Donate to the Association

It is only through the generosity of many people that the cultural association Reading Retreats in Rural Italy continues to thrive. There are a thousand ways to help:

• Andrea Bertoni, Fausto Tosi, Giorgio Cesaretti and other friends have loaned and given furniture.
• Book publishers, especially Penguin Italia and UTET, have donated thousands of books. Thank you Simonetta Orsi and Giorgio Armaroli.
• Many musicians have performed for free and donated their CDs to the music collection.
• Recording companies including “Ermitage” have donated hundreds of classical music and opera CDs.
• Artists have donated paintings, drawings and sculptures to the growing art collection.
• Neighbours have given everything from strawberry plants to picnic tables. They also help by giving us honey or loaning us tools we don’t have.
• Friends with vans or trucks help transport everything from large plants for the garden to heavy terracotta and bronze sculptures for art exhibits.
• A construction company has donated tons of sand for our annual Pirate Party.
• Mattia Bagnolati designs fantastic electronic brochures and invitations for our website and Facebook. He also is our truffle man.
• Guests who come to visit leave their books behind to add to our library.
• A few authors and bibliophiles who have never even been here but hope to come one day have sent books our way – from Australia, America, India.
• Journalists write about us.
• Guests write glowing reviews for Google, Trip Advisor, and so on. We don’t pay them, but sometimes it sounds like we do!
• Guests who come for an evening concert, weekend retreat or a three month internship tell friends and family about their time here.
• Luca Palvarini, our lawyer from Mantova, explains strange Italian laws.
• People with a bit of money – any amount – sometimes send a donation our way. It helps pay for firewood, electricity, phone bills, and so on.
• Some people send donations for specific (normally fun) gifts such as a croquet set, a new rope for a swing, a set of electric bocce balls, a hammock big enough for two, a surprise fireworks show after a jazz concert.
• Gianni Borsari, a local blacksmith, donated everything from metal stakes to label our plants in the garden to a life-size cannon for our annual pirate party (and yes, it shoots!)
• A mannequin maker, Davide Bergamini, has given us lots of hands and feet and body parts for Halloween.
• Over 100 Interns from all over the world have volunteered their time and efforts to improving the association, from mowing the lawn to revamping the entire website.
• John Campbell, a professional photographer from Wales, comes every year to document work at La Macchina Fissa.
• Opera, piano, art, yoga, and language teachers have brought many students here.
• Nearby farmers give us fresh fruit and vegetables and scraps for the goats.
• Our wood burning furnace (made in Mantova) is a gift from John Kauffmann. We’ve named it John in his honour.
• An architect from Modena, Corrado Gianferrari, has donated his grandmother Armida’s 1950’s Zoppas woodstove. You’ll find it in the kitchen.
• Over the years, the gardener and writer Maria Gabriella Buccioli has given us perennial plants and bushes for the garden.
• In 2007, Nikki Lawrence gave us an olive tree to commemorate her visit to the Castle of Galeazza.
• For over 15 years, garden writer Nancy J. Ondra has donated her books and hundreds of varieties of seeds, many hard to find anywhere else in Italy.
• The gardener Claudio Baldazzi from Moglia has given us countless plants and seeds.
• Stephanie Mahon, editor of Gardens Illustrated, has donated many gardening books and given years of free help and advice.
• Giacomo Neri created an on-line membership form which updates the membership list automatically, ending years of chaos and papers flying all over. 
• Giacomo’s work was passed on and is now perfected by a new computer webmaster/technician, our neighbour Luca Bertellini.
• Friends from other countries renew their 10 euro membership every year, even if they cannot return to visit us.
• Some friends do come every year, for our Halloween party, for example, and together we scare the shit out of nearly 100 people.
• Ceci does everything – stuff that nobody else remembers or wants to do: She is the best.

This list could go on for reams. The idea is that everyone gives what they can and in the right measure. Spreading the word is probably the best thing of all.