We will be represented by our four Group companies at the event, with FRC Living, Buckingham Interiors, Furniture Flex and our campaigning arm, End Furniture Poverty all in attendance.
You’ll find us across two adjacent stands throughout the exhibition, where you’ll be able to meet representatives from across the Group, discuss all aspects of contract furniture provision, and learn more about our mission to end furniture poverty.
Stand F18 – FRC Living and Buckingham Interiors
Visit stand F18 to discuss all aspects of contract furniture, interior design and installation with FRC Living and Buckingham interiors. We provide fully managed solutions for all kinds of social housing, extra care housing, later life living and private rented accommodation.
Stand F26 – End Furniture Poverty and Furniture Flex
Visit stand F26 and speak to our campaign team from End Furniture Poverty. Discover the drivers and impacts of furniture poverty and see workable solutions in action via the support we provide landlords in establishing furnished tenancies with Furniture Flex.
You can book an appointment now to meet with representatives from any of our teams throughout the event – contact Glynn.Jones@frcgroup.co.uk for more information.
FRC Group is excited to announce that it has completed a move of its headquarters to a new location in Speke, outside of Liverpool.
The relocation marks a significant homecoming for the Group, which was originally established in Speke in 1988 as a social enterprise dedicated to collecting used furniture and redistributing it to those in need. Thirty-five years later, FRC Group remains committed to this same ethos.
The move represents a strategic decision driven by the Group’s core commitment to ending furniture poverty. The new site will enable the organisation to expand its operations, furthering its mission to provide essential furniture items to those who would otherwise go without.
Shaun Doran, CEO of FRC Group said:
“I’m very excited to say that the move to the new HQ is now complete, bringing us back to Speke, where the Group was founded as the Furniture Resource Centre.
“But this move is not just about nostalgia. Our new headquarters has been chosen for its location and facilities. Situated with direct access to our trunk delivery routes and featuring a high-capacity warehouse, we’ve already seen significant improvements in operating efficiency.
“Of course, we are still dedicated to ending furniture poverty and providing furniture items to those who would otherwise go without. This move will allow us to expand on that activity and help more people in Merseyside and beyond in the coming months and years.”
The new FRC Group HQ, located next to John Lennon Airport, spans 52,000 sq ft and boasts a large warehouse space, along with office space for teams from FRC Group’s companies, including FRC Living, Buckingham Interiors, Furniture Flex and its campaigning arm, End Furniture Poverty.
Find out more about who we are – our history, mission and values
Join FRC Group at Housing 24
FRC Group is pleased to announce that we’ll be attending Housing 24 this June!
You can visit us at two stands during the Housing 24 exhibition, taking place in Manchester, 25th – 27th June.
Four FRC Group companies will be in attendance, showcasing the wide scope of products, services and support that we offer to the social housing community.
We’ll be available at two stands throughout the event:
Stand P32 – FRC Living and Buckingham Interiors
FRC Living and Buckingham Interiors are sector leading specialists in all aspects of the provision of contract furniture, offering a comprehensive selection of furnishings to suit different styles, requirements, timescale needs and budgets. With decades of experience, our teams are expert in supporting accommodation providers, and simplify the entire process of furnishing accommodation – from interior design, to procurement, delivery, fit out and aftersales support – whilst helping to mitigate costs.
Join us on stand P32 to learn more about our project managed end-to-end support for contract furniture procurement.
Stand D11 –End Furniture Poverty and Furniture Flex
End Furniture Poverty (EFP) is FRC Group’s campaigning arm and exists to raise awareness of furniture poverty and develop solutions to ensure that everyone has access to the essential furniture items needed to lead a secure life.
EFP’s objectives have a focus on the provision of furnished tenancies, and through this work has developed a unique understanding of the barriers landlords can face when attempting to introduce a furnished tenancy scheme.
With this in mind, Furniture Flex has been created specifically to offer greater flexibility to housing providers who want to supply furnished accommodation, with rental, purchase and mixed procurement models that improve the financial viability of furnished tenancies.
Join us on stand D11 to learn more about how we can help you overcome the barriers to providing furnished accommodation, understand the benefits furniture provision can offer to your organisation, and help to lift your tenants out of furniture poverty.
Find out more about Housing 24 and book your tickets here.
Sadly Bulky Bob’s will be ceasing its operations in Liverpool on 7th November when the council is making alternative arrangements. This means that our store, Bulky Bob’s Furniture World on London Road will close to the public at the end of day on Friday 14th October 2022. We would like to thank you for your custom and your support over the past two decades.
