Friends of the GPL Desperate for Space for Book Sale.

Unless they have some very good luck very soon, there may be no 12th annual Friends of the Guelph Public Library used book sale. A lack of a space big enough to organize and hold the sale may scuttle the annual event unless an appropriate venue can be found in the very, very near future.

Here's a message making the rounds from Friends of the GPL chairperson Virginia Gillham:

Just in case you are wondering..... No, the book sale does not have space yet for the 2018 sale. We have normally said that if we had no space by June 1 we would cancel ; however today is June 3 and we haven't taken that drastic step yet. Deep in our hearts we think there is someone out there with a space we could use, so we are going to hang in a little longer.

Important to note:

We are very responsible tenants. We clean up completely after ourselves.

We are a registered charity, and so could offer a tax receipt in situations where it would be helpful

We need the space for at least Sept. and Oct. In the past we have also had it for August.

We need a large space. The past two have been 25,000 and 30,000 sq. ft respectively

We cannot change the time of the sale. The Spring conflicts with other sales in the area, and our volunteers are not available to sort for two months in the summer. We suspect many of our shoppers are also not available then

Several smaller sales would not be a solution. Our major buyers from a distance come for one big sale...they would not come several times

We cannot afford to pay rent. To do so would negate any benefit to the Library from the sale. We could, however, pay reasonable expenses such as utilities if necessary.

Finally . . . yes, we did ask about the Sears store. It is not available for this purpose.

Please, please, please. If you have a space you could make available to save this iconic community event we would be MOST appreciative.

If you can help out, you can get in contact with Gillham by phone at 519-821-5874, or by email at virginiagillham@aol.com, or friendsguelphlibrary@gmail.com