The Gerrards Cross Library Needs You Volunteer!

Late in 2010 Buckinghamshire County Council [BCC] announced they were closing 14 Libraries including ours in Gerrards Cross. Following an Open Meeting at which residents made it clear they wanted the Library kept open, the Parish Council took on the challenge of finding the necessary money and volunteers to run it.
To date the Parish Council has:
• Formed a Charity – the Gerrards Cross
Community Library – to take over the Library, the Trustees of which are local residents
• Negotiated a grant from BCC of £30,000 a year for five years to help cover the costs
• Applied for and received a grant from the Tesco Fund, also towards the costs
• Arranged an assignment of the lease of the Library premises from BCC to the Charity at a peppercorn rent.
• Set up a Working Group of local residents to organise the transfer from BCC to the Charity in the Spring.
• Asked for Volunteers to help in the Library and for financial contributions
• Established a website – www.gxlibrary.org – where Volunteers can register and all residents can make financial donations.

The Libraries in Chalfont-St-Peter, Farnham Common, Chalfont-St-Giles and Little Chalfont are already run by their residents. The Gerrards Cross Library is far more complex, being very much larger. It had a footfall of 85,000 in 2010.

To ensure its future our Library needs:

Volunteers to work in the Library half a day once or twice a month. Already around sixty have volunteered but we need more. Duties are issuing and returning books and DVDs, advising residents on their choices, returning books to shelves etc. Training will be given and an experienced ‘someone’ will always be on hand to help.
Register at www.gxlibrary.org.

Money to cover the day to day running costs and secure its future when the BCC grant ceases. ‘Friends’ donating individually £15 per annum [or £25 as a Family] and ‘Benefactors’ donating a one-off sum of a t least £100 are urgently needed. To date £1,655 has been donated, Chalfont-St-Giles with far fewer residents receives an annual income of £4,500 from its Friends. More Benefactor and Friends are therefore urgently needed – please register at www.gxlibrary.org.

The Library is not only used by readers of books. It is used by:
• Young children at the pre-school
story telling sessions
• Children from local schools whose
teachers bring them to the Library to hear a story and learn what the Library has to offer
• Students needing research books
• Residents to use the four computers, all with internet access, or, for beginners to learn how to use them. Instruction is given free by a resident.
• Residents to read the newspapers and magazines.

The Parish Council and Working Group are working hard to keep our Library open. They also have later plans to extend the opening hours and make the Library a centre for the community by having information on local activities and making it available to local organisations for meetings. We cannot do this without the help of you, our residents. Please access www.gxlibrary.org to register how you can help, or, if you don’t have access to a computer, phone the parish office 01753 888018.