second hand chairs plymouth
My Brother's Keeper accepts donations of basic residential furniture in very good condition. In keeping with our mission, high-quality items are important because they allow us to serve families with dignity and respect. We pickup all furniture donations--- no dropoffs at our facility please No donated items ever sold--- furniture is always delivered free of charge to local families in need Unlike thrift shops, we do accept high-quality mattresses in donation Upholstered items cannot be ripped, torn, worn, soiled or stained We do not guarantee to accept items 'sight unseen' over the telephone. At every pickup, an experienced driver makes a decision to accept or decline items based on condition. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and give tax forms acknowledging receipt of donated items (value determined by donors). Our pickups are generally limited to weekdays To maximize route efficiency, the 50 towns we service are grouped into different pickup zones
We schedule pickups within 3 hour time frames (ie, 10am-1pm) and offer optional 30-minute advance calls as an added convenience Pickups are generally performed no later than 1-2 weeks after the initial call Our staff and volunteers will carefully remove furniture from businesses, single family homes, and 1st and 2nd floor apartments--- no 3rd floors or above without an elevator Items We Generally Accept Items We Do Not Accept Twin, Full, and Queen Mattresses & Box Springs Dressers & nightstands Comforters and Sheets Couches, Loveseats, and Chairs (no older than 10-12 years), Coffee & end tables Kitchen Kitchen Tables, Kitchen Chairs, Pots & pans, Dishes, Glasses, Silverware (sets only) Refrigerators (no older than 10-12 years), Microwaves (countertop), Lamps A suggestion: Ask yourselves this question. "Am I my brother's keeper?" If the answer is Yes, perhaps you would like to join us, as we go Along the Way in spreading the Love and Hope of Jesus Christ.
How Will Your Company Contribute? What gifts, services, and resources would you like to offer? Enter the code shown in the image: We will follow up with your request as soon as possible. I would like to have the volunteers at My Brother's Keeper offer their daily prayers and service for the following intention: My Brother's Keeper thanks you for your continued prayers and support. "Whatever you do for the most humble of my people, you do for me."Volume 39, January 2013, Pages 99–112 The Second World War Utility furniture scheme represented a distinctive moment in the changing geographies of the twentieth-century British furniture industry. The scheme enabled the British state to direct the entire furniture commodity chain, from the regulation of timber supplies through to the management of final consumption. Whilst there has been some discussion of Utility within the context of modernism in design, the paper explores the broader historical geographies of Utility furniture.
We demonstrate the ways in which state activity in wartime reconfigured socio-economic networks of production, distribution and consumption. The paper’s assessment of the Utility scheme reveals the importance of historical contingency in commodity chain dynamics as well as the role of the national state as a key organising agent. Highlights ► Highlights configuration of British furniture commodity chain at time of crisis. ► Reveals distinctive geographies of design, production, distribution and consumption. ► Foregrounds role of the state in reconfiguring commodity chains.Planned through the latter part of 1942 and implemented in 1943, the scheme enabled the state to direct the entire furniture commodity chain, from the regulation of timber supplies to the management of final consumption. The wartime office of the Board of Trade specified a small set of designs for manufacture, designated individual firms for the production of Utility furniture, and controlled distribution through the issue of buying permits to households.
When the scheme began, allocations of ‘units’ were provided to newly married couples setting up their first home and to existing households who had lost furniture as a result of bombing, whilst later in the war the families of pregnant women and/or with growing children also were prioritised. 1 The Utility furniture scheme continued in a strict sense until 1948, with a modified ‘Freedom of design’ phase lasting until the end of price control and quality assurance in 1952. Whilst the Utility period may appear to be a relatively short episode, it was shaped by concerns about the furniture industry which stretched back to the late nineteenth century, including disquiet with poor working conditions in sweated parts of the trade. 3 The reorganisation of the industry under the Utility scheme also was bound up with debates about the value of ‘good design’ and a need for design reform, which continued to frame assessments of the British furniture industry through the 1950s and 1960s.
In part, the Utility scheme sought to address contemporary critiques such as Pevsner’s which decried parts of the furniture trade for lacking design skill and reproached retailers for offering ‘cheap goods’ to the public. 4 When the scheme was introduced by the Board of Trade in 1942, a press announcement implied a need for design reform: ‘the function of the [Advisory] Committee [on Utility Furniture] will be to produce specifications for furniture of good, sound construction in simple but agreeable designs for sale at reasonable prices, and ensuring the maximum economy of raw materials and labour.’ Design historical approaches have situated the emergence of Utility design in relation to both modernism and the Arts and Crafts movement, as well as tracing connections between the Utility scheme and state-sponsored efforts to encourage ‘good design’ such as the establishment of the Design and Industries Association, the Council for Art and Industry and the Council of Industrial Design.
