A big thank you to all the students and parents for supporting our 2018 Second Hand Book Sale held in December. Our Sale once again provided Senior School families with a valuable service to complete necessary booklists, greatly appreciated by sellers and purchasers alike. We were delighted that 120 families participated in the Sale – our highest number since my involvement in 2011 – selling 378 books to 107 buyers. We recorded a wonderful profit of $3,073 on the $10,600 gross sales, the second highest profit to date since 2011.

All sellers received their 75% sales payments mid January – timely to record my thanks here to the wonderful team in the Business Office for their support in administering the payments.

The great result reflects the return to a booklist that has not needed any major upgrades of core texts to absorb any curriculum changes. This year, almost all core books were able to be consigned to the Sale allowing parents to purchase second hand text books and in some instances, completing their 2019 booklists in-house. It has been a very satisfying process to see most Year level tables being full of books to sell.

Grateful thanks to both Erica Marriott and Kate Steven, my wonderful and enthusiastic volunteers, for their kind assistance and time with this year’s Sale.

As with previous years, monies raised support the Library Resources Fund to benefit all Senior School students.

With your support, we sent 25 boxes to Bairnsdale West Primary School (BWPS) as usual with the boxes containing incorrect edition, discontinued, out-of-date, marked and unsold books along with excess stationery and novels. These books will now be distributed by Doug Vickers, Principal of BWPS to the local community including maternal and health centres, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, TAFEs, libraries and as needed. The Bairnsdale community very much appreciates our support and donations.

Kent Removals once again kindly and generously donated their services to collecting the boxes from us and delivering them to BWPS. Wayne Kent and the team at Kent Removals have been great supporters of St Catherine’s and the Second Hand Books since 2011. Our collective thanks to Wayne and the Kents for their ongoing and wonderful support.

Thank you once again for supporting our 2018 Sale and thereby extending goodwill to the School and wider community. Our 2019 Second Hand Book Sale will be held in early December and, until then, here’s wishing you all a happy and successful school year!