Stronger Together - Weaker Apart - Consultation Day Presentation (pdf, 1MB, 15 pages)
Mandy Briars of CRE has kindly given permission for us to make the handouts from the Stronger Together – Weaker Apart consultation and presentation day available for those who were unable to attend.
More information should be on its way to retailers by the end of this month and the website — christianresourcestogether.co.uk — should be updated even sooner.
The first page of the handouts, excerpted here, sets the scene; to read the rest, download the pdf (1MB, 15 pages; thanks to Mark Fleeson of Lindisfarne Scriptorium, who converted the original Word files to pdf).
OUR JOURNEY so far…
Early in 2008 discussions began between the Christian Booksellers Convention (CBC) and Christian Resources Exhibitions (CRE) with the objective of the CRE team organising and managing the CBC event that was planned to be held at the TIC, Telford in March 2009.
Soon after the agreement had been reached and work had begun on planning the 2009 event it became apparent that the staging of the CBC exhibition at Telford was no longer financially viable. This was mainly due to the decline in delegate attendance over recent years and a number of significant suppliers indicating that they would not be exhibiting at the planned 2009 event.
Later in the year a decision was reached that CBC would be purchased by CRE (which is part of Bible Society) and would continue to be organised by CRE. It was also agreed that CBC would be integrated into the Sandown Park CRE programme for May 2009.
Every effort was made to maintain the character and identity of CBC within the CRE exhibition including a separate area for CBC exhibitors, training and the Banquet & Awards Evening.
With the limited amount of time to reorganise CBC within CRE, the transition was more successful than many had anticipated. However upon evaluation and the changing needs of both retailers and suppliers it was apparent a fresh approach to a retailers and suppliers gathering needed to be considered.
With this in mind representatives of CRE, the BA-CBG, Christian Suppliers Group, Christian Marketplace and the former STL Distribution met to consider the current requirements of both retailers and suppliers. Out of the discussions has come a new partnership to be known as ChristianResourcesTogether with an objective to provide support, fellowship, training and any appropriate business opportunities for those working within the Christian Retailers and Suppliers trade.
It is our privilege to invite you to join us on this journey as we share with you our plans for 2010 and beyond.
Stephen J Briars On behalf of ChristianResourcesTogether
January 16, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Thank you to all the people who worked to make this available to those of us who couldn’t attend. One question to the new Committee – what provision is there for people in Scotland and the north of England? Travel from the northern reaches to both Sandown and to High Leigh is costly in both time and money, and this at a time when both are in short supply. Mind you, events since CBC left Doncaster have become increasingly southern based.
January 17, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Hi Carole
This is one of the issues I brought up at the meeting as it had cost me nearly £200 to attend! The assurance is that as CRE has regional exhibitions, a day in each event will include training/meeting opportunities for those in the retail to meet without having to travel all the way down south.
I countered that with the issue that all the forthcoming planned CRE’s go no further north than Telford and was assured that they are hoping to go back to Harrogate in the future.
What I suggest to us all, is that we form regional groups… A North East and East Scotland, a North West and West Scotland, A midlands etc. etc. There is no funding but if we each chipped in a little to hire a venue for a day, we could arrange training courses.. Maybe get some of the larger publishers to sponser an event and provide a speaker / guest author?
The main thing that came out of the consultation meeting was this had to be owned by us, the suppliers and retailers. It has to offer what we want, so lets grab the bull by its horns and work it out.
Cheers
Mark
January 17, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Thanks, Mark. Unfortunatley, I’m retired and only working in a voluntary capacity, so have no means of direct support other than telling people, which I’ll do.