Next month’s Michael Egan Memorial Book Fair in Dubbo may be a magnet for movie and music fans as well as avid readers.
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However when we received these DVDs and CDs we thought the time was right to give it a trial this year.
- coordinator of the Michael Egan Memorial Book Fair Peter Bartley
A single donation of about 300 DVDs and 40 CDs has prompted the Rotary Club of Dubbo Macquarie to try something new.
"We were very pleased to receive such a worthwhile contribution to the book fair," event coordinator and Rotarian Peter Bartley said .
"We had been thinking about expanding our range over the years but mainly wanted just to concentrate on the traditional written books.
“However, when we received these DVDs and CDs we thought the time was right to give it a trial this year.”
The club will set up a table at the fair in St Brigid’s hall on May 6 to display and sell the DVDs and CDs. It hopes that the community will add to the pile.
“DVDs should be entertainment shows rather than instructional manuals and should be in good condition, free of marks or scratches,” Mr Bartley said.
The club could not accept VHS tapes, audio cassette tapes or LPs as they were “specialised items which wouldn't generally or widely sell”, he said.
The club launched the book fair eight years ago in honour of member and keen reader Michael Egan who died from cancer at the age of 49.
This week Mr Bartley told of the community’s continuing and generous support of the event that has raised more than $51,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) Dubbo Base and the Bill Walsh Cancer Research Centre.
The club has about 11,000 donated books in storage for this year’s book fair. Donations of books, DVDs and CDs in the lead-up to the event on May 6 should be left at St Brigid’s hall between 9am and 5pm on May 5.
Club members run the fair with the support of RFDS supporters and members of the Dubbo Community Men’s Shed. In 2017 the ranks of book fair volunteers will grow to include two newly-inducted members of the club, Allan Clarke and Sally Coddington. “They are very keen to get their teeth into their first big community activity,” Mr Bartley said.
Entry to the fair is by gold coin donation. It will open at 8am and close at 4pm with a “no offer refused” policy applying in its final hour.