COVID UPDATE: Sadly we will need to postpone the 2020 Nearly New Toy Sale. This will be the first time in 18 years we have not held a sale at Polwarth!
We had hoped to reach our target of £30,000 raised for the Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity this year. If you would like to and felt able to donate to the charity this year in lieu of the sale, then here is their donation page link.
Polwarth Church have been tremendously generous to us over the years and is currently unable to generate any additional income through letting its halls. If you would like to support Polwarth and the up-keep of its lovely garden that has been open to all throughout lockdown, then please use this link and scroll down to the bottom.
If you are after information about the April and September sales, then visit Polwarth Preloved Sale.
Click on the buttons to register to sell, donate some items, be notified of future sales, or to volunteer to help.
Register Donate Notify Volunteer
Click on the image below to download the latest poster.
Consider arriving early as queuing normally starts about an hour before the doors open!
Sorry, but no buggies or prams are allowed in the sale halls. There isn't enough space and there are stairs to negotiate. However, buggies can be left in the vestibule of the church.
Entry is by donation - we suggest £1 or £2.
All items are sold as seen and no refunds are given.
Please do not put unpaid for goods in bags.
After you have have selected items you wish to purchase, you take them to one of the many 'tills' where the tickets are removed and totalled up.
Payment is by cash or cheque only.
We have 'holding areas' where purchased items can be left for later collection. This allows you to continue browsing the sale without being overly laden.
It is a more enjoyable experience If you can shop without the responsibility of looking after toddlers or babies.
Tea, coffee and biscuits are available to buy whilst the sale is in progress!
Our volunteer helpers have the right to work free from verbal abuse and aggression. Anyone refusing to comply with instructions will be removed from the sale.
Please be aware that to help prevent thefts, we do perform random checks of bags.
Please enjoy the sale and we hope that you find many bargains!
See the map of the sale halls, below.
Some other locally run Nearly New Sales operate a 'you sell items from your own table' setup. We do not do this.
Please read below for what our sellers have to do.
We cannot sell the following items:
> toys which have a drawstring
> hand-knitted toys
> baby walkers on wheels
> mains electrical goods (but battery operated ones are fine).
All items should be checked and marked complete. This includes jigsaws, and board games etc.
We reserve the right not to display items which are of poor quality. These will be removed from the sale and put aside for collection at the end of the sale.
The number of sellers is strictly limited.
Each seller buys a book of tickets for a fixed price. Currently we sell batches of 30 tickets costing £9.00. We also take 10% commission on totals over £30. (Ie you get your first £30 commission free.)
The seller fills in the tickets with their allocated seller number, a brief description of the item, its price and then they attach the ticket to the item to be sold.
All items to be sold are delivered to the selling hall on the Friday evening, the day before the sale.
If you are able to donate any home baking this would be gratefully received. Our teas and coffee sales help us to raise additional funds for our charities.
On the Saturday (Sale Day!), the doors open to allow the (long!) queue of buyers in.
After buyers have selected items they wish to purchase, they take them to the "tills" where the tickets are removed and totaled up. The buyer pays the total price and then leaves with their goods.
At the end of the sale, any items that are left unsold are sorted according to the sellers' numbers. These must then be collected by each seller between 1:30pm and 1:40pm on the Saturday afternoon.
All the tickets that have been removed from items that were sold are then carefully sorted according to the sellers' numbers.
They are totaled up and double checked, and we aim to deliver a cheque to each seller for the total value of the goods that they sold (minus commission) within a week of the sale happening.
If you would like to volunteer to help at a Toy sale then click on this button:
We ask all volunteers to commit to helping from 9:15am to about 2pm.
When you arrive, you sign in and are given a sash to wear. We then have a quick meeting and run through everything. After the meeting and allocation of jobs, all helpers get the chance to look around the Toy sale and buy what they want.
Between 11am and 1pm, it's all hands on deck for the Toy sale itself! We close the sale at 1pm and sort all the unsold items. This is done quickly as everybody stays and helps clear up. If helpers leave before 1:45pm, the Toy sales become too difficult to run.
If some Volunteers are also available on Friday morning (9:15am - 11:45am), this is when the church is set up. On Friday Evening (7:30pm - 9pm) volunteers help sellers who are delivering their items to place them in the correct areas and to keep things as organised as possible. In the interests of fairness, no items are able to be purchased on the Friday Evening.
We also value help putting up posters on display around Edinburgh and spreading the word in any way possible.
Home baking is also very much appreciated.
Believe it or not, it can be fun and many friendships have been forged over the years!
If you would like to donate items to the Toy Sale then click here.
The Polwarth Nearly New Toy Sales have run since 2007 and are organised by four working mums Alice, Elaine, Jenny and Susan assisted by a huge team of other mums, dads, church staff and local volunteers.
After 14 years of running the Polwarth Children's Nearly New Sales we decided in 2016 that it was time to let a 'younger' team of Mum's take these over under the name of Polwarth Preloved Sale. This will allow us to focus just on the Toy sale each year. Each year our Toy sale raises money for Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity and Polwarth Parish Church.
Between 2002 and 2016, we raised over £90 000 for over 20 different charities.
Loading is also permitted on the double yellow lines as there are no yellow stripes on the kerbs. However, do not park in the bus stop, as you may get a ticket. Follow this link for more information about line markings and loading restrictions.