For help finding furniture in the future, please visit https://liverpool.gov.uk/benefits/help-in-a-crisis/liverpool-citizens-support-scheme/ or visit our End Furniture Poverty campaign website for information on other sources of support.
“Bulky Bob’s has a fantastic partnership with Liverpool City Council starting over 20 years ago, redistributing millions of items of furniture and helping thousands of families. Along with many other providers of council services, we agreed to a large reduction in the contract value during Austerity. Coupled with rising costs, we had to take the decision to financially subsidise the service ourselves, because we knew how many people we were able to help. Sadly as a responsible charity, we got to a point we could no longer do this and we needed the bulky household waste contract to cover its costs. When LCC asked if we could continue for a further period, we had to submit a break-even price. We understand the huge financial pressures that LCC is facing, along with many other councils, so we fully appreciate the difficult position they are in.”
“Millions of people are living in Furniture Poverty, living without essential furniture items and Liverpool City Council’s trailblazing approach to using their bulky household waste to find good quality reusable items, working with Bulky Bob’s, is a fantastic example of how furniture reuse can transform lives. We plan to continue our work with LCC to End Furniture Poverty, reusing and recycling Liverpool’s furniture and white goods and helping thousands more families with essential furniture items.”
Yorkshire-based Harrison Spinks has partnered with a not-for-profit social business in Liverpool to tackle furniture poverty, donating over 100 mattresses to those in need in the local community.
The Harrison Spinks mattresses have been delivered to Bulky Bob’s, a social enterprise and charity that supports local people in crisis. Bulky Bob’s is part of the FRC Group.
Nick Booth, Managing Director at Harrison Spinks, said: “The thought of having no bed to sleep on or spiralling debts can feel unimaginable for some, but for others it is a terrible reality – the work FRC Group is doing to tackle the growing furniture poverty crisis really is admirable. We’ve donated 100 mattresses so far and are aiming to provide a further 40-50 mattresses a month. We hope this goes some way in supporting the aims and ambitions of FRC Group.”
Shaun Doran at FRC Group said: “Our social mission is to reduce and ultimately eradicate furniture poverty, and so we campaign to raise awareness of furniture poverty and create practical solutions to get furniture to the people who need it most. Partnering with companies like Harrison Spinks is exactly what we need, and we’re thrilled that the team was so keen to work together for this important cause.”
For many years FRC Group has measured the social value its activities create. It measures this against its mission and it sets a social value budget annually in the same manner as the financial budget, being prepared, discussed and signed off by the Board. It aims to create £4.5 million of social value in 2022.
For more information on Harrison Spinks please visit https://www.harrisonspinks.co.uk/. For more information on FRC Group please visit https://frcgroup.co.uk/ and for more information on Bulky Bob’s please visit https://frcgroup.co.uk/Bulky-Bobs/.
Here at FRC Group we value the positive impact that apprenticeships make to individuals, businesses and the wider economy.
We are proud of our apprentices and find it so satisfying to see them grow and develop in their knowledge and confidence and as a business, develop a talented workforce that is equipped with future-ready skills.
Read how two of our apprentices, Daya and Enida are finding their apprenticeship journey with us.
After the incredible efforts of everyone involved in sustainability and resource efficiency over the last few years, it is rewarding to see reuse making such huge leaps towards being recognised as ‘the norm’.
The benefits of reuse:
Why give old furniture to charity?
As the old saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Well, your old office furniture is full of treasures! Unwanted electrical equipment, old chairs, desk, sofas, stationery, and more, can all be useful to a charity. It’s not just charity furniture shops that can benefit from your donations, think also of making charitable donations to community centres, churches, nonprofit organisations, and shelters. There are so many deserving outlets.
Useful equipment should never go to landfill, there will always be a new home for it, it just requires a bit of thought to find the ‘where’. Remember that it helps your community and those within the community who need help. You might also get some tax benefits!
Is repurposing furniture a good idea?
A good idea? It’s a great idea! Imagine you’ve got a chair and the fabric is all messed up, tattered, or super dirty. You can’t really salvage that fabric, but if the chair frame itself is still strong, and simply replacing the fabric would give you a functional and comfortable chair, then repurposing it would be a great idea!
We’ve seen even cooler ideas, such as filing cabinets being turned on their side and used as flowerbeds. The truth is though, it doesn’t matter what you turn old furniture into, as long as it’s useful and creates less waste, it’s better than going to landfill.
Are you keen to get creative? Search the term ‘upcycling’, plus the furniture you have available, on a search engine, and see what others have done. Repurposing furniture is not much different from recycling it and it leads to many of the same benefits.
