6 Simple Steps to a Mini Book-Cycle

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1. Find a location

This can be anywhere that is used by your community; a café, pub, coffee house or communal space as big or as small as the space can offer. Approach the manager / business owner and tell them about the free bookshelf facility.

2. Get some books

Fill the chosen space with as many books as you can find. The tastier the reading material, the better! If you have any surplus books, store as a top-up for the shelf. You will also need a box to collect any money people would like to give for the books they choose. This can be located at the till / desk of the business or put on the bookshelf (padlocked & chained for safety).

3.  Advertise

SPREAD THE WORD! Tell your friends and get them to tell their friends. Print off a PDF poster, laminate and put up near the bookshelf. Invest in some jumbo chalk & promote on the pavements of your town – CHOOSE YOUR LOCATION WELL. Email us the location details of the shelf with some photos and we’ll put it on our branches map for the whole country to see.

4. Nurture

Maintain the shelf. Every now and again pop by to see how it is ticking over. If the bookshelf is looking a little sparse, top-up with more tasty reading material. Remove any tatty books, these can either be donated to your nearest charity shop or paper recycling bank. Ask others to bring their unwanted good literature to the space to share with their community. The more people that use it the better!

5. Donations

Donations for the books can be raised by having an honesty box at the premises or choosing to use our text to donate service, both of which are very simple methods for fundraising. At locations that use a donation box; either you or the business manager are the ‘caretaker’ for depositing the donations into our Co-op community bank account. Simply empty the contents f the box, tally up the amount and keep a record of the donations raised. Cash can be directly put into our account. Cheques can also be paid into our account or posted to us.
Please contact us via email for further details.

6. The Cause

Other than a donation into the Book-Cycle account, you and your community might want to fundraise for a specific project e.g. tree planting or creating a community food garden. So long as it falls in line with our aims and objectives, it has the potential to be your Book-Cycle’s focal point.

A simple and direct way to get involved in our objectives; when the donation box has raised £40, choose a good selection of suitable educational books and post them to one of our partner charities. This is a beautiful way to have a profound and lasting positive impact in some of the world’s poorest areas.

Follow our simple guide to sending books >>>

photostiny“If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together.” African Proverb