Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
The Big Green Bookshop - needs your help!
This from the Big Green Bookshop blog;
We absolutely love it here at the Big Green Bookshop. These have been the most rewarding 3 years of our working lives and we really don’t want it to end. The decision to open came about when the Waterstone’s we managed in the shopping centre was suddenly closed with little warning. The public outcry at this decision made our minds up. After a lot of effort, a considerable amount of help from some amazing people, our redundancy money and a large loan from the bank for our stock and the building, we finally opened the Big Green Bookshop on March 8th 2008.
It’s just that we can’t really afford to have another nine months like the nine we just had, and despite all your amazing support we are struggling.
It was always our aim to try and be more than just a shop where you buy books, and since we opened we’ve tried to offer something for everyone:
- Author events including Will Self, Mark Billingham, David Vann, Karen Maitland, Christopher Fowler, Laura Dockrill, Magnus Mills and even Maisy Mouse!
- Musical evenings, film nights and historical walks
- Well over 300 visits so far to the local schools in Haringey, Enfield and Barnet helping them to promote literacy with author visits, talks, storytelling and whatever else we can.
- Monthly knitting groups, quizzes, writers groups and board games days (and we’re about to start a comedy night.)
- Two book groups.
- Weekly storytelling and singing for the under 5’s.
- Supporting local talent by holding book launches, poetry readings and talks by the cream of North London’s literary stars.
- Even a place to leave your shopping if it gets too heavy and to sit down with a free cup of tea or coffee.
The list could go on, but we hope you get the idea.
We sincerely hope that you want The Big Green Bookshop to remain here and value what we do and so we are asking for your help.
Our bank loan now has nine months to go until it’s paid off. This is our biggest single outgoing each month. Once the loan has been paid off we will be in a relatively stable position.
We want to address the short term issues and also the longer term ones, so;
Firstly
As our last newsletter announced, we’d like to set up The Big Green Bookshop Committee which will support the bookshop, offering suggestions & ideas to improve what we do for our customers in the future. The first meeting is this Sunday February 27th at 11am. Please come along.
Secondly
It’s the 3rd Anniversary of the Bookshop on March 8th. During the week 6th to 12th March we’re asking you all to buy just one extra book from the Big Green Bookshop. We have over 1,000 people on our loyalty card scheme & many of you who are reading this who aren’t. If each of you bought one extra book this would pretty much guarantee our survival.
For those of you who cannot make it into the bookshop, but want to help, we take orders over the phone or on our website, and we’ve also set up a ‘donate now’ button on our blog if you have all the books you need but would still like to help us out.
We have some of the greatest customers in the world and we are constantly humbled by the support you show us.
Thanks for reading this message.
Simon, Tim and Mark
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ruth on
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All good news, the more coverage, the more customers and regular use. I am loving my history book and want to buy some of the others there now. I like the social interaction of a book shop, not much of an Amazon fan.
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Permalink Reply by Simon Key on
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Hello from The Bookshop.
A quick word of thanks for all the support and word spreading that you've done, we've had a great response so far and i'm not ashamed to say that some of the acts of generosity have brought a tear to my eye.
The letter we wrote pretty much covers the situation we're in. If we can get through the next 9 months we will be in a relatively stable condition. We have mid and long term plans that are beginning to bear fruit and we're setting up a committee of local people who will help us to guide the bookshop in the direction that it needs to go. Being so close to paying off the bank loan, we are determined to make it, but we just need a little help in this difficult period.
If the thought of a trip to Wood Green in the next week or so doesn't appeal, Tim and I are happy to deliver books to your door. Tim has one of those electric bikes and he can be quite nippy.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks really, and now I think I shall go to bed. Five hours sleep in days can't be good for anyone.
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Permalink Reply by David Barry on
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Book delivery service.....
What area do you cover?
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This sounds good especially for people who cant get out and about as much as they might like to. lots of good reasons to support this shop!
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Hello Dave, we don't have a particular area we cover, but if someone asks if we can deliver because they can't get to the shop, or that they need something urgently as long as it's possible and there's two of us in the shop, we'll usually do it.
We probably won't do it, if you buy a bookmark and want us to deliver it to Hitchin though.
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Permalink Reply by Gina O on
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We visited and bought a couple of books. My son was very taken with the place (think it had something to do with the games that were being played on Sunday) and keeps talking about it. He wanted to go there today instead of nursery!
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Went in yesterday and they found me a copy of " Trio " by local author Jill Bingham. One to look out for.
Wouldn't have got in W H S
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