(From the November 2016 Circle of Friends Newsletter)

Annual Meeting: The Friends annual meeting is set for the 8th of November at 6:00 pm. On the docket, in addition to voting for new two-year terms for vice president, co-treasurers, and an at large director, are the just-concluded year’s fiscal report, approval of the new fiscal year’s budget, and a package of proposed amendments of the By-laws. The amendments are to clarify certain sections of the existing document and to bring it into line with the evolution of our mission, officers’ responsibilities, and practices that have developed over the past seven years.

A nominating committee has drawn up a slate of candidates for the board positions. These candidates are usually from our group of active book store volunteers but could be any member in good standing. It’s a chance to become actively involved in a worthwhile contribution to our community.

Please plan to attend this once-a-year event to meet the directors who spend so much time during the year in keeping the Friends on course in support of the Castro Valley branch. As a dues-paying member, you have a vote at this time in determining our direction. You not only have a vote but are also eligible to make nominations for officers from the floor at the meeting.

Volunteering: A good way to see how it feels is to start as a book sale volunteer as I did. From there you can either limit yourself to book sale setups or move on to become a book store backup volunteer, a regular shift volunteer, or onto board level.

I’m repeating the following from the last newsletter as I don’t think it can be said enough.

BookStore Volunteers: As you already know, the Friends BookStore is staffed by volunteers who receive the book, magazine, and multimedia donations, ensure that the material is clean and saleable, sort between Book Store and book sale quality, and sell the merchandise and memberships. These volunteers usually work a set shift each week. Some are in on multiple days. We try to have consistent standards applied by the various volunteers as to operation of the Book Store through our policies and procedures directives. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement.

Membership Information: Often, in the busy times at the Book Store, vital information is missing from the membership forms and thus from our database. This can become an issue at the Members Only Book Sale night. Please help us by ensuring that your membership information is complete when filling out a renewal or new membership form. Thank you.

Roger Caswell, President
Friends of the Castro Valley Library