Some of you may have heard of The School of Life. It was started by philosopher Alain de Botton in London in 2008 and runs classes free from dogma, where participants are ‘directed towards a variety of ideas – from philosophy to literature, psychology to the visual arts – that tickle, exercise and expand your mind’, and where participants can ‘meet other curious, sociable and open-minded people in an atmosphere of exploration and enjoyment’. An enterprising group of people are bringing The School of Life to Collingwood, running the best of the School’s classes, as well as special events showcasing Australia’s most innovative thinkers, throughout February and March. We’re very excited to be part of this wonderful initiative with our very own pop-up shop on site.

One of the classes (sadly sold out) at The School of Life is How to Make a Difference. Hopefully the grants that The Readings Foundation made to more than 15 community organisations at the end of November last year will do exactly that. We gave away a record $151 319 and you can see a full list of recipients here.

The Foundation has been going for about four years and I sometimes wonder, does it make a difference? I was encouraged by the comments of one of the recipients that modest grants such as ours help trial or start programs that later become successful, attract greater funding and go on to help more people. In 2012, we gave a small grant to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre to develop a curriculum to help attitudinal change towards asylum seekers. The materials and course have been finalised and this year they will be trialled in five Victorian secondary schools. That’s a pretty exciting outcome. Indirectly, the money came from Readings customers; directly, it was profit forgone by Readings. Some may argue that this money should be used to lower prices and not for the Foundation’s projects.

Although we do hope that what we do makes you feel positive about Readings, our staff and I feel a real sense of wanting to support the community and make a difference. If we didn’t donate these profits, the amount by which we could lower prices would only be a few cents per book or CD. I think the Foundation is a much better result. I often wonder what might happen if other companies and their owners adopted policies similar to ours and committed to giving back to their communities a fixed and significant proportion of their profits. It could be quite exciting!

You’ll also notice a big difference to the look and content of the February issue of the Readings Monthly. The design is by the very talented Sonja Meyer and the changes in editorial direction have been driven by our wonderful editor, Jessica Au. We have always wanted the Readings Monthly to be more than just a catalogue of products; I hope you agree that our new iteration does just that.

Mark Rubbo is the Managing Director of Readings