Annual book fair roars back to life

After a couple of months of lockdown limbo, Blenheim Lions Club has read the mood of the community and decided to hold its annual book fair next month.

‘‘Everything is going to be fine now,’’ says acting Blenheim Lions Club president Delphine Lee.

Usually held in August in conjunction with the Beavertown Lions Club, the popular book fair had to be postponed because of the Coronavirus restrictions, but will now go ahead from November 12-15.

The initial postponement was a hard blow for the clubs as the event is its biggest fundraiser. At $2 a book, the fair raised over $22,000 in 2019 for various Marlborough charities.

‘‘We’ve got to wait until we’ve got total clearance that we can do this,’’ a nervous Lee said back in May.

‘‘We certainly couldn’t have volumes of people coming in and out. We couldn’t have them signing in and sanitising their hands, it’s not practical.’’

Across the country, fundraising efforts were hampered by coronavirus restrictions.

For the Lions Club, the loss of events such as the Whitehaven Graperide in March and the St Clair Half Marathon back in March had erased a key source of revenue.

The funds raised by working these events were usually given to charities such as the Salvation Army and Crossroads.

Lee said the clubs had also missed out on doing collections for the Cancer Society and Life Flight, but it would not impact their capacity to help the community.

Knowing the event was now locked in for next month, a relieved Lee said the Blenheim Lions Club had not yet chosen a recipient for this year’s fair, but she expected a similar result to last year.

‘‘We really did want to have it before Christmas, but not too close to Christmas, because people then thinking their dollar should be spent on presents, not on second-hand books.

‘‘But this time is really good, we are really happy about it!’’

Hundreds of people come to the fair each year but ‘‘we don’t count’’, Lee said.

‘‘A lot of people are just hanging out for our book fair because they know that it is where they can get a lot of good books at a very reasonable price.

‘‘They sort of swap them year after year and a lot of books really don’t date that quickly.

‘‘Novels and New Zealand books written by former All

Blacks are always good value’’ she said.

‘‘It’s a very broad-spectrum’’. An all-area is also dedicated to children, with bargains such as 5 books sold for $10 or a whole bag for a couple of dollars.

The fair will run from Thursday, November 12, to Sunday, November 15, between 9am till 4pm daily at Waterlea Raceway.

RICKY WILSON/ STUFF It was touch-and-go whether this year’s Lions Club Book Fair would go ahead, after Covid-19 initially postponed it.