St John book sales reach another milestone in Whanganui

Preparing for their 130th St John Book Sale are (from left) Niki (area administrator), Ian, Merv, Peter, Cindy and Jenny. Photo / Paul Brooks

Coming up is a major milestone in the history of St John book sales in Whanganui.
They started at the old St John building at 191 St Hill St, now occupied by Land Based Training Ltd. Two of the originals from 30 years ago, Betty Simpson and Jenny Burkett, still work hard to make the sales a success.
A small team of dedicated helpers decided to hold further book sales, slowly increasing the number per year. Now St John is celebrating the 130th book sale and 30 years of sales.

Their first book sale in the "new" Tawa St premises was in March 2000, but the previous year the sale was held in the old fire station in Wilson St, the St Hill St building having been sold.

Jenny is the organiser. She contacts the 40 or 50 volunteers who help out at the sales and from that she makes up a roster.

Midweek caught up with Cindy, Jenny, Ian, Peter and Merv, volunteers who have all clocked up a few years of book sales.
Monday morning is sorting time, when a team comes in to sort books into categories. Merv minds the kitchen and makes tea.
"He's one of the kitchen people when we have our book sales," says Cindy.
Peter's one of the young ones, relatively, so he does heavy lifting and he knows where things are. He used to buy books from the St Hill St sales and eventually asked if he could help.

Ian's job is the magazines. He's been doing it for about four years.
"Like Merv, I'm past the heavy lifting stage, but I enjoy the company."
"You make a lot of friends," says Cindy. She keeps a request list for people who want to find a particular book.
"We have a core group for setting up, a core group for packing away, some of us do the whole lot," says Cindy.

Setting up the tables is a big job and Jenny decides where everything goes.
"One of Merv's jobs is to put the category labels out and the boys bring in the boxes. The next day, Wednesday, the big team comes in and they start setting it up," says Jenny.

The first sale in St Hill St took $995.50. A normal sale today will bring in $3000.
Books are stored in the Tawa St building and in a steel container on the grounds. All are kept in banana boxes until day of sale, they fill rooms and are stacked to the ceiling, numbering tens of thousands.

St John has a long-standing tradition, started by the late Tom Armstrong, that every sale must contain a copy of Lord Cobham's Speeches.
"We can not have a book sale unless we've got one copy on the premises," says Jenny.

In 2014 they had book restorer Bill Tito as a guest. He's still talked about.

Money raised is used in St John local facilities upgrading training for youth, supporting the health shuttle service and general maintenance. Proceeds from one sale a year goes to the St John Eye Hospital in East Jerusalem.

The St John Anniversary Book Sale is on October 8, 9 and 10, 10am-7pm on Thursday, 10am-6pm on Friday and 10am-4pm on Saturday at St John Community and Training Centre, 25 Tawa St, Gonville. Cash sales only please, no eftpos.