We Are Athens Discussion Group meets 3/9/11 @ Hendershot's

Next book selection for March 9 We Are Athens discussion group: The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition by Michael H. Shuman "Defenders of globalization, free markets, and free trade insist there's no alternative to mega-stores like Wal-Mart; Michael Shuman begs to differ. In The Small-Mart Revolution, Shuman makes a compelling case for his alternative business model, one in which communities reap the benefits of 'going local' in four key spending categories: goods, services, energy, and finance. He argues that despite the endless media coverage of multinational conglomerates, local businesses give more to charity, adapt more easily to rising labor and environmental standards, and produce more wealth for a community. They also spend more locally, thereby increasing community income and creating wealth and jobs. The Small-Mart Revolution presents a visionary yet practical roadmap for everyone concerned with mitigating the worst of globalization." -Goodreads.com Search for it on our full-service website, where you can find virtually any book in print (as well as DVDs and music!). Discussion Group Meeting Will Be Wed., March 9 @ 7PM All are welcome to attend the We Are Athens discussion group Wednesday, March 9, 2011 from 7-8:30 PM. We will meet at Hendershot's Coffee & Bar, 1560 Oglethorpe Ave (at the Loop).  Reading the book is NOT required! While we encourage you to at least be familiar with the concepts presented in this book, reading the book is not a prerequisite.  Come ready to discuss the themes and ideas presented in Small-Mart Revolution (& listen to what others have to say). Our meetings are open to any attendees, a space for free speech and healthy exchange. Discussion is always lively. Please join us! YES, YOU CAN BUY THIS BOOK CLUB TITLE (& MANY MORE) FROM AVID BOOKSHOP! Visit http://www.avidbookshop.com for links to our new & used online stores. We have lots of copies of Small-Mart Revolution at our webstore (http://avidbookshop.theretailerplace.com), and we'd be most appreciative if you bought from us or checked your book out of thelibrary.

personalized book club services

The new year is here, and with it myriad resolutions about taking better care of ourselves, taking time out for friends, and—for many—vows to read more books.  January is a popular month for starting book clubs, and I (Janet Geddis, Avid Bookshop founder) am here to help.

Lots of people want to start brand new book clubs; others want to revive their groups and find more interesting reads that will encourage better attendance.  I work with local book clubs to help moderators find a good selection for their particular clubs.  

For no fee, I will talk with you (in person, via telephone, or via email) to discuss your book club’s tastes, goals, interests, and meeting schedule.  At minimum, I can provide you with a list of books catered to your group so that you can choose book club reads for 2011.  On the other end of the spectrum, I can meet with club founders in person, find other members to join, generate discussion questions, help you find meeting space, and more. 

If you’d like to learn more about Avid Bookshop, including personalized book club guidance, please contact me at avid.athens@gmail.com.  

Avid is a locally-owned bookstore business with a strong community focus.  You can find virtually any book in print at http://www.avidbookshop.com. 

Nuci's Space Community Read: focus on depression & suicide

Last night I attended the book club meeting for the Nuci's Space Community Read. (Not familiar with Nuci's Space? You should be--it's an amazing, amazing place.)  Held upstairs at the Globe (where we met for our We Are Athens book club last month!), the meeting was well-attended and lively. 

Why did I resist book clubs for the first 28 years of my life?  Along with some friends I began a book club a couple of years ago, and it's brought me such joy and fulfillment to discuss books with smart people.  Since beginning that personal book club, I've taken part in several others (and even organized one).  I feel hooked! By now you probably realize I'm quite the reader, and for years I thought that I wouldn't want to hash apart a book with others (especially strangers, and especially after having done so in school for four years).  But having begun taking part in book clubs recently, I can't imagine what my old self was thinking!

I'm exposed to so many different points of view, so many interpretations that hadn't occurred to me.  Each reader comes from a background totally separate from everyone else, and that means each reading is unique.  When readers get together to share these perspectives, you can watch the faces of the group as they begin to understand the book and one another in unexpected ways.

The next Avid-hosted book club will meet Thursday, April 29th at 6 PM downtown (specific location TBD). We're reading The Better World Handbook.  Hope you can join even if you don't get a chance to read the book.

patience pays (we hope)

Hello all!  March has been a very busy month for me so far, bookstore- and life-wise.  My lovely mother and sister came to town for a nice visit, I hosted the first-ever Avid-affiliated book club, I cancelled two lunches with two author friends due to busy-ness or sickness (blargh--sorry Laurel & Jessica!), and I reestablished myself as a self-proclaimed iMovie guru.  It's true.

