We hope that you are all staying safe and coping in your bubbles. We miss being open and seeing everyone. 

Our committee is meeting in early May, via Zoom, to discuss when and how to reopen the library. It has been recommended that toy libraries do not open until we reach at least alert level 2 so we will make a plan of how to achieve this and keep to the Ministry of Health guidelines so that we are ready to go for when we need to be. We will keep you posted on reopening dates and details! 

We would like to thank Matt Bateman, Principal of Burnside Primary School, and the School Board of Trustees as they are supporting our toy library at this time by freezing our rent of the hall until we reopen. We really appreciate this. Here is his response to us when we emailed to enquire about the possibility of this:

These are exceptional times and we all need to support each other.

The Waimairi Toy Library community is really valued by our Burnside Primary School community and I want to do everything that I can do to reassure you and your team at this time.

To this end, I can confirm that there will be full release from Rental payments for the Waimairi Toy Library, from the week starting Monday 23rd March, until (and including) the Saturday 9th May session. This period will be rent-free.

This period offered above could also be extended depending on how the Lockdown goes. The exit from Level 4 to Level 3 has yet to play out. There may be implications within Level 3 for the Toy Library (restrictions to opening/ staff in at-risk groups etc) which I’m happy to consider and I would look to support the Toy Library further, by extending the rent-free period.

As always, “people” come first Vicki. Your group members shouldn’t be needing to worry about the viability of the Toy Library, so please reassure them all by sharing my/ our school’s response.   Families have enough stress at present, so this offer of a rent-free period may remove one small concern that many may have.

I hope that you, your friends, and your family are all safe, well, and remaining positive. 

Kindest regards

Matt (for BPS)

We would also like to thank and show our appreciation to Annabel who has agreed to stay on as librarian, for a little bit longer, to help with reopening the library and training of a new librarian before she leaves us. Initially, she was due to finish at the end of term 2. We are very thankful that she has agreed to this as her wealth of knowledge will help with the reopening process. While we are at alert levels 4 and 3 she will be working from home updating our website and other administrative tasks. 

As many of you may be aware, we had our AGM in March. We said goodbye to Fabiana Preston and Rob Lane from our committee and we were so lucky to welcome two new members onto our committee to help keep our fantastic toy library running. Our committee now consists of

  • Vicki Lynch – Chairperson
  • Jen Orange – Secretary
  • Paula Kinraid – Treasurer
  • Jacqui Gorton – Facebook/Fundraising
  • Frances Blundell – Grants Officer
  • Kathryn Treeby – Grants Officer
  • Livvy Moody – Packaging
  • Rachel Short – Packaging

Thank you to everyone on the committee, past and present, for your hard work to keep our library running. We have a wonderful supportive team who are a pleasure to work with.

If you haven’t done so already, then please like us on Facebook. We post photos of new toys and announcements and it is a great way to communicate with our members and for our members to know what is going on at our toy library.

 Thank you all so much for supporting our toy library. We really value our members and we hope to see you all soon.