May 20, 2011

News Roundup: 10 Years of The Good Bookstall | Bob Hartman Story in New World Record Storytelling Attempt | Facebook Update | Living Oasis Edinburgh Closing | and more…

Posted by Phil Groom under Christian Book Trade, Lion Hudson, News | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
[21] Comments 

UPDATE 7.45pm, 20/05/2011: Living Oasis Edinburgh to Cease Trading 4th June 2011

In an announcement posted on facebook this evening, Living Oasis Edinburgh have indicated that they will cease trading on 4th June 2011.

MY APOLOGIES for the lack of news postings here over the last few weeks: life, as they say. As always, however, there’s been plenty happening in the trade — and plenty more coming up — so I’m pleased to be able to present a mix of stories old, new and forthcoming. Don’t forget to give me a shout anytime you have news to share: here, on facebook or via twitter…

In Brief…

The Christian Book Centre, Redruth, is seeking new owners as the current owners prepare for retirement. The shop won the CBC ‘Small Bookshop of the Year’ Award 2008.

The Good News Centre, Newent, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, has an attractive new website up and running, designed by Nigel Steele at Quoakle: goodnewscentre.com

Macclesfield’s new Christian resource centre, The Hope Centre, is now open: congratulations to all involved.

Pilgrim’s Progress Bookshop, Hereford, are hosting a book signing with local author Donald Southey for his new novel I Messiah on Thursday 26th and Friday 27th May 2011, 12 noon – 1.30pm both days. Free tea and coffee will be served!

St Mark’s Press have moved their distribution back to Fairway Marketing from STL/Trust Media Distribution, with immediate effect.

St Paul’s Bookshops (Birmingham, Leeds, London and York) have entered the blogosphere: follow them at stpaulsbookshop.blogspot.com

STL UK are now trading under their new identity, Trust Media Distribution. Old email and website addresses will continue to work, but now’s the time to get up to speed if you haven’t already done so. On twitter @TrustMediaDist

Former Waterstone’s Boss Dominic Myers has woken up to reality at last and acknowledged the need for joined-up thinking in the book trade: “We’re all in this together,” he says. Welcome to Farewell from the world of independent bookselling, Dominic…

10 Years of  The Good Bookstall: Celebrations at CRE

MY PERSONAL THANKS AND CONGRATULATIONS to Mary Bartholomew and the rest of the team at The Good Bookstall for their generous hospitality at CRE last week: it was an honour and a privilege to be able to share in their 10th anniversary celebrations, as well as to meet so many other friends and colleagues from the trade during the course of the day.

Mary Bartholomew with the Good Bookstall's 10th Anniversary Cake

Mary Bartholomew with the Good Bookstall's 10th Anniversary Cake

For a few more photos featuring some of the booksellers and publishers present see my CRE 2011 facebook photo album:

Facebook Photo Album: CRE 2011

Facebook Photo Album: CRE 2011

Bob Hartman Story in New World Record Storytelling Attempt

The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book

The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book

DO YOU ENJOY STORYTELLING? Then make your way to the Peace in the Park Festival at The Ponderosa in Sheffield on 4th June where Self Help Africa are planning to set a new world record for the most adults reading aloud to children at a single location. The chosen story, Tortoise Brings Food, is an African tale retold by Bob Hartman in the The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book.

Bob says:

I’ve been telling stories professionally for over twenty years, and I am always amazed by the power of a story well told to capture and entertain and delight. Sharing stories with children is an opportunity to cement a relationship and shape a life. I’m so pleased to be involved in a project that encourages parents to read to their children, and at the same time, contributes to the needs of parents and children in Africa. Let’s break the record and make a change in the world!

Storytelling starts at 3pm, with Guinness World Records adjudicators present. More details and a pdf practice sheet of the story available from Lion Hudson: Lion Children’s Books in world record storytelling attempt!

Facebook Update (Updated 21/05/2011)

IT’S ALL HAPPENING on facebook with FM Ballymena and  Manna Christian Centre, Streatham, setting up new pages — don’t be shy now, click on through and hit those Like buttons: you know you want to … and you never know, they might even like your pages in return.

Meanwhile, if you happen to be up north or are passing through Edinburgh at lunchtime on 23rd May, St Andrew Press would love to see you at their General Assembly Event celebrating their new life as part of the Hymns Ancient & Modern family:

Saint Andrew Press, the publishing house of the Church of Scotland, will be holding a special General Assembly event to celebrate its new life working as a part of Hymns Ancient & Modern. Come along and enjoy lunch, hear about the many resources available, meet staff and friends of Saint Andrew Press and collect vouchers for limited numbers of free copies of Leith Fisher’s fantastic But I Say To You!

