This action though seems not to just cover the past and prior management (if such word can be used with a straight face)  and owners, but it does include the current owners too as Durham Cathedral Trading LTD, Durham Cathdrals own trading arm, have also been cited in the Tribunal action with one of the members of staff making a claim for damages against them too, or so The Journal Newspaper reported yesterday.

For a fuller report head over to SPCK/SSG: News, Notes & Info

Thanks to the encouragement, help and support of many friends who stood by me when Mr Brewer breathed his threats of legal action against Dave Walker, myself and others, that didn’t happen: the reporting and scrutiny not only continued, it intensified.

Interim Manager's Notice - "No entry to this building is permitted..."

We are now at a point where we see the tables comprehensively turned on Mr Brewer: he himself has been issued with an effective ‘Cease and Desist’ order by the Charity Commission, who have taken over the St Stephen the Great Trust and seized control of the shops, as per the notice shown here, which has been placed in former SPCK/SSG bookshop doorways up and down the country.

More info and further reflections here: Cease and Desist: One Year On

Get the Goat this Christmas

Every year I’ve taken to buying a goat from World Vision instead of sending Christmas cards to my online friends and supporters. This year is no exception: you’ll find the official e-card here.

Thank you for your support and friendship through the past year.

A very Happy Christmas to you all, and my very best wishes for the year to come.

A Request

I’m sharing this year’s goat with the SPCK/SSG Bloggers. I hope most of you are familiar with the SPCK/SSG situation: it’s taken up a lot of my time this year, time that would most likely have otherwise been spent on developing UKCBD and this blog. I make no apology for that, but I do regret the need for it.

The only thing needed for evil to succeed is for those who know better to do nothing. Make no mistake about it: the Brewers are evil men. They took SPCK on trust and they have violated that trust: they have betrayed employees and suppliers. They have attempted to stifle free speech. They have reneged on a covenant, a covenant that they freely entered into and signed in the presence of a witness, to maintain shops as outlets for Christian literature. They have attempted a fraudulent bankruptcy filing on the USA courts. Their treatment of their employees has driven at least one man to a nervous breakdown; another committed suicide. All of these points are matters of public record and can be independently verified.

Yet they continue to operate so-called ‘Christian’ bookshops around the UK whilst people who should know better continue to trade with them, supplying them with books and other products that enable them to continue their devious business practices.

So to my request: please show your support for and solidarity with the former SPCK/SSG employees and suppliers who have not been paid — whose Christmas celebrations are blighted because of the Brewers — by reading and signing the two petitions to rescue the Durham and Chichester shops from the Brewers:

• Rescuing Durham Cathedral Bookshop
• Rescuing Chichester’s Christian Bookshop

If you have already signed those petitions, thank you. Please spread the word and ask your colleagues and friends to read and sign them too.

Luke’s account of the nativity includes these words from Mary:

The Lord has performed mighty deeds with his arm; 
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 
He has brought down rulers from their thrones 
but has lifted up the humble. 
He has filled the hungry with good things 
but has sent the rich away empty. 

Let’s make 2009 the year in which workers and suppliers are paid and in which the Brewers are brought down, brought to book for their crimes and sent away empty.

Thank you.

Dear customer,

The technical issues we have been experiencing over the weekend unfortunately continue to cause us difficulty although we are working hard to resolve them. The fundamental issue is obtaining enough stock from our bulk locations to meet demand. On paper this may sound a simple issue to resolve but in reality is quite the opposite.

I am conscious that this issue is adding to the delay in processing some but not all orders. Our priority remains to fix this issue until which time we are unable to work at full capacity.

Our inability to process orders as quickly as we would like is causing you inconvenience and whilst I can only continue to apologise be assured our goal is to return to a same day despatch as soon as we can.

The team in Carlisle are grateful for your messages of support and prayers and please be assured that our Warehouse and Customer Services teams are working hard to resolve queries and despatch orders.

Yours faithfully,

Mark Hurley

Commercial Director
STL Distribution UK
(11 November 2008 18:04:44 GMT)

Meanwhile Melanie Carroll of Unicorn Tree Books would like to remind all Christian publishers and their reps that there is a Christian bookshop in Lincoln. Yes, it’s part of a larger enterprise in the Lincoln Central Market, but that does not make it any the less a Christian bookshop, so let’s have less of the snobbery from those who don’t like market halls, please! For any who may be wondering what a bookshop in a market hall looks like, head on over to Melanie’s blog for a photo-tour.