The month kicked off with an hour of utter frustration.  In the two years I've been planning this business, I've encountered many a setback, and I know there'll be many more.  So far I've proven to be resilient, so I'm not too daunted.  But man--if you had seen me at 12:22 AM on March 1, 2010, you would have encountered an angry, teary-eyed, unable-to-sleep entrepreneur.  Due to website issues, the Pepsi Refresh Project application grant I'd been working on for days simply disappeared the moment I logged into submit it for a grant.  Boo.

But guess what?  Pepsi has graciously fixed the situation, and I'm pretty happy with the solution:  they apologized for the system having lost my application and said that if I'd be willing to start the process all over again, they'd submit my project on April 1 at midnight.  (May I also say I was super-impressed with the customer service I received during my multiple troubleshooting calls? I don't drink much soda these days and of course am a born-and-bred Coca-Cola girl, but Pepsi's making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside of late.  Heresy, I know!)

Yippee.  I hesitate to celebrate too much over this small victory, but I'm pretty confident I'll start harrassing you for vote-clicks starting on April Fools Day.  SERIOUSLY.

I've also created a fundraising page on IndieGoGo.com!  I'll make the big push for that starting April 1st, too, but thought I'd plug it here first (which gives YOU the chance to be our official first donor!).  Due to sheer inventiveness and kindness from Avid supporters, we have a bevy of awesome "VIP perks" at every donation level.  Signed books, handcrafted stationery, free coffee for a year, original artwork, bookmarks, autographed CDs, and more, more, more are yours for the taking once you donate.  I've looked at other IndieGoGo project pages and, while some VIP perks are certainly exciting, NOTHING beats the lineup Avid has for you. (There is no minimum donation, though, so even pitching in a buck would be great!  Perks start at the  $10 donation level.)   Check out the page here: http://www.indiegogo.com/avidbookshop

Back to work now. Thanks as always for reading, and stay tuned for specific information on how to employ free mouse clicks, small donations, and even big investments to help Avid open its doors.

a diverse group at our first book club meeting!

As you may suspect, Avid will eventually play host to a variety of book clubs (and will aim to have a space set aside for any area book clubs to meet, even if an Avid bookseller is not involved in the discussion).  For now we're starting modestly, with just one book club I've talked a lot about on this blog.

The inaugural meeting of our Buy Local Book Club/We Are Athens Book Club/Insert-More-Clever-Name-Here-About-Localism-&-Sustainability-&-Community-Book-Club Here went really well.  We met at the Globe, a longtime downtown Athens pub and restaurant and had a couple of hours of good discussion, meeting new friends, and even a little bit of networking.

Catrina Cook (J House Media) and I were there to informally and unofficially represent We Are Athens.  The rest of the 13-person group was made up of people with a variety of backgrounds.  We had a couple of folks who are new to Athens as well as 20+ year veterans; we had one out of towner who wanted to learn about the club and a handful of small business owners who want to see some changes in the Athens community landscape.  We had one neighborhood-conscious fellow who's spearheading the new Barber Street Park Project--surely something the Project for Public Spaces would be excited about.  The variety of attendees was refreshing and people gave me perspective on things I hadn't thought about before.

In the interest of brevity, I'll mention a few things here that we mentioned LOVING about Athens.
1. music
2. approachability/friendliness of citizens and local government
3. open-mindedness
4. dynamic, ever-changing nature of the city
5. all the green space
6. gardens (personal, community, and even large-scale ones)
7. our thriving downtown
8. the sense of hope & optimism among many citizens
9. people's willingness to change
10. architecture
11. vibrant arts scene
12. creative enclave that is Athens
13. tourism is always improving

And here are a handful of things we'd like to see for Athens.  Ones with asterisks (*) are already in the works, as far as I know!
1. edible schoolyards*
2. music programming in schools (Athfest InSchool, for example)*
3. more family-oriented activities*
4. free public transportation
5. more frequent bus service/more extensive transit area
6. pedestrian-only areas of downtown
7. trolley/streetcar on Boulevard
8. require students to live on campus for at least a year
9. a UGA campus that is open to the downtown rather than closed off and separated
10. more bike-friendly routes & amenities*
11. We Are Athens (Buy Local Athens)*
12. a "playborhood"

Your turn:  what would YOU add to this list?

We've selected our next book, and I hope to see you at the next meeting (date & time TBA) so we can discuss The Better World Handbook:  Small Changes That Make a Big Difference.

Buy Local Book Club is tomorrow!

(...and we need a more fitting name.  We'll discuss this at our meeting tomorrow!)

