Inspiring Social Change - An Independent Bookshop With Community at our Heart
October Books has always been an independent bookshop with our community at our heart.
From our beginnings as a neighborhood co-operative in 1981 to our famous 2018 move to our community owned premises in Portswood, our community have volunteered their time in the shop, invested in our future and kept us going with messages of support and encouragement. In return, we’ve always tried to provide what our community needs - safe accessible space, events, talks, spaces to meet and discuss ideas - and of course, great books.
Our community tells us that what we do is something special and we want to really celebrate that as we start a new chapter for the bookshop as a Community Benefit Society.
What is a Community Benefit Society? And why the change?
A Community Benefit Society (CBS) operates solely for the benefit of its community - that means you! 😊
Currently as a co-op, we operate for the benefit of our members, and only our members.
The CBS model better fits our main objective of inspiring social change together, for the entire community. As the first CBS in Southampton, we want to be pioneers, demonstrating what can be done when the community comes together.
There are 100s of other CBS around the UK with this form of business model growing contsantly as people look to take back control and ownership of their community. We want to inspire others in the city to use this model to wrestle back control of our economy to a local level.
How can the community help run the business?
With a CBS you can invest your money but also your time, passion and expertise. When you invest, you become a member and gain a vote at regular member meetings about significant business decisions. You can make sure we’re doing the right thing for our community.
Our planned Community Conversations in our community space will let us engage with people from all walks of life and listen to what our community needs from their local indie bookshop.
So - do you want to run a bookshop? Be part of inspiring social change here in Southampton? Here’s how you can get involved!
October Books Community Share Launch
Our community share issue will be launched in mid-September. We aim to raise £170,000 by October 31st 2022. You’ll be able to buy shares and earn interest on your investment (more info coming soon.)
In 2018 we raised over £330,000 to buy to bank building that is now our home. The money we are raising in September will:
Restructure our capital, securing our future
Fund external repairs to the building
Fund an eco-friendly refillery station in the shop
October Books Festival
Saturday 10th September 2022 is our October Books Festival! Join us for a wonderful day of words, writing, poetry, and song to celebrate everything October Books!
Find Out More
If you want to know more about October and everything we do as a radical community independent bookshop, you can check out our website blogs here.
Or, pop in to one of our Open Sessions held on the last Saturday of every month from 11am-2pm. Speak to staff and volunteers who will be happy to answer any questions you have!
If you want to talk to us about:
volunteering
setting up your own Community Business Society
our Books for Wellbeing Scheme for businesses
or anything else
Please send us an email at info@octoberbooks.org or stop by for a chat.
We’ll be explaining more about our work in community, Community Benefit Societies and Community shares and what they mean in our blogs over the coming months, so do keep tuning in for more news.
Next post: Why should I care about Community Shares?
As we start this next exciting chapter, we thank you all for your support and encouragement and we look forward to seeing new faces in the shop over the coming months. We are based in the heart of Portswood, and surrounded by fabulous independent cafes and charity shops - perfect for an afternoon out! Portswood is accessible via a number of bus routes including the 7, 2, U1A & U1E or is a short walk from St Denys station. . We look forward to chatting to you about how we can work together for social change across Southampton,