Melanie writes initially in response to Geoff Wallace’s comment on my last post about STL’s difficulties. There’s plenty of food for thought in Melanie’s observations so I’m reproducing them in full, largely unedited except for adding a few extra paragraph breaks and reinstating a couple of asides {in curly brackets} that went astray:

Hmm, Geoff – you must be one of the glitches in the system! You have my sympathies and prayers that your customers are more patient than most!

Must admit that I am only awaiting a box from friday – oh and a credit note for all the current Select Promo stuff I had ordered (well as much of it as seems to be available – has anyone else noticed how much of the select promo stuff seems to be unavailable before the promo even starts? I have a number of upset customers on this front who have wanted a number of items just for me to have to tell them there are no stocks and this was on the first official day of the promo – makes me look bad and in turn Select ~therefore STL~ look bad and I am not sure where that all sits with new legislations etc??) and that was recieved in the day the systems went off line, and was charged at full price for- that took me ringing for 3 days after the original date given for recontacting them.

I found that just being put on auto hold continually was a tad annoying and that was on all the lines including the order line! it wasn’t until I left a particularly pointed voicemail about if you say you will phone people back then please do, that I was finally contacted back by Paul who was lovely and very apologetic and obviously feeling a tad stressed – I did apologise for adding to the stress! however the credit has yet to arrive but rather that than missing orders!

This really would seem to have been a bit of a shambles and my heart does go out to all the staff that must be at tears and breakdown point, it is not a fun place to be at all. I really can emote on this one as back in the SPCK day my shop and team were the beta test site for new epos software for the SPCK shops and that was a disaster initially too!

My prayers for all the staff – and for the systems too! I kind of think it would go something like ‘Lord of Pot’s and Pan’s and things’ – maybe Lord of Wires, Circuits & Code?

Ohh but I might be the one with the longest wait for a rep visit as I still haven’t had one since I went official in February as my rep has had to cancel a few times since the last time I mentioned no rep visiting on this blog. {grins at Tim the Rep who Mel likes and has known for what feels like forever!} To be honest it’s probably not that important as I can order from the Bulletin and other advance catalogues and Bertrams & Gardners give me better discount levels as standard anyway and I have an account with Ingrams in the US, but then I am lucky because I am a general bookshop as well so have these, other new starts probably wouldn’t!

To be fair STL are not the only ones that haven’t visited, I still have yet to be contacted by the CPR rep for my area, despite a few discussions with Mr Mordue who has said that I will be visited a fair few times now since Feb, and STL have the up on this one as at least I get Bulletin from them – though SPCK give me a decent level of support when I order from them, they don’t send any AI’s out to me, but then Bertrams, Gardners and STL do, so at least I shouldn’t miss anything too important! However all the other companies rep’d by CPR, well lets hope they are covered by me spotting them in the various buyers notes!

It puts a new spin on the publishers moaning about sales, buying stats and not being supported really – how do they know and who do they blame when the sales aren’t showing because the orders are all going through the big wholesalers, or books aren’t ordered because the info isn’t passed on to the shops to enable them to make the pre-orders and advance buying decisions??

Again let me point out I have 14 years experience in Christian Bookselling and own an independent general bookshop, so I have knowledge and resources many new starts don’t, if my experiences are the norm or a general trend then it’s something the trade needs to be looking at, and some a lot more than others!!

I think Lincoln maybe is too far from anywhere else on the road calls?
or perhaps after all it is just because, as another Christian Rep (from one of the headline Christian publishers) told me today whilst standing in my shop ~that just happens to be in a market hall!~,
it’s a shame Lincoln hasn’t got a Christian Bookshop anymore!
That did kind of make me wonder why he was there then!

I pointed out what he had said I considered offensive as Lincoln did and does have a Christian Bookshop thank you and duly led him over to the nicely appointed Christian Section that he hadn’t actaully been and looked at until that point and demonstrated that there was a full and comprehensive Christian Bookshop in Lincoln, and although compact in size it is widely stocked and represented and we don’t need much space as we do judicious ordering on a semi-daily basis of what sells and what will sell.

I also pointed out that with most places – though currently some exceptions exist! – offering 24-48 hour delivery this makes small works just fine thanks!

