[Bookstoprisoners] Hire Sales Coordinator

[Sandra Ahten]

I've been discussing with some of you the possibility of having someone in 
charge of sale(s). (For pay)

I recently found out that there is a man who coordinated the Urbana Free 
Library sales for a period of time (before Friends of the Library took over) 
and who coordinates Vintage Vinal for WILL.

I talked to him this week about how they paid him. I wasn't clear on the 
library -- but WILL paid him $3500 for 2-3 months of work that took between 
20-40 hours per week. They made $26,000 off of their sale. So this equals 
about 13% of proceeds. He picked up all the donations, did all the sorting, 
arranged the place, did some of the publicity, organized the volunteers.

I think we should consider hiring him, or someone with like him with his 
experience for our sales on an ongoing basis and pay them about 15% of 
proceeds. Here is how I see the sales coordinator (SC) position working.

We get donations in and they go to "sort" for our volunteers. Our sorters 
pull what we want for our shelves and for jail. Everything else goes in 
general sale -- or special (for bookstore or other sales avenues -- i.e. 
internet, local bookstore, etc).

CS comes in once a week for about one to two hours and works through these 
boxes, either putting them into our storage room for the sale or putting 
them up on the shelves for the bookstore or selling them some other way.

CS attends meeting with us once a month and gets our go ahead on pending 
issues and reports on how he has progressed with sales.

CS would be expected to conduct 2 sales per year. Set date, secure  
location, tables, coordinate volunteers.

CS would pick up books from Strawberry Fields 2 times a week, drop them at 
IMC at his/her convience.

Would do an accouning to us monthly.
In closing --
I'm needing to pull back from BtP right now -- and we need to have a sale. 
Our storage place is almost full. Our bookstore is set up == but needs to be 
worked regularly. Someone needs to set a grandopening date/ hoopla for the 
bOokstore and promote it. There are grants that need to be written and 
applied for. We have lots and lots of letters to answer and books to sort. 
We need to do a "volunteer outreach". We need to have someone be the BtP 
spoke for the IMC and attend meetings on every other THursday. (Chris was it 
-- but he wears a different hat at that meeting and hasn't been able to 
attend our meetings lately). Soon (I hope) we'll need to staff the other 
jail library. So there is no shortage of things to do. I hope that we'll be 
able to find a way to do this and that the extra revenue generated by 
someone being able to devote attention to it will pay for it's self.

This person is available to meet with us on Saturday April 25 at 3:30. CAn 
we talk about this -- THIS SATURDAY at 3:30? (I have another obligation that 
ends at 3pm)

Sandra















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