![\"Ashburton's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ashburtons-david-mead-amongst-the-many-books-the-club-had-co-6HGILEISXZC2XEFEISEXYVQTTU.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRotary Club of Ashburton\u2019s annual Bookarama fundraiser has received a $3500 boost from the district council to help cover rising costs of disposing the unsellable items.<\/p>\n
The event was granted $3,500 from the council\u2019s discretionary fund to assist with disposing of around 16 tonnes of unsold books and magazines \u2013 the equivalent weight of about eight large cars.<\/p>\n
Bookarama organiser David Mead welcomed the council\u2019s assistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know it\u2019s a one-off,\u201d Mead said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be working with the council on a longer-term solution for the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ashburton’s David Mead, amongst the many books the club had collected that were able to be put up for sale, with around 16 tonnes of material needing to be disposed of this year. (Source: Local Democracy Reporting)<\/p>\n
The club had a $7000 cost in 2024 to dispose of around 20 tonnes of unwanted material to the Kate Valley landfill.<\/p>\n
The annual sale, which has run for 47 years, has raised around $70,000 in recent years, which Rotary grants to community projects.<\/p>\n
Councillors voted on October 1 to cover half the disposal costs this year, some of which cover the materials being diverted to a company in Christchurch to be recycled rather than dumped.<\/p>\n
At the meeting, Chief executive Hamish Riach said the council has supported the event with disposal for many years but \u201cwe no longer believe it’s possible for council to continue to do this\u201d.<\/p>\n
Covering half the costs this year helps \u201cthe transition from having that support, to not having that support\u201d.<\/p>\n
Riach said some donated items \u201care simply unable to be sold\u201d, such as old magazines.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just get boxes and boxes of it as households take advantage of the opportunity to clean out old stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the materials weren\u2019t going through Rotary\u2019s book sale, it would end up in the council\u2019s solid waste system and would be covered by rates to transport to Kate Valley landfill anyway he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are acting in a sense as a quasi-solid waste service for books.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councillor Richard Wilson supported the grant but was concerned about the timing of the request, falling outside the usual grants process, and questioned why Rotary didn\u2019t cover the overheads associated with the event.<\/p>\n
Councillor Lynette Lovett was the only vote against the grant, calling it \u201can excessive amount\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lovett worried it would set a precedent for other organisations to line up for financial assistance with similar issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know of clothing shops here that get people’s rubbish dumped on their doorstep and they have to dispose of it, and these are all charities,\u201d Lovett said.<\/p>\n
Democracy and engagement manager Toni Durham said the Rotary Club was willing to share the costs and had been advised to submit to the annual plan for a longer-term solution.<\/p>\n
That might include looking at how they received the donations.<\/p>\n
Councillors Tony Todd and Carolyn Cameron left the table when the grant was being considered due to a conflict of interest, as both were Rotary members.<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rotary Club of Ashburton\u2019s annual Bookarama fundraiser has received a $3500 boost from the district council to help…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,158,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-67235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}