Greyfriars owes a great debt to a former member, Wyn Newman. Not only was she a founder member of both the Anglo-Italian Society and the Travel Club, but on her passing, she bequeathed a considerable sum of money to Greyfriars.
Some ten years ago a portion was used to finance the creation of what is now our purpose-designed book shop, aided and inspired by with input from Mike Osborne. From small beginnings where second-hand books were sold from a trestle table on the lawn, thanks to Wyn we now have a modern facility which generates significant sums for the Centre. Amazingly, the book shop has raised over £44,000. Under the management of our Trustee, Phil West, Wyn’s has evolved into Ringwood’s biggest used bookshop with its own loyalty card.
The original aims, good quality books at low prices and encouraging children to read, remain. Most books are still priced the same today, but the range and variety of books have increased. ‘Sale days’ with thousands of books on every subject and dozens of jigsaw puzzles regularly occur.
All of this is made possible by Greyfriars’ dedicated, knowledgeable team of book lovers, who have kept the bookshop open at every opportunity throughout these challenging times.
We have reached a fabulous TEN YEARS!!!
Wyn’s bookshop will be sending out invitations to a small number of people to come along and celebrate its amazing success.