I realised I was missing a really easy trick to earn some more money for charity so we now have an Amazon Associates account. Every time any one buys a book from Amazon, through the search box in the left hand column the account earns a referral fee. Every time the account reaches $10 I'll get that amount sent to my bank account and I'll draw the amount earned out every time I receive a payment. This cash will go into a tin for charity (I'm going to draw it out as I go along so I don't have to make a massive withdrawal at the end of the year).
However I'm not sure how the select a charity to send this money to. I think I want to donate it to a charity no one here is already supporting, but which one? Any thoughts?
So the next time you think about buying a book from Amazon please take a minute to drop by the blog and find it via the search engine. Make sure all your friends, family and book blog readers know about it as well.
I'm still collecting totals and questionnaires but I'll be back soon with a post about the books you loved reading in January. Remember to keep dropping links and reviews here (if you ahven't received an invite letting you post here please let me know).
Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Monday, 15 December 2008
The Campaign for the Book
Vulpes Libris (the book foxes) have a recent post introducing 'The Campaign for the Book'. This is a campaign organised by Alan Gibbons, a childrens author, who beliefs libraries are of extreme importance to our culture.
The campaign has a charter which outlines what those involved have deicated themselve to:
We, the signatories of this Charter commit ourselves to campaigning for the following:
1. The central place of reading for pleasure in society.
2. A proper balance of book provision and Information Technology in public and school libraries. We welcome the integration of new technologies but believe that they must not erode the key place of books and the need for a healthy and expanding book stock.
3. The defence of public libraries and librarians from attempts to cut spending in a ‘soft’ area.
4. An extension of the role of the school librarian and a recognition of the school library as a key engine of learning. All staff employed in school libraries to have access to appropriate and adequate support and training.
5. The recruitment of more school librarians. It is a national scandal that less than a third of secondary schools has a trained librarian.
6. The defence of the professional status of the public and school librarian. We oppose downgrading. In some places this has reduced librarians’ salaries by up to half.
7. A higher profile for reading for pleasure in schools, including shadowing book awards, inviting authors and illustrators to visit, developing school creative writing magazines.
8. To support the sustainability and future development of Schools Library Service provision nationally.
9. To promote a more positive reading culture in school, in which the reading of whole books is preferred to studying extracts alone
All of this is pretty important stuff. If you love reading chances are you've had a positive encounter with a library. One of my favourite childhood memories is finding the hardback copy of Philip Pullman's 'Northern Lights' in Dudley library. It was the first cover design edition, the one featuring the detailed version of the altheiometer and I loved it. I read it three times before buying my own copy but I never found a copy with that exact cover. This was just one of many wonderful encounters I have had with books in my local libraries.
In my area (West Midlands UK) there are several libraries which are well run but which would certainly benefit from increased funding. If you haven't yet picked your reading charity for next year I urge you to think about reading for your local library in 2009.
The campaign has a charter which outlines what those involved have deicated themselve to:
We, the signatories of this Charter commit ourselves to campaigning for the following:
1. The central place of reading for pleasure in society.
2. A proper balance of book provision and Information Technology in public and school libraries. We welcome the integration of new technologies but believe that they must not erode the key place of books and the need for a healthy and expanding book stock.
3. The defence of public libraries and librarians from attempts to cut spending in a ‘soft’ area.
4. An extension of the role of the school librarian and a recognition of the school library as a key engine of learning. All staff employed in school libraries to have access to appropriate and adequate support and training.
5. The recruitment of more school librarians. It is a national scandal that less than a third of secondary schools has a trained librarian.
6. The defence of the professional status of the public and school librarian. We oppose downgrading. In some places this has reduced librarians’ salaries by up to half.
7. A higher profile for reading for pleasure in schools, including shadowing book awards, inviting authors and illustrators to visit, developing school creative writing magazines.