I also pointed out that there has not been a day when there hasn’t been a Christian Bookshop in Lincoln since the late 1940′s. Advance Bookshop (which by the way started out in the same market I now inhabit! I know this to be true and factual as Tim who owned Advance before it’s demise had told me so, and this was confirmed by the Daughter of the people that founded Advance Bookshop as she now uses my shop, as does her daughter, and they always express their delight in us being right where it started!) and the SPCK opened within 18 months of each other, and sadly closed down within 18 months of each other, – Unicorn Tree Books was already carrying a small range of religious books before SPCK/SSG closed down as Tim from Advance had spoken to me before he closed and I was catering to some of his customers whose churchmanship was such as SPCK did not suit them(!) and then later on even before SPCK/SSG closed I was having to stock Communion Wafers and other such items due to strange bannings on purchases by the then leaders of SPCK/SSG, thats why when the staff were so reprehensibly treated I already had the account with STL etc up and running and some stocks in, so there was no gap in Lincoln – its just I beefed up the selection, gave it it’s own entire unit, and didn’t have to worry about competing with my old staff and risking their livelihoods in anyway, indeed one of those staff still works for me Part-time!

So I guess if my being in a Market Hall makes me not real or non-existent (though to some I am a skin horse!) well I can carry on without seeing the reps, after all that leaves me more time for serving the customers!

However I do enjoy seeing the reps and others that do come or phone me very regularly, {mel waves at Mike, Shelley, Ruth, Aude, Kevin, Rebecca and a whole batch of others too!} and if any others want to come they are more than welcome, particularly if they can check the bias and engage the brain as they walk through the door to the Market Hall. Otherwise don’t worry too much, Bertrams and Gardners amongst others ~and soon once again STL we hope, especially for Geoff~ have a good speed of service these days, and some of them even do marginally better discounts than you might expect to get or do get from seeing a rep! That’s worth considering these days.

Ok sorry for hi-jacking Geoff’s real issue! Phil – feel free to cull this rant as needed or if you want, and if not (or even if so!) thanks for giving me somewhere to release the tension and share in the first place.

No apology necessary, Melanie — on the contrary, thank you for joining in the discussions. This is precisely why this blog exists

In general I’ve tried to keep reporting on this situation separate, in the dedicated SPCK/SSG Blog, but we are now at a point where some things may be about to be resolved and wider media attention to the story seems likely.

To summarise: 

At the end of August J Mark Brewer (the Texas attorney who threatened me, Dave Walker and several others with libel action if we refused to stop reporting on this situation) had his case thrown out of the US Bankruptcy Courts with prejudice and as having been submitted in bad faith. This month, Randy Williams, the Trustee to the US Bankruptcy Courts, filed a motion for sanctions against Mr Brewer and his law company, Brewer and Pritchard, P.C.

Brewer has responded with an acknowledgment of some fault but has by no means pleaded guilty to all charges: his full response may be downloaded as a pdf from the SPCK/SSG Downloads page, and Matt Wardman and David Keen have offered some helpful analysis of Brewer’s response.

Meanwhile, back here in the UK, Employment Tribunal hearings for at least 30 former bookshop workers are scheduled to take place tomorrow, Thursday 18th September, in Bury St Edmunds. Please keep those concerned in your prayers.

To conclude, for now:

Mark and Philip Brewer’s behaviour and their frankly abominable treatment of their staff, present and former, as well as their reprehensible attitude towards their customers and suppliers, impacts on the entire Christian book trade and risks bringing all of us into disrepute. On the  SPCK/SSG Blog we have therefore issued a call for anyone with potential evidence that may help with any future legal actions against the Brewers here in the UK to step forward with that evidence: Collecting the Evidence. Links to relevant material may be posted publicly via the comments or may be submitted privately, direct to me.

Thank you.

Norwich Christian resource centre resurrected: Network Norwich, 7th August 2008

The following report was received 3rd Sept 2008, cross-posted on SPCK/SSG: News, Notes & Info:

A new Community Interest Company is on course to resurrect a shop and café within St Michael-at-Plea, Redwell Street, Norwich, the church previously occupied by SSG and SPCK, from July 2004 to May 2008.

The Norwich Christian Resource Centre will be managed by Steve Foyster who will be returning to this venue, having left in June last year to set up a new online shop. His four fellow directors come from Anglican and free church backgrounds.

Since the centre finally closed in May the directors have been in direct liaison with the landlords, Norwich Historic Churches Trust, who are delighted that once again the redundant church will be used for the communities of Norwich, Norfolk and beyond.

