In September 2025 we celebrated our 25th Anniversary. From small beginnings in September 2000 with just 42 books and raising £14, we have now raised over £200,000.
Initially the Charity Bookstall was run by a member of the United Church of Egham (UCE) to raise monies for the costs of rebuilding the Church Hall, known as the Pastoral Centre. When all the loans were paid off in 2010, the money raised started to be distributed to local charities. As the Charity Bookstall gained in popularity it gained more volunteers, more donations and started to take over the whole church and outside too.
The Charity Bookstall is held monthly for 9 months of the year. We hold the bookstall on a Friday when the church is turned into a pop-up book shop. It actually starts on a Thursday afternoon with the set-up of tables and taking all the books out of storage to lay them out.It is a large operation which needs our experienced and valued team of volunteers to help with. We now have approx. 10,000 books (plus a wide selection of CDs, DVDs and vinyl), all stored in the Church.The books are categorised and then displayed both inside and outside the Church (weather permitting!).
When Covid came in 2020 the Church and therefore the physical Charity Bookstall couldn’t open so we started selling on Ebay as ‘mylovelybooks’ and direct to wholesalers.This helped to keep money flowing to our local charity partners which was much needed at the time. With these extra channels for selling and more effective sorting of donations, we increased our takings and hence the amount we could distribute to charities.
For the last 4 years, the Charity Bookstall has raised on average £20,000 per annum, with over 95% of our income being donated to a range of charities operating locally, or who have clients who live in the local boroughs of Runnymede and Spelthorne. See this link for which charities we support: UCE Charity Bookstall - United Church of Egham
We are now starting on a new chapter with the launch of our own website… Let’s see what the future holds 😊
