Christmas Extravaganza 2016

Well, what an amazing Christmas event we had last Saturday! It all kicked off with a children's festive art workshop volunteer led by award-winning illustrator Emmeline Pidgen, where we all drew our very favourite things about Christmas and went wild with the glitter card to design our very own Christmas jumpers! 

The workshop went so well, and we're so pleased to announce we raised almost £40 for the library from the workshop alone! That's going to go so far in continuing our work to purchase new craft items for the kids, prizes for children's reading challenges, and for new events - so thank you so much to everyone who came!

At midday we welcomed the brilliant Sing It Big choir into our main space, to perform a selection of the most amazing Christmas songs, from traditional carols straight through to modern-day Xmas bangers. For the first time, we live-streamed part of the event on Twitter! So make sure you follow us to keep up with our live feeds for our events next year.

Speaking of new events...we're excited to announce our first ever OPEN MIC NIGHT on Saturday 18th February 2017. It's something we've been hoping to put on for a while now, and we can't wait! So book that in your diary, and come along to perform a song or two, or just to enjoy the music! No pressure, friendly environment and all music styles welcome. Give it a shot, and support your library! See you then.

Finally, a huge Merry Christmas to all of you! The Friends of Chorley Library couldn't exist without your support and we've been so chuffed to meet so many amazing people at our events this year. Here's to a fantastic 2017! 

Christmas At The Library 2016!

Join us on the 17th December for festive fun at the library!

We have a children's festive art workshop at 11am with Emmeline Illustration and Andrew of Chog Zoo Animation (£2/child), then the amazing Sing It Big choir performing at 12:30! There'll be hot drinks and mince pies all round!

As usual absolutely all money raised goes towards supporting the library! You can catch up with all the amazing things we've done this year on our website www.friendsofchorleylibrary.co.uk

Coffee & Cake Social, & Annual General Meeting - Saturday 12th November!

Hello everyone! After a lovely long Summer, we're happy to be back and organising our next exciting events! 

So, first up we have the wonderful Chorley Live on the 7th and 8th of October (more about that soon), but we wanted to let you know about our brand new Coffee & Cake Social plus Annual General Meeting taking place on the morning of Saturday 12th November.

If you've seen our posts around, or have that little inkling of curiosity to see what we're like (we're nice, promise!) then pop over for a casual chat, some FREE hot drinks and cake (what?! YES!) and a bit of a hang out between the books. After an hour and a half or so we'll be moving up from the main library to the rooms upstairs for our Annual General Meeting, which everyone's more than welcome to attend if you'd like to come and see how we're doing and have a quick round up of all our amazing work this year!

Now, sure, we're biased, but we have to say that we're so incredibly proud of the work we've done this past year as the Friends of Chorley Library - we've made teas, hosted workshops and even put on a bloomin' barn dance; but the hugely heartwarming changes have come when we've used the money we've raised to buy prizes for the children's library activities or for craft items that wouldn't otherwise have been bought without our help. The library staff have been very vocal in letting us know just how much we're appreciated - so now is a better time than any to say hello and help us make our next year just as exciting!

As always, we're on social media over on Twitter and Facebook, so support us and keep up to date with all our news there!

See you at the social!

Board Games At The Library! June 10th.

How exciting! We have a new event to share with you, Chorley-folk. Grab your dice, cards, simmering competitiveness and sense of adventure and come over to the library on Friday June 10th (6pm - 9pm) for an evening of boardgames!


We'll have all the classics as well as a whole host of unusual and exciting board games for you to try. We have a number of our own board game experts (well, self titled!) on hand to explain any rules and make sure no one gets too rowdy if they 'go straight to jail and do not pass go!'. No experience necessary!


Entry is £2 (pay on the door) and you can join in as many games as you like. Refreshments will be available in usual Friends of Chorley Library style, with absolutely all proceeds and entry fees going to putting on more fun community events and supporting the library (such as these children's book voucher prizes we arranged recently!).


We've just set up a Facebook event page, so do spread the word and click attend on that.

See you there! 

Book Token Prizes

It was so lovely to see this post on our Facebook page today. We used some of the money we've raised through our events to purchase book tokens to be given out as prizes in the library's children's competition! 

It's really fantasic to see the fruits of our labour coming to light and showing that we're really making a difference in the community, as well as having a lot of fun putting on events!

Our next event is a boardgame night on June 10th - so see you there! Lots of unusual boardgames as well as some classics. Everyone's welcome! Details tbc.

Barn Dance Between The Bookshelves!

 At the end of last month the Friends of Chorley Library hosted their second community event, a barn dance between the (carefully repositioned!) bookshelves with live music generously provided by local folk band Fit For Purpose.

It was an incredibly exciting evening. It was fantastic to see people of all ages turn up to support their library and experience great entertainment in such an unusual setting!  The atmosphere at the barn dance was absolutely vibrant and buzzing. To see so many different people jumping in and grabbing the opportunity to dance with each other in such a special place, and to raise money for such an important part of our community, was brilliant. 

Our group are constantly innovating with new ways to engage and inspire the community through live music events, arts & cultural workshops led by award-winning artists, author evenings and we're currently planning our next event: an indie boardgame night in June this year!

So, if you have any ideas for events you'd like to see, or you'd like to know more about us as a group: please get in touch at friendsofchorleylibrary@gmail.com or leave us a comment below. We're so excited to be regularly putting on events and meeting so many people who are passionate about their library and community!

Barn Dance at the Library

It's time to dance! Join us for an evening of folky fun and great company at the Library's first ever Barn Dance on 27th February! Put those dark Winter days behind you and come down to hear the fantastic sounds of Fit For Purpose, enjoy some refreshments and jump in on a bit of dancing if the mood takes you.As with all our Friends Of Chorley Library events, absolutely all proceeds go towards putting on new, exciting events and supporting your library! Huge thanks to Fit For Purpose for generously providing the live music on the night. Come alone, or bring a partner and prepare yourself for a great time. Tickets are £4 per adult and £2 per child, available in advance from Chorley Library or you can pay on the door. See you there!See our Facebook event page here.

Friends Of Chorley Library Go Live!

Towards the end of last year, as Christmas loomed closer and the cold weather drew in, we were so happy to put on two events to raise money for Chorley Library! On 11th December we had a brilliant afternoon providing teas, biscuits, coffee and juice to everyone who popped by hoping to catch a glimpse of the superb model railway set up in the children's book area!

On December 19th we truly got our festive hats on and held a Christmas Extravaganza! First up we had award-winning illustrator Emmeline Pidgen reading from her latest picture book and afterwards running a Christmas card design workshop with animator Andrew Jolly. It was incredible to see so many families getting involved and enjoying brainstorming Christmas themes on the flipchart. There were quite a few chuffed Mums and Dads there who got some incredible Christmas cards from their children. Well done everyone! We have so much talent in Chorley!

After the workshops things got exciting with the fantastic choir group Sing It Big performing a selection of Christmas songs for us in the main library space. It was so brilliant to see everyone clapping and singing along - it really got us all feeling festive!

Throughout the day we served tea and coffee, along with mince pies, biscuits and juice for the little ones. It was fantastic to meet so many new people, especially those who had never visited the library before but did so after The Friends of Chorley Library promoted the events! We hope the new visitors will be returning to our wonderful library.