Regent / Rotary Pop Up $1 Book Sale

Posted: Monday Jun 22, 2020

The Regent Theatre and Dunedin Central Rotary Club announce a pop-up fundraising book sale starting on Thursday 25th June 2020, at 300 George Street (corner of Hanover St, in the old ANZ bank site).

The Regent Theatre’s annual book sale was unfortunately cancelled this year owing to Covid-19, leaving the theatre with a large supply of books ready sorted into categories including children’s, fiction of all kinds, and a wide range of non-fiction subjects. These books will be sold in the shop run by Rotary, with every book on sale just $1.

Regent Theatre 24-hour Book Sale coordinator Alison Cunningham says “We were very disappointed to have to cancel what would have been our 40th annual sale. As life is very slowly returning to normal in the theatre, we need to offer promotors the maximum flexibility around dates and so we reluctantly decided not to hold a 24-hour sale at all this year. This left us with a large stock of books, which will be sold at the Rotary pop up shop. We are delighted to be building on our recent tradition of providing our unsold dollar books to Rotary for them to hold a pop-up sale. Dunedin’s book lovers can be assured of a terrific range of great books.”

Proceeds raised from this year’s pop up shop will be shared equally between The Regent and Dunedin Central Rotary Club. Sue Mackinlay, PR Director for Dunedin Central Rotary Club says: “Rotary has held an annual Booksale for about ten years. Funds raised from the sale have been used to assist the youth of Dunedin with donations to Foster Care, Apples in Schools programmes, backpacks, sunhats, dictionaries, Rotary Science and Technology forum attendance, speech competitions, blazers for Rotary exchange students and other worthy causes.”

Funds have also been used by Rotary to purchase Shelter Boxes and Emergency Response Kits to support families devasted by cyclones and other natural events in the Pacific, plus among other projects, support equipment for the Breast Care department and furniture for breastfeeding mothers at the Dunedin Hospital. Funds raised by the Regent’s 24-hour Book Sale over the last 40 years have enabled the Regent Theatre Trust of Otago to purchase, develop, equip, and run the Dunedin’s premier theatre.

The pop-up shop launches on Thursday 25th June, and will be open seven days a week, including a late night planned for Thursdays. It will be run by Rotary and manned by volunteers from both organisations, who value the opportunity to work together to providing the community with such a popular event.

Funds raised for the Regent will help see it through this most challenging year when the theatre’s income has been literally zero since March. To raise further funds, a smaller scale Christmas sale is planned for Friday 4th and Saturday 5th December in the theatre, with a focus on good-as-new books, children’s toys and games and other items suitable to be given as Christmas gifts.