• With permission from Keech Hospice, our research team visited two flagship charity shops situated in Luton and Harpenden on weekdays in June/July 2024.
• Prior to entering the store customers were informed of the audio-visual recording at the till and provided verbal consent they were also instructed to make a research team member aware if they wished to be removed from the footage.
• Approximately two hours of footage was captured during each visit with four hours at each location accumulating to eight hours of footage in total. A total of 102 till interactions occurred at the Harpenden store and 112 at the Luton store.

Led by the head of school Professor Ann Weatherall, the research team has received training on how to conduct conversation analysis. The team have met consistently every other week to discuss interesting themes that emerge from the till encounters.

Analysis is still in progress- targeted sampling of interactions has produced as of January 2025 a total of 28 detailed transcriptions and analysis.

Findings

An overall structure of till interactions has been identified and mapped out in a diagram.

Some social talk can be seen in interactions, as participants discuss topics such as the British weather and their purchases. Actively engaging with others could be used opportunistically to promote positive messaging about the charity and further building its community.

Prof Ann Weatherall provided a key note presenting the sustainable communities project at Loughboroughs University’s Discourse and Rhetoric Group (DARG) 13th Conversation Analysis day on the 16th December 2024. We also intend to share the findings with Keech stakeholders and store managers.

We are continuing to develop transcription concerning till interactions and we intend to expand on data by embarking on further fieldwork in 2025.