This week sees the 2019 Rotary Book Fair get under way in earnest. With a new depot for sorting, courtesy of Forlongs of Frankton, members of Rototuna and Fairfield Rotary Clubs are now starting to collect and process the estimated 60,000 books, record, CDs, DVDs, jigsaws,, puzzles and games that will be on display when the 2019 Book Fair opens next May. In May we partnered with Fairfield Rotary to organise the annual Hamilton Rotary Charity Book Fair, offering 60,000 books, record, CDs, DVDs, jigsaws,, puzzles and games that can be turned into cash for the community as well as providing pleasure for their new owner This is a project that last year generated $40,000 for Hamilton communities, and has now become an established Hamilton tradition. Running over four days, the annual fair brings buyers from all over the upper North Island in search of a bargain or three. And this year we expect the bottom line will be just as good. We tried a few new things this year, and not all of them worked. For the first time, we split the sales area into fiction and non-fiction, rather than by price categories, and this innovation we will probably continue. However, we ran out of time to sort the huge fiction selection into author order, and this made it difficult to find specific authors or titles. So that is one major fix required for next year. A number of other tweaks will also be made to ensure next year's book fair is even better. There are several ways you can be involved. Of course you are always welcome to come along to the fair as a buyer, knowing that whatever you pay for your books or media is going to get ploughed back into the community. If you have books, records and other items you no longer need, you can call us on 028 417 9040 and we will arrange to collect them, or you can drop them off at any of our collection depots. We are interested in just about everything that is in reasonable condition, apart from ex-library books, video and tape cassettes, really old textbooks and jigsaws with pieces missing. If you are keen to get more directly involved, you can join our "Friends of Rotary in Rototuna" group and help out with organising the fair. There is plenty to be done, especially over the four days when the public get their chance to check out what is available.
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