Spring Book Fair

Thanks to the hard work of a large number of people, we managed to raise a total of £2,175.41 at the Spring Book Fair this Saturday (27 March).

While this wasn't quite as much as we have made in some recent fairs, it's still a great result. Particular thanks go to the dedicated pricing team, and to Martin Spiers, who has done lots and lots of driving around in the last few weeks (how he manages to turn the van around at the end of Lake Street I do not know!).

The fair was relatively quiet this time, but with plenty of regulars in evidence, as well as people who saw the placards in the street. Sadly, we didn't make the programme of the Oxford Literary Festival, which usually more than compensates for the lack of students when we hold the fair outside term time.

Owing to some clever analysis of the till roll (not by me!), we should be able to work out how much we make from the different categories of books, and what the average spend is on each category, so hopefully we can make things even better next time. We reckon we had over 700 people through the doors, although it's very hard to be sure without counting them individually.

We have had some lovely books given to us over the last few weeks, so thanks also to all those who donated or who sourced or collected donations. My favourite titles included "What not to wear on a horse" (sadly still unsold at the end), "Human problems and how to solve them", and "Wallabies in the loo". For anyone thinking of getting involved (we will be starting work on the October fair over the summer), coming across crazy titles is one of the joys of pricing.

Lastly, I particularly want to thank the Oxford Phab Club, whose membership of disabled and able-bodied people have been cheerfully serving drinks and lunches at the book fair for 16 years now, and who did a fantastic job as always.