October Books is appealing for volunteers to join a human chain to move stock from the current shop to new premises along Portswood Road.
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The co-operative that runs October Books, which was founded in 1977, bought the old NatWest bank building at 189 Portswood Road after a big community fundraising drive, and now hopes to open there on November 3.
Co-op members say around 150 people will be needed for the human chain to work, and apparently there’s already been a very positive response to the callout for volunteers.
They hope the chain, which takes place on Sunday, October 28 from 11.30am-1.30pm, will be a “demonstration of community involvement and cooperation”.
Volunteer days
October Books is currently hosting volunteer drop in sessions every Monday at 2pm till 3pm and Thursday 4pm till 6pm at the existing shop at 243 Portswoood Road.
Help’s needed “clearing and sorting stuff in preparation for the move, renovating our current premises and researching different options and finding creative solutions for things we need in our new space”.
Some specific tasks where help's needed are:
- Someone to project manage renovations of the old premises.
- Painting and decorating the kitchen, bathrooms and cleaning cupboard.
- Researching hearing loops and funding options
- Researching grants and funding options for adding disabled access.
- Bending Perspex to make book stands
- Sourcing cable drums and upcycling them to our requirements
- Sourcing and finding creative options for light fittings
- Looking into floor buffing machine hire
- Taking things to the dump
- Sourcing wooden 'bricks' for book props (source/ sand/ varnish)
- Taking boxes of second hand books to charity shops/ Books for Free
- Sourcing board for creating temporary artwork at the bank