(From the February 2023 Circle of Friends Newsletter)
Happy 2023, Friends! I feel so optimistic beginning this new year. Our organization, like so many others, was negatively impacted by the pandemic. But now, both the library and our BookStore are seeing more traffic. Our December Book Sale was very successful, despite torrential rain on Saturday. We saw many of our former clients and members, who were excited to see our traditional three day book sale return. Many renewed their memberships or joined for the first time. The committee, led by Kay Wetherwax, did a terrific job, and has already met to review the event and recommend changes for the May sale. We had inadvertently planned to have the spring sale on Easter weekend in April. That has been changed to May 5, 6, and 7. Please put the dates on your calendar!!
Castro Valley Reads is coming!! The kick-off event is February 5 at 2:00 PM. Save the date!! As always, the Friends are providing books to the community for this special experience. Put the date on your calendar!!
Joan King, our Vice-President, has been busily training our BookStore volunteers in the use of our tablet for credit card charges. She has also enlisted our Assistant Web Master, Amber Marsh, to create a QR code for our membership materials and online. I am very grateful to both of them for keeping us up to date with technology—challenging as that might be!!
Please stop by the store regularly. We are putting out new material each week. Talk to your friends and neighbors and suggest they stop by the “only bookstore in town”! We hope more people will get back into the habit of shopping with us and donating books.
Interested in volunteering? We are eagerly accepting applications for volunteers. We could extend our hours if we had more trained staff. Could that be you?