RSVP to Michael Addison: full details on the event page…

Living Oasis Edinburgh Still Trading Closing Down (Updated 7.45pm, 20/05/2011)

Living Oasis Store Finder from CRE 2011

Living Oasis Store Finder CRE 2011

DESPITE AN APPARENT GOOF-UP by the company’s publicity department, which somehow omitted the Edinburgh branch from flyers (pictured) and School Catalogues given out to punters at CRE last week, I’m reliably informed that Living Oasis Edinburgh, the company’s sole-surviving store north of the border, is still in business.

UPDATE 7.45pm, 20/05/2011: In an announcement posted on facebook this evening, Living Oasis Edinburgh have indicated that they will cease trading on 4th June 2011.

Elsewhere, unfortunately, things are also looking less than hunky-dory with still no news of opening dates for the all-new bright-and-shiny Leeds and Liverpool stores. Independent sources indicate that a number of suppliers have learnt the hard way and, fingers burnt by non-payment of bills, have had to withdraw credit facilities, leaving staff in some shops struggling to meet customer requests: please continue to pray for everyone caught up in what seems to be a crippling downhill spiral.

To end on a more positive note, however, the company did manage to put on an impressive stand at CRE offering free coffee for anyone spending £5 or over: congratulations to all concerned.

New MD for Alban Books

WENDY RIMMINGTON, who was appointed as MD for Alban Books in November last year, has moved on, making way for new MD Jonny Gallant, formerly of Saint Andrew Press. Commenting on his appointment in a brief press release (pdf, 41kb), Jonny said:

Alban Books is a very exciting company, working with a terrific range of US publishers and I’m really looking forward to putting my sales and marketing background to use in facing the opportunities and challenges ahead.

I’ve invited Jonny to contribute a guest post to tell us more: watch this space…

Norwich Christian Resource Centre Enters Nominations for Telegraph Book Club Tour

CONGRATULATIONS to Norwich Christian Resource Centre, one of several Christian bookshops that have entered nominations for the Daily Telegraph/National Book Tokens Book Club Tour. In the section explaining why the shop should be chosen to host a Book Club Tour event, they say:

We hold book signings and author discussion evenings on a monthly basis usually complimented by a two course meal with wine/coffee in our 44 seater cafe.

The events are not always faith based and we have local historian and author Neil Storey talking about the history of Norwich in September.

Sadly we were just unable to attract PD James last Christmas as she felt she was now too old to travel. A monthly book club has met for the past 11 years reading authors as diverse as Delia Smith to Kate Atkinson. I would ideally like to attract Sally Vickers.

Other Christian bookshops nominated include:

Nominations are still open: head on over there today if you’d like to submit your own nomination…

Wildcard: Sainsbury’s Wins Bookseller of the Year Award

LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Congratulations to Sainsbury’s on winning The Bookseller‘s “Martina Cole General or Chain Bookselling Company of the Year Award”:

Sainsbury’s was honoured with the Martina Cole General or Chain Bookselling Company of the Year Award after reinvigorating book zones, increasing book sales by more than 33% and attracting new book buyers to the market. One judge said: “We should celebrate the fact that they are embracing books and offering people an alternative place to buy—somewhere they can spend time browsing as well as buying.”

Full story: Quercus publisher of the year at The Bookseller Industry Awards

Whether or not Sainsbury’s genuinely qualifies as a bookseller is a hotly contested issue in the report’s comments section: well worth reading. From my point of view there’s a certain irony here: having moved to Sainsbury’s following LST’s redundancy proceedings last year, I now find myself working for the nation’s leading bookseller — and I haven’t had to restock a single book in my entire time there…

 

July 26, 2010

Living Oasis Update: Edinburgh opening imminent, Summer newsletter, Online ambitions and a DVD

Posted by Phil Groom under Guest Posts, News | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 
Update 5pm, 26/7/2010: News has emerged that negotiations for the lease on the former Wesley Owen premises in Croydon have been unsuccessful. Please continue to pray for all concerned as the search for alternative premises goes on.

It’s all happening at Living Oasis, with Living Oasis Edinburgh gearing up for a grand reopening soon — doors open Saturday July 31st, official opening ceremony planned for September — having at long last secured a temporary lease in the former Wesley Owen premises on George Street: keep an eye on their new facebook page for updates and photos (you’ll need to update your facebook ‘likes’ if you’ve been following the old Wesley Owen Edinburgh page).

