A bit of Bookshop history
A bit of Bookshop history
by: Anna W.
The Success Story
Over the years (about 26) Alan and I have initiated many fund raising events for the Trust, from Barn Dances to Ice Cream sales at Saul festival (our first venture) and many in between, but none has been more successful than The Book Shop. I thought I would write about its development .
We started about 15 years ago as we had started to sell our house near Tewkesbury so that we could move full time onto our narrow boat. We knew we would have to put a lot of things into storage. But our books were many, some passed down to us from family. So, having never tried selling anything before, I set up a table one weekend, alongside our narrow boat, on the canal at Saul. At the end of the day we had made £150 which was donated to Cotswold Canals Trust. By the next weekend we had people bringing us books to sell. Topsy was about to grow!
We were also brought bric a brac and boat bits and pieces. At the time we also started to attend the Tall Ships event at Gloucester Docks, booking a stall. We also had visits to small events, some times making as little as £17 a time, but still very proud of ourselves. Another venture was a small fete at Blunder lock for a boat naming ceremony. That time we had a large bric-a-brac stall and a separate book stall, a brass band and ice cream. Also a celebrity for the naming, one Mark Horton now one of our Vic Presidents.
By this time we could no longer store everything ourselves, so we commandeered a small shed at the Eastington depot. We took our gazebo, table, books and membership forms to more shows. By this time we had decided to stick to books. After a couple of years we out-grew our shed, and moved our storage to the basement at Wallbridge.
As I have said many times we had no experience of running a shop and not much knowledge about books. But we knew the books were selling . We now also had DVDs .
We carried on like this for some years with people continuing to donating books to us . One day we had an email from a family just outside Oxford to ask us if we would like 800 canal books left to us by their father in his will. We were then in a quandary as our space was very limited. But I remembered that CCT used a building at Brimscombe for meetings that was empty. The Trust had talked about how we could utilise it. At this time we had no intention of opening a shop, we had just needed storage and somewhere to sort. But that was not how it turned out. Within a year we had more than we could cope with. So I enquired about starting up a regular book shop. I felt quite out of my depth but ploughed on.
The rooms were cold damp and smelly. But eventually with help from willing volunteers we managed to open two days a week. As our numbers of volunteers increased we extended to three days. We were offered hundreds of records from a source and luckily had an expert help us sort them. That’s how we branched out into records.
When we started the shop I was told the premises would be free to us for six months and after time we would have to evacuate, so after about three and a half years later we were told our time was up. By that time, along with all the help from the volunteers, we had made £100,000 but, as you can imagine, we still had a lot of books and records.
Alan and I had decided to give up our management position and take a break, mainly due to bad health. In the meantime new premises were found and a lot of work was done by Eastington volunteers and others, for the shop to reopen. Books had to be moved and sorted and new book shelves put in as well as the records moved. Some very able managers with a lot more experience than us were found and now it is run a lot more efficiently.
People ask me if I think the premises are better and I have to agree, but I still have soft spot for that smelly old place. It will be exciting to see what happens next. The Trust is considering opening a second shop in Stonehouse. By the way we are both back at the shop as volunteers. So come in and say hello.