6 Some accounts have read the aims and intentions of the Utility furniture scheme as a means of attempting to shift British attitudes—of the industry itself as well as the wider public—away from ‘traditional’ and towards ‘modern’ designs. 7 In this paper we situate the scheme within the context of a broader system of wartime controls at a time of deep crisis. Faced with constraints at all points in the furniture commodity chain, the British state became involved in a wholesale reimagining of the geographies of furniture production, distribution and consumption. Early in the Second World War, the state was compelled to engage with acute shortages of finished consumer goods as well as the primary raw materials of timber, plywood and veneers. 8 Retailing and distribution of furniture also required control and intervention, given that the transport of bulky goods over long distances placed demands on scarce petrol resources. Finally—and not least important—leading furniture manufacturing firms were drawn into war work, leaving limited plant and labour capacity in remaining small and medium sized firms.
Domestic furniture production was restructured via the ‘designation’ of individual firms in particular cities and regions to produce different types of Utility furniture (i.e. chairs, sideboards, wardrobes etc.) in order to distribute manufacturing capacity more evenly across the whole of Britain. 9 Careful specification of a narrow range of designs sought to ensure that manufacturers achieved economy of materials and were able to provide a uniform quality of product to consumers at fixed prices. As a 1942 Board of Trade memorandum written shortly before the introduction of the Utility scheme stated, ‘price control of new furniture cannot achieve maximum effectiveness until there is complete control of all stages of production from the raw material to the finished article.’ The central aim of this paper is to elaborate and interpret changing geographies of the British furniture industry during the wartime Utility period. 11 The paper makes two important contributions. First, we develop the Utility case as a means of foregrounding the role of the state in reconfiguring commodity chains, and underscoring ‘the implications of this insight for appreciating the historically contingent and politically constructed nature of chains.’
12 The vast majority of research on late twentieth-century commodity chains and networks has emphasised the coordination of chains by lead firms (or transnational corporation networks). 13 However, the example of Utility furniture offers the possibility of excavating the role played by the national state not merely as an institutional backdrop to the making and remaking of commodity chains but rather as an important ‘organising agent.’ 14 The paper seeks to develop new perspectives on geographies of commodity chains and the role of the state: that is, not only do states regulate commodities as they cross territorial boundaries, but also—as explored here—they may act to reconstitute commodity chain dynamics at different scales. Insofar as an investigation of Utility furniture during the Second World War illuminates a distinct power shift away from manufacturers and retailers and towards the national state, our account lends weight to Bair’s argument that ‘historical analysis… helps to avoid the temptation of seeing the organisation of contemporary commodity chains as necessary or inevitable….’
Second, the case of Utility furniture provides a valuable window onto commodity chain dynamics at a time of crisis, sharply contrasting with contemporary global commodity chain analyses which emphasise ‘the durability, expansion and institutionality of global markets.’ 16 Further, the paper’s focus on a distinctive type of crisis—that is, wartime—demonstrates the ways in which military activity reconfigures socio-economic networks of production, distribution and consumption. As Evenden has observed in the case of the aluminium commodity chain, wartime restructuring redrew the boundaries of industrial geography and geopolitics; mobilised distant peoples and places and environments; and imposed a legacy on postwar production and consumption patterns. Additionally, however, our discussion amplifies arguments about the ways in which war reshapes activities within and across nodes in the commodity chain with a notable focus on a product destined for domestic rather than military consumption: furniture.
The remainder of the paper traces the geographies of Utility furniture through consideration of transformations in timber supply; reshaping of manufacturing geographies; and shifts in the retailing and consumption of furniture, documenting the ‘extensive’ and ‘intricate’ control retained by the British state through the Board of Trade. 18 Whilst coordination and control of the wartime food and clothing industries were perhaps strongest at points of consumption (particularly, of course, via rationing), the furniture industry was distinctive in the reconfiguration of practices and processes across the commodity chain. Like its counterparts in continental Europe and North America, the early twentieth-century British furniture industry predominantly worked in wood. 19 Tracking the raw material sources of Utility furniture thus necessitates careful investigation of the supply of timber as well as plywood and veneers. During the inter-war period ‘96% of total requirements [across the whole of the British economy] were regularly imported.’