Living Oasis: The Story So Far: News Summer 2010

Living Oasis: The Story So Far: News Summer 2010 (pdf, 1.5mb)

The Living Oasis Summer 2010 newsletter is available for download (pdf, 1.5mb) and includes introductions to each of the stores by the staff (pp.2-3) along with an outline of plans for a new online store due to be launched “by late summer 2010″ (p.4). Living Oasis online will seek to complement rather than compete with the high street stores, offering price parity with the shops in the hope that applying five key principles — summed up under the headings Excellence, Equity, Encounter, Expertise, Engage — will be sufficient to win customer loyalty over the temptation of lower prices elsewhere. A sixth ‘E’ — Experience — will no doubt prove telling, but one can only wish Living Oasis every success in the venture.

Now some reflections from Richard Howarth of Ignite Creative, producers of the Living Oasis DVD that you may have seen.

Richard writes:

AS someone who believes Christians need to be seen if we are going to be heard in the wider community, I was gutted to hear late last year the Wesley Owen chain was going to be broken up, with the potential loss of a well-known brand across the country.

But it was not just about the name. When so many people only latch onto headlines about declining church attendances and miss the good stuff – something I’m fairly certain of after 25 years in the secular press – the Wesley Owen story seemed to offer further proof of a religion in irreversible decline.

The reality, of course, has been quite different as a number of groups have stepped up to keep shops alive, meaning there have been more good stories than bad stories to come out of this situation.

The Nationwide Christian Trust is one of those that got involved. It saw the opportunity to rescue many of those shops that went into administration and also to develop a radical, long-term vision that would give them a much bigger profile on the high street.

Its Living Oasis brand has already had plenty of exposure as shops have been reopened but the plan is to do much more and fully develop their potential for outreach. They want to relocate them, put a coffee shop rather than books in the shop window, offer children’s play areas and more, while still stocking the full range of Christian resources.

This might all sound a bit bewildering for those with an expectation of what a Christian bookshop looks like.

So to show how exciting it all could be – and to encourage support for the plans – the Trust turned to Ignite Creative, a Christian video production company based in Coventry. The two had worked together before and the Trust was certain a DVD was a great way to get its message across and get people on board.

There was a chance to glimpse the future at the Christian Resources Exhibition in May, where Living Oasis had a working shop set up in the new way. This was also Ignite’s chance to do the filming ready for the promotional DVD.

Living Oasis DVD Still with Andy Twilley

Living Oasis: DVD still featuring Andy Twilley

Rev Andy Twilley from the Nationwide Christian Trust features on it setting out the plans and there are also interviews with many of the people who came for a coffee or for a closer look, including Adrian Plass and GP Taylor.

There was a real buzz around the place and out of all this, Ignite produced two versions of the DVD.

The Trust and Living Oasis seem delighted at the outcome, describing it as, ‘a resource which was far more than just a film… something which really made an impact in a way which would connect well with our target audience’ and hundreds of copies have already been sent out.

So if, like me, you have had spirits lifted by the great things that have happened already in 2010, I think you’ll be equally impressed if you see the DVD Ignite has come up with to show what could be happening in the future on a high street near you… and you can find a version right now on the Nationwide Christian Trust website!

Living Oasis DVD Still

Living Oasis mock-up store at CRE as featured on the DVD

 

April 16, 2010

Living Oasis Update: Croydon, Edinburgh, Nottingham and Worthing

Posted by Phil Groom under Christian Bookshops, News | Tags: , , , , , |
1 Comment 
Living Oasis: Shop Locations

Living Oasis Shop Locations - click to enlarge

This weekend should see yet another of the former Wesley Owen bookshops spring back to life as Living Oasis opens its doors in Worthing on Saturday. The map on the right, courtesy of Andy Twilley, gives a good overview of where the shops are, all — if we include Worthing — now open except for Croydon, Edinburgh and Nottingham, where negotiations are still in progress.

Angela Curror sent out the following message via facebook yesterday, summing up the situation in Croydon:

LIVING OASIS coming soon……….

Croydon has been without a Christian bookshop for two and a half months now. At the moment it isn’t even known where the new Living Oasis shop will be. There are problems with the lease on the shop where Wesley Owen was and humanly speaking things looks as if it could take quite a while to be resolved. Alternative venues are also being looked at.

Please pray for very clear guidance for those involved in the decision making and pray that all obstacles will be removed so the Croydon Living Oasis shop can open soon. We believe that God can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine and are excited about this new venture and very keen to get started.

Please also pray for the staff who were made redundant when Wesley Owen closed. Many have been waiting, hoping to be employed in the new Living Oasis shop and some are struggling financially and can’t wait much longer.

We will let you know what is happening as soon as we know ourselves!

Thank you very much

Living Oasis on Facebook

Andy Twilley has set up a central Living Oasis facebook group: probably the best place for latest news. Individual branches on facebook include:

Several other branches are still branded as Wesley Owen (Bedford, Cheltenham and Edinburgh) and Manchester has a Friends of Living Oasis group.

