In this blog our fabulous Book Club Ambassador, Nicola, gives the lowdown on her role supporting book clubs to get up and running…
Thanks to a grant from the Veterans’ Foundation, we are continuing to support book clubs to get up and running in our military communities. Reading Force is a tri service charity, and we welcome Veterans, Reservists and MOD staff to our community. We offer book clubs for both children* (8yrs +) and adults – each book club member will receive three books for free to help get the book club going!
“Thank you so much, for all that you do for this community”
– Member of a Reading Force spouse and partner book club
Our volunteer book club coordinators are spouses and partners, serving personnel, charity outreach workers, welfare/community development officers, teachers/service pupil premium coordinators and more. Since November ‘22, I have helped volunteer coordinators set up 17 new Reading Force Book Clubs with 199 members in military and veteran communities across the UK and overseas and posted 421 books to our book club members!
My role as Book Club Ambassador is to support volunteer coordinators in a variety of ways – how to run a book club (online or face to face), choose suitable titles from our amazing selection of free books, suggestions on how to make everyone feel included, questions to ask at book club and anything else the coordinator needs. A growing part of my role is to support the coordinator with a variety of ways to keep the book club going beyond the three free books from Reading Force. We are seeing increasing numbers of our volunteer coordinators continue their book clubs and we receive glowing feedback from the members who are keen to keep their book club going…
“I loved book club. It was a chance to share my love for reading with other members and I have really enjoyed sharing my reads and reading books I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen myself. I can’t wait for book club to continue.”
– Member of a Reading Force spouse and partner book club
Get in touch to find out more about how I can support you to set up and run a book club – nicola@readingforce.org.uk or call on 07519 665410.
Keep reading!
Nicola
* Volunteer coordinators of our children’s book clubs must have a current Enhanced DBS.