Su recently became the shop Manager at Chapter Two, the Hospice bookshop in Chesham! She describes Chapter Two as a ‘friendly, happy community space’.
“I have lived in the Amersham area for over 30 years starting out in Latimer, moving to Little Chalfont and now live in Amersham. I have one son who works in content marketing and lives in London. Prior to joining the Chapter Two team, I taught BTEC Levels 2 and 3 at West Herts College and the Bucks College Group in Amersham for 11 years. I enjoy walking (although after a busy day at work, this sometimes gets replaced with a G&T) and Zumba.
I joined the Chapter Two team as a volunteer in 2021, working on Saturday mornings to coincide with my teaching role. As teaching was becoming more admin focused, I applied for and got the Deputy Manager role in June 2022 and, subsequently, following the interview process, took on the Shop Manager role in September 2023. I only knew the Hospice through the shop and walking past before I applied to be a volunteer.
Chapter Two has grown and developed in the two years since I started. It has a thriving customer base and, following our support of events in the High Street, is the happy place for volunteers and customers alike. We pride ourselves on our offering and get a lot of praise from customers (and their pets) for the wonderful community appeal.
My daily job is a juggling act! We have loads of lovely donations every day, sometimes up to 1000 books when it’s busy. My team are amazing and help clean, gift aid, price and store these books. We have different routes to market – in the shop, high value items in the cabinet, good quality or new books online and sometimes we are lucky enough to be donated a valuable book which goes to auction so checking through the donations is therefore a very careful and precise task.
We have a wonderful team of volunteers and young people working towards their DoE Awards. We are lucky enough to have more than 35 regular volunteers who all help make the shop warm and welcoming. It is a pleasure to work with so many interesting people who give their time willingly to support the Hospice.
I enjoy planning and implementing the window displays with my creative team which receive a wide range of positive comments from the public, particularly for the main displays such as Christmas, Easter and local events such as Hats Off. We also put on a number of events in the shop during the year, some monthly such as the Diversity Book Club and Open Mic Poetry evenings, and others which are specific to a book launch or a local artist from the community displaying their work. I enjoy meeting these diverse people and helping make their event a success.
I love retail. I owned a shop many years ago and enjoy the interaction with customers as every customer is different and so it is very motivating to listen to their stories and find a suitable book for them or for customers to give as a present.
My favourite memory of the shop is winning the Muddy Stilettos Award for the Best Bookshop in Bucks & Oxon in 2023. This meant so much as it was voted on by the general public, our volunteers and customers. Everyone was smiling as a result!”
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