchen items and of course the complex also sells plants and home-grown produce from the community garden.
The Whistle Stop Heritage and Community Garden is open from around 8am until noon from Wednesday to Saturday.
