HumanLight Book Exchange

For our HumanLight celebration party a few months ago, one of our planned activities was a used book exchange.  This last time I made some improvements to the exchange.  Here is how it works:

1. Announce the used book exchange in the party invitations
2. Clear a table for the used books that the guests bring
3. Put a clear glass bowl on the table
4. Put a pen on the table
5. Put outdated business cards on the table
6. For each guest, put a card in the bowl with their name and the number of books that they brought
7. At the designated time during the party, announce the beginning of the book exchange
8. Before the drawing begins, invite those guests that are willing to come to the front and talk about the books that they brought
9. Randomly draw a card from the bowl
10. Call out the name on the card
11. Invite the selected person to choose a book from the table
12. Subtract one from the number on the card
13. Unless zero, write the new number on the card and then put the card back in the bowl
14. Repeat drawing cards until there are no more in the bowl

• For a group of guests such as a family, create a separate card for each individual and divide up the number of books that they brought together among the cards in the group.  Having a separate card for each person helps the guests learn the names as they are called out.
• Because each participant has just one card, everyone has an equal chance of being selected in each drawing no matter how many books someone else brought. Once they have chosen a number of books equal to the number that they brought, guests can leave the book exchange to mingle.
• While randomly selected guests always have the option to skip their turns, encourage everyone to leave the party with the same number of books that they brought.
• The hosts drawing the cards might want to exclude their own names from the drawing and instead choose from the remaining books after the other guests have left.