 

January 8, 2010

Supporters pledge £23,000 to help save Wesley Owen, South Woodford

Posted by Phil Groom under Christian Bookshops, News | Tags: , , , , |
[4] Comments 

Wesley Owen South Woodford: £23,000 pledged in support

Church members in and around South Woodford have pledged £23,000 — almost a quarter of the estimated £100,000 needed — to help save their local branch of Wesley Owen. The story emerged on Tuesday this week on the Save Wesley Owen facebook page in response to the question,

Just how do you find if there are sufficient Christians in an area who would invest in a Christian bookshop? How do you ask?

The answer came back from Moira Clarke-Moisley who replied:

well we told one of the vicars on our church partnership scheme and he addressed his church the sunday after and said that if 100 people pledged £1000 then we could stay in buisness. The Monday after someone phoned us up to pledge thier £1000, so from there we phoned round all the churches we could and told anybody and everybody we could we now have pledges ranging from £2000 to £10 I think at the moment the total is £12000. So if anybody would like to pledge to keep the south woodford store going then please give us a call – 02085304244 and if you can’t afford to pledge everyone can afford to pray.

and followed up shortly afterwards with:

quick update our running total is now at £23,000 so only another £77,000 by tommorow lunch time to go.

Please make a note of that number, 020 8530 4244, spread the word and, if you’d like to make a pledge, give them a call.

In the meantime, the Edinburgh branch — which first broke the news on facebook that the company was going into administration — have launched an in-store and online petition in a bid to convince prospective investors that there is sufficient interest to warrant supporting the shop. At the time of writing the online petition has 20 signatories.

If you live in or around Edinburgh and see the shop as an important resource to the local community, please call in and sign it; and if you can’t get there in person, please consider signing the online petition.

 

December 19, 2009

Wesley Owen: 26 Branches Enter Administration, Others Sold (Updated)

Posted by Phil Groom under Bookshop Ramblings, News | Tags: , , , , , , |
[41] Comments 

21/12/2009: The official press release is now out and no further updates to this page will be posted. Comments remain open.

From Wesley Owen Edinburgh’s facebook page, posted on Friday 18/12/2009 at 21.14:

We are now in administration and will be closing shortly. As will almost all of the Wesley Owen shops. I thank you all so much for your support and can I ask you to pray for all of the staff that received the devastating news today at 5.35.

As for STL’s other divisions, sources elsewhere (contacts on facebook and twitter, who have since removed their status updates) indicate that Koorong and Kingsway (David C Cook) have taken on Authentic, with Koorong taking over the books publishing, Kingsway taking over the music. Koorong may have also taken on some of the Wesley Owen stores [2]. There is as yet no reliable information about STL Distribution [1], but I’m told that an official press release will be issued on Monday 21st December.

This is surely one of the saddest days in the history of Christian bookselling/retailing here in the UK. As per the request from Edinburgh, please pray for all the staff caught up in this mess.

[1] Update, 4.15pm: From Everything Christian, Big changes at Christian book supplier:

STL Distribution has been purchased by Scottish book wholesaler John Ritchie. However, it isn’t clear how much of the business they will retain, or which employees will be transferred.

[2] Update, 20/12/2009, 3.15pm: The situation with the shops is reported to be:

  • 26 shops told at 5.35pm yesterday that they were in administration
  • 6 shops taken over by CLC (Bolton, Stockport, Cambridge, Kingston, Guildford and Coventry)
  • 8 shops taken over by Koorong (Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Bromley, Coleraine, Derby, Glasgow, York, possibly another, along with the website and the Wesley Owen brand)

Reports Roundup (most recent first)

For earlier reports, see my STL UK Crisis: Reports roundup and further reflections (updated) (last updated 12/12/2009).

 

November 26, 2009

Wesley Owen: Bids for Individual Stores Not Ruled Out

Posted by Phil Groom under Christian Bookshops, News | Tags: , , , , , , , |
1 Comment 

In an interview posted by the Edinburgh Evening News (24/11/2009, cross posted at Scotsman.com), David Young, General Manager of IBS-STL, has acknowledged the possibility of the Wesley Owen chain being split if buyers can be found for individual branches or groups of shops:

He said he understood there had been “significant interest” from possible buyers but did not want to raise hopes.

However, the fact Edinburgh is one of the company’s biggest stores in terms of turnover and has a central location could make it a more attractive proposition than some other parts of the business.

Mr Young added: “We are really keen to sell as much as we can to secure the jobs.”

He said a potential buyer would not have to bid for the whole chain, but might be interested in individual shops or a cluster of shops. “We are taking the next few weeks to gauge the level of interest, then we hope to make some kind of announcement.”

 

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,308 other followers