Summary
By now you have a pretty good idea of the benefits of reusing and donating office furniture, so we leave you with just one more thing to think about. Consider the way the world has changed over the last decade. We’ve seen the vegetarian and vegan movements make huge strides, we’ve seen more people work from home, more people commute by bicycle, growing global recycling rates, and much more. Being green is positive, it’s pro-humanity and pro-Earth, it’s something to shout about. That’s the point, you should be shouting about it.
The next time your company makes a progressive decision, such as donating some old computers to charity, or turning a filing cabinet into a flower garden, just make sure to get some photos, to write about it, to spread the word, to let potential customers know that you are thoughtful and considerate. This can win you new business and help to keep the customers you already have.
The prestigious MRW National Recycling Awards are the top awards in the recycling and resource management sector, with winning projects and teams recognised for their achievements within the industry. Last night, finalists gathered at a glittering awards ceremony at the stunning London Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, where the winners were announced, and FRC Group’s UltraClean mattress cleaning machine was crowned winner of the ‘Innovation – systems and technology’ award.
FRC Group, who have a mission as a social enterprise to End Furniture Poverty, designed the ‘UltraClean Mattress Machine’ to prolong the life of mattresses which can then be reused by those living in furniture poverty. It is the first automated mattress cleaning machine in the world and delivers high quality, clean and fresh mattresses, giving them a new and extended life. This means good as new, clean mattresses can make their way to those in need as quickly as possible, or even be returned to accommodation providers for ongoing use rather than buying new mattresses.
Shaun Doran, CEO at FRC Group said “We are absolutely delighted to be awarded this prestigious accolade. We are always looking at ways to reuse items of furniture to help those in need and in designing and developing the UltraClean Mattress Machine, FRC Group have created a new technology and business model that will result in a positive environmental impact as mattresses move up the waste hierarchy, and at the same time help make a difference in our mission as a social enterprise to End Furniture Poverty. We congratulate all finalists and are thrilled to have won the award.”
Juliette Bauccio, Reuse Leader at FRC said “Almost 20 million people are without sufficient income to afford essential items like beds and this means there are over 400,000 children without their own bed in the UK. We had already commenced a manual mattress cleaning programme to treat unwanted, great quality mattresses which was very time and labour intensive. As an innovative company we wanted to develop the optimum solution to deliver high quality, clean and fresh mattresses to those most in need so designed, developed and launched the first automated mattress UltraClean machine.”
The seven stage UltraClean process ensures high quality, pre-loved mattresses, which may have been destined for landfill or broken down into parts for recycling, are UltraCleaned to remove:
The mattresses are restored to extremely high cleanliness levels and good as new. This is great news for the environment too. Every mattress which is reused saves 79.5 kg of CO2 which is the equivalent of taking 14 cars off the road for a day. The machine can be viewed in action here.
At a time when many families find themselves facing financial difficulties, a new partnership between Bulky Bob’s, a charity with a mission to End Furniture Poverty, and leading carbon conscious waste management company Fresh Start Waste, has seen the start of real reuse of essential furniture items which may previously have been destined for landfill, and now generate social value instead.
Fresh Start Waste work with thousands of businesses across the region, many of whom have furniture items which are being replaced but are in excellent condition, fit for reuse. Bulky Bob’s provide an outlet for these items to be cleaned, basic repairs made, and passed onto families most in need across Liverpool and Manchester.
Essential furniture items required by Bulky Bob’s include:
Having already made several collections from prominent accommodation providers such as hotels and student accommodations, Fresh Start are encouraging more businesses to contact them to discuss this option as part of their total waste management solution. Any items which cannot be reused are processed at Fresh Start’s state of the art recycling facility and fully recycled, so diverted from landfill.
Sean Martins, Commercial Manager at Fresh Start Waste said “We’ve been delighted to move many of our customers up the waste hierarchy into ‘reuse’ whilst also doing our bit to protect the environment and help socially in terms of Ending Furniture Poverty. We’re excited about this partnership and working ongoing with Bulky Bob’s to maximise reuse and do something positive with items no longer required, but that aren’t yet ready for recycling.”
Shaun Doran, CEO at Bulky Bob’s said “We welcome working together with waste companies such as Fresh Start Waste and praise their desire to want to reuse bulky furniture items and recycle what can’t be reused. As a social enterprise it is our mission to End Furniture Poverty and providing people with good quality furniture not only bridges the gap for families who can’t afford furniture, but allows them to be proud of their home, get a good night’s sleep and live a happier and more productive life. Having launched our UltraClean Mattress Cleaning machine this year, we’re interested to hear from accommodation providers wanting to reuse mattresses and are need just now of good quality freestanding wardrobes and chest of drawers which may result from student accommodation or hotel refurbishments.”
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