BUY LOCAL BOOK CLUB MEETING

When:  Thursday, March 18th from 6 PM - 9 PMish

Where: UPSTAIRS at The Globe(199 N. Lumpkin St., 30601 - downtown Athens, GA)

Why:  To discuss Athens and ways to nurture it; to talk about localism, sustainability, "place-making," and community enrichment.

The Book:  The Great Neighborhood Book by Jay Walljasper

(As of 3/17, our local library branch has one copy in!) 

Walljasper's book focuses heavily on the concept of place-making as envisioned by the Project for Public Spaces.  If you haven't acquired a copy of the book, no worries--your comments and insights will still be quite valuable!  For a crash course in place-making, check out PPS's website.

At the meeting, we'll select what our next book club choice will be--the next meeting will be in about three months, as the club aims to meet quarterly.

Thanks for your time, and I really hope to see you there tomorrow evening.  Email me with any questions, and contact The Globe at (706) 353-4721 if you need specific directions.
 

some ideas for spring - please share your feedback!

I have a few ideas (and some official plans) for spring 2010.  Now that it's snowed twice (!) in Athens in 2010, I'm definitely ready for warmer temperatures to hit!

1. Thursday, March 18th at 6PM at The Globe:  Buy Local Book Club
I've written extensively about this already, but if you've missed details, check out our Facebook invitation and this blog post on We Are Athens (the Buy Local Athens initiative).

2. Saturday, April 17th all over the US (and in ATHENS, if you join me!):  "E-Free Day"

I'll be at a wedding most of the day, so I am unable to organize any in-person, formal event on this day.  But we have a Facebook event where you can pledge to be e-free on 4/17, no matter where you live.   I hope the weather is beautiful so that it makes it easier for us technology addicts to take a complete break from everything electronic.  That's right:  no TV, no computer, no cell phones, no e-readers!  Read more here.

3. A Saturday or Sunday, sometime in April or early May:  SCRABBLE TOURNAMENT!
This event, another in the series of community-focused fundraisers for Avid, will be held at a locally-owned venue large enough to accommodate however many people sign up! To make the tournament more fun, we'll (perhaps) be looking for food and/or drink donations and a place that will host us out of the goodness of their hearts (fingers crossed).  We also need folks to lend us their Scrabble game sets (complete with a board and all the tiles!) for the day.  As I'm a word nerd, you probably won't be surprised to learn that there are 3 Scrabble sets in my house as we speak.  Please contact me if you have venue ideas, a Scrabble game to lend, some swag to throw into the prize packages, or any other thoughts on the matter.

Most likely the tournament sign-up fee would be between $5 & $15.  Top 3 or 5 winners would receive some good prizes!

4.  Another book sale, date & place TBD.  Several of you made it out to our holiday book sale in December 2009.  I sold a lot that day, but as more and more folks have dropped off boxes of wonderful books, my shelves are filling up again and I've got to sell these before my house collapses under their weight!  :)  If you have any ideas regarding a book sale date, venue, etc., please email me.

Thanks, and let me hear from you!

-Janet G.

Buy Local Book Club

As some of you already know, some of us Athenians are working together to create an Athens Buy Local initiative.  Our Facebook page already has well over one thousand fans, which bodes very well for our city's future. There will be a formal launch of the program this year.  As a new small business owner (and child of parents who've had a small business for over 30 years), it's both invigorating and heartwarming to see so much support for our independent-minded, eclectic community.

Recently I posted a link (on Facebook) to the American Booksellers Association's Indie Local First Reading List, a collection of books about "making and keeping local communities vibrant." I asked fans of Avid Bookshop and fans of Buy Local Athens if they'd be interested in participating in a book club focused on buying and sourcing locally.  The response was immediate and strong, so here I am to share with you a few books for us to choose from.   Vote below in the comments section or via email. (I'm sure there'll be some debate and discussion on the Buy Local Facebook page and the Avid Bookshop Facebook page as well.  Worry not--I'll find a way to combine all this feedback in order to pick the book most people wanted to read.)

We'll plan to meet in mid-March to discuss the book together at some locally-owned, independent business (to be chosen later).

Here are three books to choose from.  Click on the titles for more information, courtesy of Indiebound.org. Let me know which one you're most interested in! Voting deadline is Friday, January 15th.

1. The Better World Handbook (2007 edition) by Ellis Jones, Ross Haenfler, and Brett Johnson
2. The Great Neighborhood Book by Jay Walljasper and Benjamin Fried
3. Deep Economy: The Wealth of Economies and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben