Our stores are part of a national chain, but also very much individual entities in their own right. A good bookshop can and should be a focal point of the local community, a welcoming place that as well as selling books and other products, can be a lively and active member of the community. Waterstone's stores and booksellers can help and involve their local communities in a variety of ways:
Waterstone's current charity partner is The Rainbow Trust: Rainbow Trust Children's Charity provides a unique and special service to families when their child has a life threatening or terminal illness. Set up in 1986, they offer practical and emotional help through eight teams of Family Support Workers. They aim to maintain a sense of normality, and keep families together by ensuring support is provided not only to the sick child, but also anxious parents, grandparents and worried brothers and sisters. No other organisation provides the extent of professional care and consistency of contact as Rainbow Trust. Their work is a vital emotional and practical lifeline to those who turn to them.
Branches can support a local cause of their choice by displaying a collecting tin. They can also support local causes, charities and initiatives through the gift of books, vouchers or other products at the Manager's discretion.
Charity Christmas Cards: Which? surveys in 2008 and 2009 revealed Waterstone's to be one of the most generous retailers in regard to charity Christmas cards, giving up to 50% of the RRP of each card sold to charity. Last year we extended the range of cards that we sold and charities we worked with. In the UK our partner charities were Unicef, Dyslexia Action, WaterAid and Macmillan Cancer Support. In Ireland we supported the Irish Cancer Society, Goal, Oxfam Ireland and Macmillan.
Supporting local communities
Our many hundreds of local stores are uniquely placed to provide added value experiences for our customers. These include meeting their favourite artists and authors from the entertainment and literary worlds at live performances, signings and other special events.Waterstone's ran over 9,000 events during 2008/09, including nearly 4,000 author appearances. These took place in stores as well as at numerous local community venues. First-time authors as well as household names launched their new books, with signings, talks, readings and acoustic music performances.
Many of our stores run regular reading groups - there were over 1,000 meetings run by our stores during the last year. These gatherings provide a real service to book lovers in our communities. Not only do they provide a safe and warm place for groups to meet and talk but they also encourage people to become involved in books and reading.
Kids enjoy a good bookshop event as much as adults and that is why our stores held over 5,000 children's events in the last year. These include author signings, activity days, story readings and much more.
Our Big Book Bank initiative, which launched in September 2008, encourages children to share their passion for reading with their classmates. The scheme encourages schoolchildren to bring in a book from home that they've read and enjoyed. They then review the book and place it in their school library or classroom. In exchange, the children receive a voucher to get one of 12 books absolutely free in Waterstone's. Over the life of the scheme so far, the Big Book Bank has been taken up by over 3,500 primary schools.
Waterstone's Oban branch in the Scottish highlands has a truly unique role to play in its local community. The store's delivery van regularly travels to remote parts of the highlands and islands of West Scotland to take a selection of books to customers who might not otherwise have frequent or convenient access to a bookshop. The "Out and About Van" delivers a range of bestselling titles, specific customer orders, and titles ordered from Waterstones.com and delivered to the Oban store. The Oban "Out and About Van" programme also involves members of the store team taking to the road in spring, summer and autumn, occasionally taking with them a visiting author, to share their knowledge and passion for books with local customers.
Your right to read
Waterstone's believes that it should not act as censor and that customers should have the right to choose whatever they want to read. The only circumstances under which we would remove a book from sale are on the advice of the police or the publisher. We understand that we share a responsibility with parents to ensure that inappropriate material is not sold to minors. While many books for children and teenagers include no printed direct age guidance, our booksellers can both offer advice or decline a sale if they believe a particular title should not be sold to a minor.
Local charities
Many branches support local causes of their own choice alongside The Rainbow Trust by displaying collecting tins, donating their time in the form of a "Day for Good" or through the gift of books, vouchers or other products.
