CarBootJunction Blog

What's it all about?

This summer Car Boot Junction is supporting Malpasso in Rwanda, a project helping the widows and orphans of the Rwanda genocide. On July 15th Malpasso Consultancy in collaboration with Solace Ministries UK are taking a team of volunteers to the community of Nyamata, approximately 22 miles due south of Kigali (capital), in the district of Bugesera.

How can you help?

To support this project we are reaching out to our car boot friends and asking them to look on their stalls over the coming weekends and ask themselves if there is anything that can be donated. There may even be unsold items at the end of the weekend which would normally get skipped, but the widows and orphans in Rwanda would be extremely grateful for.

Alternative ways to help

Located in Stonham Aspal, near Stowmarket, Suffolk, the Stonham Barns Covered and Uncovered provides a different car booting experience.

Open all year round on a Sunday morning (although not a really early start!) there are covered and uncovered stalls available.  The newly covered stalls (price includes a table) even have a covered walkway so that buyers don’t get wet whilst browsing. This addition can be removed on sunnier days, but the stalls can still stay covered.

With enough space to accommodate a large number of sellers there is no early queuing to get a pitch and the starting price is a reasonable £5 per car (extra for vans and trailers unless using a covered stall when it is one fixed price).

There is a large footfall to the site, many from the nearby events such as Classic Car shows, equestrian events, etc. as well as from the regular shops that are also nearby include antiques, fabric and pets.  There is also entertainment laid on to keep the kids amused.

It’s one of the great unsolved mysteries of life you know. Learned people have spent years and enormous sums in Government grants researching the phenomenon. Actually that last bit might not be exactly true but you can bet that some university, somewhere in the USA, will have such research in progress! What is this phenomenon, this unsolved mystery?

It’s clutter, or rather the speed with which clutter accumulates in human dwelling places. If mankind could only isolate the true cause of the phenomenon we’d be on the way to discovering how to prevent it in the first place. As it is, all we can do is try to keep up with it by means of periodic clear-outs, which is where the car boot sale can help.

The phenomenon is not new by any means. I’m quite old now and I can’t remember a time when we didn’t have clutter and I’m sure it goes back very much farther than that. In fact I suspect the Romans of introducing it to these shores after 55BC. They would have arrived bringing chariot loads of clutter with them and before long it would have spread to the native population like a disease.

Have you noticed that when you move house you get rid of most of the clutter that has accumulated since your last move, but nine times out of ten you take with you some stuff that you haven’t used in ages but can’t bear to get rid of?

Therein lies the possible cause of the problem. It would have started when you first moved out from your parents’ home to live independently. Just one or two items that might come in handy one day, that’s all it takes and you’re doomed!  From then on, each time you move you do the same thing only the number of items grows each time. These are the seeds from which the next lot of clutter grows.

Of course, it’s all very well saying that our own actions may be the possible cause of the phenomenon but finding the cause of the cause, that’s what baffles even modern science. It seems to be something in the human psyche and maybe one day, years and millions of pounds down the line scientists may find the answer, but don’t hold your breath!

Meanwhile,   the car boot sale is one the more recent additions to our armoury of weapons to combat the dreaded clutter and it’s a very effective one when properly deployed. The car boot sale has a long and distinguished lineage as we’ve explored before. I reckon those Romans probably held Chariot Sales up and down the country.

Whether they did or not, we now have the car boot sale to help us de-clutter our homes and we should use them to the full. What better way can there be to rid yourself of unused items than to sell them on to other people for money? Buying at car boot sales as well as selling may mean you end up with just as much clutter as you started with so be careful to buy only what you can actually use or to stock your car boot for the next sale when you’ve sold all your original stuff.

In car boot sales have we finally found the answer to the clutter problem? Maybe, maybe not, maybe all we’re doing is moving the clutter around to different people, spreading the disease as it were. But hey! Who cares anyway? It’s great fun doing it and doesn’t actually harm anyone and it just might save someone from serious injury or worse. Remember the reports quite recently of the chap who was crushed in his bed by 25 years or more worth of yachting magazines stored in his loft when the ceiling collapsed under the weight.

The moral of that story surely is, don’t let things like that keep accumulating until they bury you. Get them to a car boot sale in good time and make some money from them. You can always start collecting again!  

Article provided by freelance copywriter, Pete Hopper of Write for You

Now over 25 years old, Ashley Heath Car Boot Sale (nr Ringwood in Dorset) is perhaps the best known car boot fair in the Poole/Bournemouth area and attracts an average of 300 sellers per week. It regularly sees between 2,000 and 3,000 enthusiastic buyers through its gates on a Sunday morning.

Originally started to diversify the farm’s income it has seen a steady increase in buyers and sellers from all walks of life and now employs 12 people to assist with it’s smooth running.

The operators say that their biggest challenge in running a car boot of this size is getting everyone on site on a busy day without causing disruption on the roads….something many car boot operators can relate to.

Furthermore, being an entirely outdoor carboot, with little protection from the elements, their weekly success is rather weather dependent, leaving them wishing for nice weather for the weekends. Their busiest weekends tend to be in May and September but with the British weather being as it is these days it is becoming more and more unpredictable.

They advertise only in the local press and on CarBootJunction.com, as well as relying heavily on word of mouth. However, that word of mouth clearly works as the car boot sale community is usually quick to pass on information about professionally run car boot sales such as this.

So, if you are looking for a car boot sale on the edge of Dorset and not too far away from the New Forest then consider the Ashley Heath car boot sale.  A well organised, flat and level site with good toilets, a large selection of sellers and buyers (the largest in the area), plenty of parking and good access and egress from the site.

To find further information click here: http://www.carbootjunction.com/car-boot-by-county-listing.php?id=7987  

This car boot sale runs alongside the private Sunday market and provides entertainment for all the family, with rides for the children and refreshments for all. It is the one-stop shop for all your needs, including meat, veg and baked goods.

Now in it's 14th year, operating on Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays from 6.30am, it has expanded and now runs all year, but despite the extra expense this has incurred there has been no increase in pitch fees for the last 5 years! There is still no fee for buyers to park and enter.

With easy access from the M62 and M6, it can be found opposite B&Q on the A49.

Further information can be found at http://www.carbootjunction.com/car-boot-by-county-listing.php?id=3916