Publicize your Book Sales and Fundraising Events!

FOCL often receives questions about publicizing Friends’ Used Book Sales. There are several ways in which FOCL can help.

• Membership Form - When your group submits a membership form or renewal form, there is a section that asks for book sale information as well as your other activities. When your form is received, the information is added to the FOCL website www.foclib.org under the Calendar of Events section.
• Event Calendar -  If you add a new event or have changes or corrections, please email them to our webmaster Ashley Volkens (avolkens@yahoo.com) and she will add or correct them on the Calendar of Events.
• FOCL-Forum - Another great way to publicize them is by becoming a member of FOCL-Forum. FOCL members can send an email describing your event directly to a large group of other Friends groups or members. For help in subscribing to  (or unsubscribing from) FOCL-Forum, please go to the FOCL website and read about it under Resources.
• Facebook - the FOCL Facebook page can also help to advertise your event to a group of 650 followers from CT and beyond. To do this, please send your flyer as a jpg or Word document (not as a pdf as that seems to cause a problem)to Carl Nawrocki (carlybilly@aol.com) and he will post it for you.

FOCL is here to help our members and advertising FOCL members’ Used Book Sales is another great reason to become (or renew) your membership!

Time to renew your FOCL membership

While the pandemic proved to be a major challenge for all, it is now receding into the past and Friends groups are resuming much-needed activities. In the new normal, many groups are looking for new ways to support their libraries and communities. Friends of Connecticut Libraries (FOCL) is here to help you. Our mission to facilitate communication, collaboration, and advocacy among Friends groups and libraries throughout the state is even more important at this moment. We invite you to join/renew your membership in FOCL, along with 100 other local Friends groups, individual library friends, library directors and organizations to support this effort.

Members can take advantage of FOCL’s centralized resources for Friends groups:

• The FOCL website, which includes an extensive resource section about Friends topics, a newly revised Friends handbook which will be available this Fall, a listing of member groups, and book sale information. 

• An active FOCL Facebook community.

• FOCL-Forum, an email listserv where you can ask questions, share information, and post announcements.

• Events on topics of interest to Friends groups.  Note:  While we couldn’t meet in person this past year, we held several chat groups on Zoom to problem solve, share successes and keep visibility in our communities.  Recordings are posted on our website

• FOCL-Point, our newsletter, contains important news and ideas for Friends throughout the state.

• Recognition of outstanding individuals, groups and projects at FOCL’s annual awards meeting planned for Spring 2022.  

• Grants and consultations to Friends groups in need of organizational support.

We encourage you to go online to fill out your membership information and pay your dues here.  (If you need help logging in or have both a group and an individual membership, email friendsctlibraries@gmail.com.)  However, if you prefer, you can mail your membership form and payment to FOCL by October 15.  For groups, this will ensure earlier inclusion of group information in our online directory and calendar.  Individual donations may be tax deductible.  

Thank you for all you do for libraries in Connecticut and for supporting FOCL’s work! Please let us know if there are any other ways we can serve your group and library.

Sincerely,

Linda Grayson