Brown Books is a second hand bookshop open for a year as part of a pilot project with Luton Literature CIC and Luton Community Arts Trust. As well as ebing a treasure trove of preloved books they run a number of literary events, storytelling sessions, book readings and signings, poetry events, book clubs and other children's activities. The space is intended to encourage a love of reading and creative writing at any age and to promote early take up of reading in young children.
17 GoodGymers have supported Brown Books with 5 tasks.
Wednesday 9th October
Written by David Mansfield
This week the group gathered to let High Town residents know about the Luton Literature Book Festival.
Joined by first timer Justin we did our intros and warm up and then headed up to High Town, collected the leaflets and hit the streets.
Going door-to-door in a leapfrog style we delivered hundreds of leaflets, at least 600, in super quick time and made it to the pub before the rain got too bad, to receive our reward, a free round of drinks, a thank you from task owner Maz.
Thursday 6th June
Written by Martin R
Thursday evening brought about a cheeky midweek community mission for 5 of Luton Goodgyms finest. The task was delivering leaflets to promote community events at a local community led book shop. The team got stuck in for an hour, posting to roughly 500 houses (could've been a few more). The team enjoyed a jog/brisk walk around the Hightown area of Luton as we delivered the notices, sufficient enough to work up a thirst as cheeky drink on the house at the local pub had been offered as treat for the hard work. Well done team, great effort 👌
Wednesday 14th February
Written by David Mansfield
We hit the streets of High Town this week with leaflets promoting the latest happenings at Brown Books, Luton's only dedicated bookshop. But not before welcoming Derrick to the team for his first session!
Brown Books does outreach to improve literacy in the community and engage people with the written word, so it was worth us getting out steps in and delivering 500 leaflets to the neighbouring homes.
In the middle we took a break and did a rubbery workout in People's Park with elastic resistance bands, working on the muscles that provide stability in the legs and our cores.
With a final flurry of deliveries we worked out way back into town for a cool down stretch and said our goodbyes 👋🏾
Friday 8th September 2023
Written by Gill (She/her)
A small group met up in the afternoon heat to deliver some more flyers for Brown Books, to publicise some forthcoming events include an author fayre tomorrow. Yasin cycled over from a morning GoodGym task in Sundon Park and he and Gill soon got started on flyering Tennyson Road. Assine then joined them at Memorial Park and together they leap frogged along West Hill Road. Unfortunately Yasine was called away so Gill and Assine were faced with the challenge of Cutenhoe Road. Built on a steep hill, Assine magnanimously offered to do the houses on the south side of the road where the front gardens go up a number of steps to the front doors. Where as on the other side of the road there were only a few steps to each door. With the temperature at 30 degrees heat they did well to complete the whole road and then start on a circuit back to the park finishing off on Seymour Avenue with even more steps this time on Gill's side of the road. It was a good work out and even better when a message came through from Brown Books to let us know that they had had 3 new customers in the shop today who had come due to receiving our flyers on Wednesday evening. Made every step worthwhile.
Wednesday 6th September 2023
Written by David Mansfield
A hot and sticky evening saw us come together once again for our Wednesday night group session and we welcomed Suraiya to her first GoodGym session.
We set off from the Town Hall on a postal mission to deliver flyers for Brown Books who have a series of literary events coming up this September.
Split into a walking team and a running team we headed off to the very long Old Bedford Road. The runners ran ahead to do some side roads while the walkers caught up. Once reunited we worked our way back into town together, taking in some more side roads along the way.
On arrival back at the town hall we had some cool-down cupcakes (the best kind of cool-down) to celebrate Gill reaching 100 tasks, well done Gill! We had another milestone as well as tonight was Abim's 50th session and she will soon be wearing her black shirt to show she's a veteran!