Virtually all the ex-shop and café staff, most of whom were unable to find other employment, will return, along with the twenty or so volunteers who make the running of the well frequented café possible.

Regrettably nearly all the shop fitments and café equipment have been removed, though thankfully the bookshelving remains as an integral part of the listed building. Very generous donations are helping to buy new or secondhand replacements and several enthusiastic stakeholders are putting up no-interest three year loans to enable the purchase of new stock. Once the centre is open there will be an appeal for donations of second hand books. The new company has already received over £750 in donations following a recent appeal on the Network Norwich site, as well as a fax machine, PC and inkjet cartridges.

Steve says,

I remember all the blood, sweat and tears that went into the planning of this wonderful centre, when I was involved in 2004. It was always very well stocked with the widest breadth of titles, including a wealth of second hand titles, sought after as far afield as Canada and Finland.

It pleased me most that customers couldn’t pin down any particularly dominant theological strand – Karl Barth rubbed shoulders with Rick Joyner and hoodies hung alongside cassocks!

We were able to hold dozens of after hours events ranging from debates between humanists, bishops, MPs and professors, to an evening with Julie Reinger, the ‘Look East’ weather presenter. The team even re-enacted the famous Communication Problem episode within a Fawlty Towers evening. We knew of many people who came through the doors that would not normally set foot in a Christian shop let alone a church.

Although customers can easily move on to other providers, given the wealth of prayer and enthusiasm for the new venture from hundreds and hundreds of supporters, the new team are confident that NCRC will be more than viable.

Steve and the team hope to start trading on Wednesday 1st October.

Events are already being scheduled:

• Thursday 16 October: Bishop David Atkinson will be speaking about his new book on climate change ‘Renewing the Face of the Earth’ – admission free with 10% off the book and other relevant titles.
• Tuesday 21 October: Trafalgar Day supper with guest speaker
• Mid December: an Advent evening with Arian and Bridget Plass

Many sincere and heartfelt thanks to all those who have prayed about this new venture for so long.

• Norwich Christian resource centre resurrected
  A thriving city centre Christian resource centre, bookshop and cafe is set to re-open in Norwich under new management within the next few weeks after a successful rescue plan…
• Norwich Christian bookshop stripped of stock
  A Christian bookshop in Norwich was yesterday (June 19) stripped of all its stock in the latest chapter of the on-going tale of its takeoever and closure…
• Norwich Christian bookshop closes its doors
  Norwich’s SSG Bookshop and Resource Centre (formerly SPCK) will close its doors tomorrow (June 14) for the foreseeable future, after its owner filed for a form of bankruptcy in the USA and its Norwich staff were dismissed…
• Norwich SPCK closure goes on as union steps in
  The SPCK bookshop in Norwich remains closed over two weeks after it first shut its doors following the sacking of all its staff and today (February 21) the telephone lines have been barred…
• Norwich SPCK sackings e-mail is revealed
  More details have emerged of the sacking by e-mail of the staff of Norwich Christian bookshop SPCK last week…
• Rescue plan for Norwich Christian literature
  Following the temporary closure of Norwich’s only city centre Christian bookshop and the alleged sacking of its five staff on Tuesday, an alternative plan to preserve the future of Christian literature in Norwich is emerging…
• Staff sacked as Norwich SPCK bookshop closes
  The future of Norwich’s only city-centre Christian bookshop is uncertain after it closed its doors yesterday (February 5) and all its staff were sacked…

Durham Cathedral Bookshop as pictured on the Cathedral website

I’m not entirely sure that I’d ever want to concede that point — I happen to think the bookshop I run at LST is a good contender for the title — but one thing is sure: Durham Cathedral Bookshop today is but a shadow of its former self, one casualty amongst many of the takeover of the SPCK Bookshops by St Stephen the Great. Whatever its former greatness, it is no longer so.

I’d like to see the Cathedral authorities take control of their Bookshop, to disassociate themselves from the Brewers/St Stephen the Great and to ensure that the shop staff are treated with the respect they deserve both as professional booksellers and as workers on the Cathedral premises. I have therefore launched a formal petition to the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral asking them to take decisive action over this matter.

I announced the petition’s launch yesterday on the SSG/SPCK blog:
Rescuing Britain’s Christian Heritage: Durham Cathedral Bookshop

Please read that announcement and if you share my concerns, please read then sign the petition.

Thank you,

Phil