What is a Community Book Swap?
A Book Swap is an event where you can bring along books that you no longer want and swap them for books that you do! Fiction, non-fiction, kids books, adults books, recipe books. Any genre as long as it’s in decent enough condition for someone else to enjoy.
At the Great Ashby Community Centre our Community Book Swaps are free events. There is no entry fee and we don’t charge for any books that you want to take. (Of course, we never say no to cash donations which go towards running the community centre!)
All we ask is two things:
1. You either return any books that you have read (and have finished with) or pass them on to someone else to read and enjoy.
2. A Book Swap works best when you bring back the books you have finished reading. By taking books for schools, nurseries and other organisations, we don’t get them back for other people to enjoy. So please be fair to the ethos of the event and only take enough books that you (and your family) can reasonably read before the next one. (And no selling the books that you have received for free from our Book Swap either!)
All books at the event have been donated by the community. Don’t worry if you don’t have any to bring, come and pick one up anyway. Perhaps you can donate next time.
Our first Great Ashby Community Book Swap was held in May 2021 and was an instant success! On average we hold three per year. In previous years these have been in the Spring, Summer and late Autumn.
In addition to the books, we have had a pop-up tea room, selling tea, cafetiere coffee, soft drinks and cakes to enjoy at the event with friends or family or to take away. All cash donations as well as proceeds from the sale of the drinks went to the charity that runs our centre. For the first ten events the cakes were made or provided by the Trustees of our charity. During 2025 we were joined by three different Great Ashby-based bakers who each held a stall selling their delicious cakes and bakes. For 2026 we have offered the space in the pop-up tearoom to local, not-for-profit organisations that use our community centre. Watch this space for which organisation will be running the pop-up tearoom next.
When is the next event?
We are pleased to announce that Great Ashby Brownies and Guides will be running our pop-up tearoom for this event. They will be selling drinks and cakes to raise funds for their organisation. They will also be running a raffle and a craft stall for you to make your very own bookmark.
To make sure that you don’t miss announcements of any future events, be sure to follow our Facebook page.