I just re-discovered ours and its incredible. Especially for the kids, it gets expensive to keep their stock of books fresh.
They can borrow up to 9 books each for a month and it costs nothing. Its a great way to explore new subjects, my son is suddenly fascinated with the Second World War so he’s now got a bunch of books that I couldn’t have gone out and bought for him.
Now I probably shouldn’t knock book buying as Waterstone’s have supported us greatly running several raffles.
Are my musings here going to have any impact on their bottom line? I don’t think so. In fact as a family we still buy many books as the one thing a library can’t do is compete with tactile covers and the smell of fresh crisp pages in the morning.
What I wanted to talk about is a new type of raffle that Waterstone’s are helping us trial. Internally we call them Play For Another (any better ideas would be truly welcome!). These raffles run in exactly the same way as our normal raffles except the winner elects who the benefactor will be.
In Waterstone’s case, they are raffling a New School Library. There are 1750 tickets at £2.00 each, with each ticket granting the holder £2 off at Waterstone’s.
The winner of this raffle tells us which school they would like Waterstone’s to give the prize to. Simple.I really hope Schools get behind this one and encourage parents to take part. It represents a great new way to undertake fund raising and because every player gets a discount voucher equal or greater than the ticket cost, everyone wins!
We’re keen to have a number of these types of raffles running, an IT suite, new Gym equipment, Music, heck we’re even trying to persuade Ocado to run a raffle for a kitchen suite with great fresh food deliveries for a year, to help with the new Food Curriculum! Fingers crossed.
If you have any other ideas or know a company that we should be talking to please post a comment here.