8. To support the sustainability and future development of Schools Library Service provision nationally.
9. To promote a more positive reading culture in school, in which the reading of whole books is preferred to studying extracts alone
All of this is pretty important stuff. If you love reading chances are you've had a positive encounter with a library. One of my favourite childhood memories is finding the hardback copy of Philip Pullman's 'Northern Lights' in Dudley library. It was the first cover design edition, the one featuring the detailed version of the altheiometer and I loved it. I read it three times before buying my own copy but I never found a copy with that exact cover. This was just one of many wonderful encounters I have had with books in my local libraries.
In my area (West Midlands UK) there are several libraries which are well run but which would certainly benefit from increased funding. If you haven't yet picked your reading charity for next year I urge you to think about reading for your local library in 2009.
Friday, 14 November 2008
New Developments
Just a quick post to give you a short inspirational update. The Year of Readers has now been mentioned at quite a few great places like A Novel Challenge, Estellas Revenge and Blog of a Bookslut , as well as at many independent reader blogs. Checking my site results today I see we've had a few mentions on French blogs so Bonjour! I'm in the process of getting some more exposure for the event at the moment as well as submitting the blog address to search engines and trying to get small presses involved.
I've heard from three of my favourite book bloggers that they will be selecting charities and joining up to raise funds in 2009. Those e-mails were really exciting because I love their blogs and I know big readers means lots of money for worthy causes.
I've picked my charity! I'll be reading for Room to Read, which works on two continents and believes reading is key to breaking the cycle of poverty. I've also started getting my friends to sponsor me and the pennies are rolling in.
Speaking of pennies I've made a (possibly financially ruinous) decision that for every book read by a Year of Reading participant I will personally donate a penny to EcoLibris (donation to be made January 2010). I know environmental 'offsetting' can be a bit tenuous. Readers should focus their efforts on reading secondhand books, borrowed books etc but there's just no use pretending that the trade in virgin paper books is going to disappear. Surely it's better to help plant new trees than to sit around and tut. As the EcoLibris website says:
'Eventually (and hopefully sooner then later), books will be made from recycled paper or other eco-friendly materials. But till then, we can still do something to make the world greener.'
So I'll be asking for book totals at the end of 2009 and each book read will earn an extra penny for EcoLibris, which go towards planting trees. Whatever total we reach I'll round it up to a tree planting amount of dollars.
Finally I'm happy to announce that every month in 2009 I'll be holding a little motivational prize draw for readers here at the blog. All prizes will be designed to enable your reading obsession. Look out for some cool reading paraphenalia.
That's it for now. I hope everyone who has signed up so far has received their sposnorship form (contact me at bakerjodie at googlemail dot com if you haven't). Thanks for spreading the word.
I've heard from three of my favourite book bloggers that they will be selecting charities and joining up to raise funds in 2009. Those e-mails were really exciting because I love their blogs and I know big readers means lots of money for worthy causes.
I've picked my charity! I'll be reading for Room to Read, which works on two continents and believes reading is key to breaking the cycle of poverty. I've also started getting my friends to sponsor me and the pennies are rolling in.
Speaking of pennies I've made a (possibly financially ruinous) decision that for every book read by a Year of Reading participant I will personally donate a penny to EcoLibris (donation to be made January 2010). I know environmental 'offsetting' can be a bit tenuous. Readers should focus their efforts on reading secondhand books, borrowed books etc but there's just no use pretending that the trade in virgin paper books is going to disappear. Surely it's better to help plant new trees than to sit around and tut. As the EcoLibris website says:
'Eventually (and hopefully sooner then later), books will be made from recycled paper or other eco-friendly materials. But till then, we can still do something to make the world greener.'
So I'll be asking for book totals at the end of 2009 and each book read will earn an extra penny for EcoLibris, which go towards planting trees. Whatever total we reach I'll round it up to a tree planting amount of dollars.
Finally I'm happy to announce that every month in 2009 I'll be holding a little motivational prize draw for readers here at the blog. All prizes will be designed to enable your reading obsession. Look out for some cool reading paraphenalia.
That's it for now. I hope everyone who has signed up so far has received their sposnorship form (contact me at bakerjodie at googlemail dot com if you haven't). Thanks for spreading the word.
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