Te Awamutu Rotary Club hoping for level 1 as book fair location in jeopardy

Rotary Book Fair convener Laurel Smith in the children's section, one of the rooms set up for the postponed event. Behind are two more rooms for DVDs, CDs, vinyl, puzzles, games. Photo / Dean Taylor

Te Awamutu Rotary Club's annual major fundraiser has once again been affected by Covid – but this year no end is in sight.

The book fair raises thousands of dollars for local causes through the sale of donated books, music, games and puzzles as people keen for a bargain flock to the sale.

This year the event was set up in the former Coresteel building in Churchill St, Rotary club members sorting thousands of items into categories and setting up the sales tables throughout the office style premises.

Rotary Book Fair co-ordinator Laurel Smith says the team put in a huge effort to ready the items for sale – but it is also their downfall for proceeding because it is impossible to operate except in Covid alert level 1.

"The organisation allows buyers to go to the areas they are interested in, but the office sized rooms also make it impossible to adhere to any type of social distancing," says Laurel.

She says currently there isn't an issue waiting for alert levels to drop, but they may be if the property is leased and new tenants want to move in.

"We don't really want to have to box everything up again, but it might come to that," says Laurel.

"It will be a lot of extra work and we will have to pay for storage until the fair can take place, which will eat into our profits."

She is hoping Covid numbers in the Waikato continue to drop and vaccination rates increase so the fair can take place in situ.