Books, Books And More Books
BY MEREDITH BLAIR
Following the success of last year, the Singleton PCYC will hold their second annual book fair from Thursday, July 27, to July 29 at the Singleton Showground Pavilion.
“Our first book fair last year was a roaring success, in terms of not only a fundraiser for the PCYC but also an opportunity for community connections, the support we got from the Australian Defence Force and the Lions were also great to us with their advice,” club manager David Andrews told Hunter River Times.
The PCYC took over from the Lions who had planned to host their final fair in 2021 as it got more difficult for their volunteers to run, however David thought the fair would be a great opportunity for his enthusiastic volunteers.
“I thought it was a wonderful use of recycling the books, so I floated the idea with my volunteers, and they all loved it. As the PCYC we tried to give it more of a youth slant by encouraging local schools to visit and had readings by local children’s authors, so it was a great success,” said David.
With the help of the Army who helped the fair’s visitors and played music with their three-piece band, as well as donations from local charity shops, the PCYC shared almost 15,000 items with the Singleton community.
“Clearly, with hindsight, we had too many books, to the point where we had boxes of books that never made it to the tables for people to look at, though we probably won’t have as many books as last year, we’ll still likely have 10,000 books to share with the community.”
David was surprised too at the amount of people in 2022 that travelled for the book fair.
“I was really surprised last year that not only the Singleton community but also people from further away like Sydney and Tamworth, places that seem too far away to travel for a book fair, came out and supported the event and spent hours trawling through the books.”
This year’s the book fair will feature author Kaz Delaney doing presentations for people interested in becoming writers, as well as more food options for its visitors, with profits from the fair going toward the PCYC’s programs including their Safer Drivers course, Friday Afternoon Fun and other police programs.
Members of the community are encouraged to donate any books for the book fair to the Singleton PCYC at 25 High St, Singleton any time between 8am to 7.30pm Monday to Friday.