In September 1991, a group of resale/consignment shop owners from the Greater Houston Metro area met together to discuss the formation of a resale association.  About 25 shop owners attended invited by Toni Coleman, then owner of Gentlemen’s Closet.  There was much excitement at the dinner meeting as everyone got to know each other.  From that meeting it was decided to go forward with forming an association limited to “For Profit” resale/consignment shops and the name, South Texas Association of Resale Shops, was chosen.  A new member created The S.T.A.R.S logo

Toni chose a volunteer Board of Directors and they got to work to create by-laws and a mission statement.  Pat Swartley was appointed secretary and she volunteered to start a newsletter for the new organization.  The goals for S.T.A.R.S were to promote education, networking, mentoring and co-op advertising.  We support those goals today.

We began by holding monthly dinner meetings but after a few years decided to just meet in member shops.  As membership grew it became necessary to hold meetings in different sections of town to avoid traveling far distances.  Today we hold one annual meeting a year in October.

One of the first priorities was to create an Official Directory of our members to be handed out in our shops and through other advertising venues. A charter member, Yolanda Ramirez, Second Childhood, took the task of promoting our directory through print advertising and selected drop off points around the city.  She continues to do this job.

S.T.A.R.S hires a publisher, Jacke Shipwash, to produce the directory twice a year.

Our voluntary Board of Directors for 2006