Help at a Bookshop

A wonderful way to spend your time is helping out at a Book-Cycle shop near you. A few hours a week is all it takes to make a world of difference to people in your community and overseas….

As Book-Cycle has grown organically, we now have a variety of activities to explore in the shops. After a few introductory shifts, new volunteers are asked pick the most suitable day for them to volunteer each week.

Please bear in mind that you must be 17 or over unless accompanied by an adult.

Keep up to date with all activities on our facebook pages;
Exeter / Wigan / Orrell /Warwick / Rome / Beech Hill

As well as general duties within Book-Cycle; the sorting of books, running the shop, keeping the place tidy etc, we ask if you might help in one or more of the following areas.

Volunteer training & recruitment:

We are entirely volunteer-run, thus the volunteers are central to everything we do. If you are good at sharing ideas and inspiring others then this role is for you.

  • Showing new volunteers the basics
  • Making sure the rota is full
  • Responding to volunteer requests
  • Volunteer requirement drives, High St stalls, fresher’s week etc

Promotion and advertising:

Sing from the rooftops! Creative, artistic types sign up here.. A great way to engage in Book-Cycle activities from the comfort of your own home

  • Designing Posters
  • Social Media
  • Talking to local, national press
  • Writing articles
  • Activity filming & photography
  • Chalk art around the town or city

Gardening, Permaculture and trees:

Green fingered wizards enter here. There are numerous ways to help in the greener aspect of Book-Cycle:

  • Setting up Permaculture Courses
  • Growing food on Book-Cycle premises, plot to plate etc
  • Guerrilla gardening across the local area
  • Ordering fruit trees
  • Planting fruit trees with local primary schools
  • Helping stock and promote seed bank

Pallet and container shipping:

A beautiful way to engage in one of our main projects; setting up libraries across the world

  • Training volunteers in good sorting and packing requirements
  • Organising pallet and container shipping
  • Liaising with schools both in the UK and abroad
  • Connecting with other charities for inclusion in containers and shipments
  • Gathering Heat Treated wooden pallets

Book-keeping Banking and Accounts:

A rather delicate but very important task is collecting, counting and accounting for the money taken and spent. We often rely on outside help for many of these tasks, but of you have experience with anything related would be delighted to know.

  • Emptying safe, counting and banking
  • Book keeping
  • Accunting
  • Submitting reports on the in and outgoings for each location

Funding and Fundraising:

Almost all of your funding comes through the donations for books, and this is good as it means we are not dependant on others for our running costs. There are however occasions where funding is necessary such as major repairs to buildings or mitigating our costs through solar or heat exchangers etc. So if you have any experience or interest in this area it would be most appreciated.

  • Finding the correct funding for each project
  • Writing funding proposals
  • Inventing and manning fundraising events
  • Creating online campaigns
  • Connecting the charity to other forms of revenue

Online bookshop, Rare and collectible books:

An innate pull to old and interesting books is probably what lead most of us to find Book-Cycle in the first place. For those of you who want to be a real life treasure hunter this role is for you. We given a mountain of books each day and hidden within that mountain run seems of book gems some interesting, some expensive, occasionally both. As we are a “free” bookshop we try to take anything off the shelves above say £10/15 in price and regard them instead as objects of art, i.e. collectable and these tomes we try to sell online in order to better further our aims and objectives.

  • Sort and price antiquarian and collectable books
  • Train volunteers to spot the books that should be flowing to you
  • Accurately describe and list books on Abe account or
  • Parcel and send them to our online book sellers – Henri, Bill, Julie currently 2020

Warehouse Crew:

Though we try to decentralise where possible there are still dusty halls were mountains of books gather. Not for the faint hearted the Book-Cycle warehouses are often a jumble of books that to the untrained eye seem like a chaotic mess, but to those that frequent such places are a collection of various microclimates and ecosystems waiting to be tended.

  • Sorting Books into various categories
  • Packing pallets ready for shipment
  • Occasionally packing containers ready for shipment
  • Keeping props and equipment in order
  • Maintaining vehicles and creating large scale art projects