Dubbo West Rotary Club thank community for generous donations to Michael Egan Memorial Book Fair

On Saturday, the Dubbo West Rotary Club held a collection day for the Michael Egan Memorial Book Fair in the carpark of construction company Custom Steel Frames which brought in "10 full boxed pallets" of donated books.

"We didn't know how the community would respond to our book appeal, a new organiser, a new collection venue, and a weekend collection day," said Book Fair Coordinator, Colin Shanks.

This is the first time the Dubbo West Rotary Club will be hosting the book fair after the Rotary Club of Dubbo Macquarie - who organised the much loved event for the past 12 years - decided to hand over the reins.

"There is no singular reason for this decision, in fact there are many small interconnecting ones which collectively places a large burden on a Club with low membership," Susie Rowley, president of the Rotary Club of Dubbo Macquarie, told the Daily Liberal in May.

"We are extremely pleased that West Dubbo Rotary has come on board and taken the Book Fair from us meaning that it still will be an initiative of Rotary and that the Book Fair will remain locally controlled."

Dubbo West Rotary President, Debbie McCreadie said volunteers sorted and packed "thousands" of preloved books on the collection day and the support from the public was "overwhelming".

"We were starting to worry that the books wouldn't stop coming, we thought we might wear out our volunteers before they did. We can't thank the community's generosity enough," she said.

"Our new collection venue worked really well, we had plenty of space, drive through drop off, and shade to work under. Thank you to Custom Steel Frames for allowing us to utilise their car park as a collection venue."

Ahead of the book fair on the 29th and 30th April next year, the Dubbo West Rotary Club will be hosting another collection day on Saturday the 21st of January.

They're hoping to collect another 10 pallets worth of books to sell during the fair - with all funds raised going to the Royal Flying Doctors, Dubbo Support Group and Bill Walsh Cancer Research to honour the memory of Rotarian Michael Egan who died of cancer.

"It's our first year hosting this annual event, but to be a success it relies entirely on the community support to provide us with good quality books suitable for resale," said Mr Shanks.

The last book fair, held earlier this year, raised an estimated $16,000 for charity.

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