First thoughts on 2024...

We have looked back at 2023 and, as always, amazed ourselves at how much we have achieved in a short twelve months, all on a small amount of funds and with a small but perfectly formed team. The shop, the community space, our building and some amazing events both in the shop and in our community.

Coming into 2024 there does feel a need to rethink all that we are doing and to refocus our efforts in order to maintain our key activities. With all the changes in the staff team (and with more to come), the cost of living crisis affecting sales, rising interest rates affecting loan repayments and other increasing costs, we need to think about being REGENERATIVE in our approach, not just sustaining what we do.

We don’t quite know what this looks like as yet but we do know that we need to focus on improving sales and income from room hire for at least the first quarter of the year. This will be all about books, books and more books as we coalesce our new book buying working group and new book buying role into some new purchases and a refresh of all categories of books in the shop. We will also be making some updates to the look of the shop, supported by a generous grant from The Co-op Foundation. We would like to say a massive thank you to them for their continued support.

We also know that we will be welcoming a new member to the team sometime in early 2024 as Liz and Ellen leave us to concentrate on personal and family affairs. The advertisement for a permanent new team member is here and closes on the 14th January. Do share with anyone you know who might be interested in joining the team.

As well as changes to the team, the look of the shop and our catalogue of books, we are also changing our events programme for the first few months of 2024. There will be a new series of ‘We can learn to…’ events running in the shop every Saturday and we will be supporting groups to set up their own activities. Some that are lined up already include collaging, singing and bunting making so do come along and share skills, support and conversation.

That’s a quick update for now and we will keep you posted with weekly community related blogs. If you would like to find out more about us, what we do, how we operate and what makes us different from a traditional businesses, do drop us a line or pop in for a chat. Wishing you all a regenerative New Year.

The October Books Team