Tag Archives: SSG

SSG Uncertainty Continues (1)

Posted on June 12, 2008 by | 1 Comment

Below, the notice that I’ve been running alongside the SSG entries in the UK Christian Bookshops Directory since early April: figured I ought to preserve it for posterity. Will be updating it this evening with something that more accurately reflects the current chaos. Suggestions, anyone? Other than just “Aaaargh!” please, even if that does more or less sum things up…

The former SPCK Bookshops and their associated websites are owned and operated by the Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust(SSG), which acquired the shops from SPCK in October 2006.

Unfortunately shops and staff alike suffered in the transition to new ownership, leading to staff departures, branch closures and uncertainty over opening times for those that remain, with at least one branch (Leicester) becoming independent. Previous shop descriptions, opening times and other information has therefore been removed and SSG have been invited to provide up to date details; until this is provided and independently verified, details shown here, whilst offered in good faith, may or may not be valid.

Branches reported as closed or slated for closure include Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury, Cambridge, Cardiff, Carlisle, Lincoln, Norwich and Sheffield. Customers are strongly advised to phone ahead before visiting these or any other branches.

Although the SPCK name is still in use over the shops and online, that use is subject to ongoing legal discussions. SPCK have emphasised “that they do not own, manage or otherwise run the Bookshops” (online statement dated 12/11/2007), whilst SSG have declined to comment. In view of the uncertain legal position no link to spckonline.com can be provided at present. Online fulfillment is apparently being provided by St Andrew’s Bookshops: again, in view of the uncertainty, prospective customers may be wise to consider shopping elsewhere.

Anyone concerned by SSG’s treatment of the former SPCK booksellers and wishing to help is invited to make a donation to the UKCBD Save the SPCK Booksellers Fund.

Latest News
Google Warns Visitors: Beware spckonline.com
Updates on the situation may be found in the UKCBD News Section and in Dave Walker’s Blog.

(This notice updated 06/04/2008 )

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September Meeting for ex-SPCK Booksellers

Posted on June 10, 2008 by | 1 Comment
SPCK Booksellers Fund
Simply a reminder that the Save the SPCK Booksellers fund I set up last year is still open. Any ex-SPCKers in need of help, please do get in touch; anyone else, please feel welcome to contribute.

And don’t forget the existence of BTBS: The Book Trade Charity: they’re there to help. 

— Phil Groom 

Phelim McIntyre writes:

In September there will be a meeting between publishers reps and ex-SPCK staff. This is to see how, if possible, we can stop the years of knowledge from SPCK bookshops being wasted. So this meeting is not just talk, if you are able to come please think about how people can be used. Using myself as an example:

I am 36 and worked for SPCK Bookshops for 2½ years. Before that I worked for W H Smiths, ran bookstalls at conference and for a small independent Christian Bookshop. I have done the Chapter House Proof Reading and Copy Editing course and have had short stories published. Due to my age I am unable to take retirement. How can my skills be used and not wasted?

This is a serious question – the ex-staff fall into 2 categories. Those who have taken retirement and those who have had to find other jobs. Not everyone has found full time employment. It is these people who need the help. Please think about this and either come to the meeting or let me know your suggestions.

Thank you.

Phelim McIntyre (ex-assistant manager, Chichester SPCK) 

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Questions Raised over SSG ‘Bankruptcy’

Posted on June 9, 2008 by | 6 Comments

Respondents to both this site and Dave Walker’s recent related posts (Dave’s Backup Site | Dave’s Main Site) are asking searching questions about the legitimacy of SSG’s apparent filing for bankruptcy.

Citing USA website lawyershop.com, ‘canon law’ and ‘mm’ — who may well be the same person using different aliases — have expressed concern over the possibility of Bankruptcy Fraud:

Bankruptcy Fraud
Bankruptcy, by definition, is when a debtor is declared – either by creditors or his own account – legally insolvent. His property is liquidated and divided among his creditors to pay his debts. But when a debtor falsely claims bankruptcy, attempts to conceal his assets, launches petition mills or files multiple claims, he is committing bankruptcy fraud – a federal offense.

Types of Bankruptcy Fraud
Concealment of assets, petition mills, and multiple filings are the most common types of bankruptcy fraud.

Concealment of Assets
Concealment of assets accounts for nearly 70 percent of all fraudulent bankruptcy cases filed by individuals. This type of fraud occurs when a person purposely fails to list every one of his assets on his bankruptcy claim, knowing that creditors cannot liquidate valuables of which they are not aware. Similarly, business owners frequently conceal assets when filing for bankruptcy – they transfer money or properties to their relatives’ or associates’ names so that the assets cannot be confiscated.

Observations over the weekend from ‘justflyingkites’ certainly seem to support this possibility and raise the further question of whether filing for bankruptcy in the USA can, in any case, apply to SSG as a UK registered charity:

According to advice from USDAW (they say they have not had enough time to research thoroughly) a charity registered in Britain cannot be made insolvent through the American courts. USDAW has discovered that the ENC management company consists of the Brewer brothers and one of their wives.

As for hiding their assets – the two independent shops have been told to deposit takings in a new bank account in the name of Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust.

Whatever eventually emerges, one thing seems sure: the Brewers’ behaviour — in their treatment of their staff, in their general communications and in their business dealings — falls far short of the standards of honesty and integrity one might hope to expect from a Christian organisation. This is nothing new, of course: the history of Christianity is littered with examples of abuse and devious dealings done, supposedly, in the name of Christ. I find myself wondering if Spencer Burke has the right of it when he says:

Maybe the greatest gift the Christian religion can offer the world right now is to remove itself from the battle for God. Perhaps it’s time to release the claim to universal privilege it grants itself as the only “true religion”. 

(p.48, A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity)

On the other hand, I find myself somehow not yet ready to roll over and die, to concede defeat to the likes of the Brewers. Perhaps as Steph, another respondent here, has commented, I am naive, but I’d sooner go down in history as naive than silent. I am also uncomfortably aware of Jesus’ remarks about judging others, but again, are we not called to speak out against injustice and dishonesty when we see it? Again, I do not consider silence to be an option.

As last time, watch this space…

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New Name for SSG?

Posted on June 4, 2008 by | 20 Comments

SSG: Silly Stupid Games, perhaps? Apart from when you’re playing with people’s livelihoods and jobs, because then it’s not a game, is it?

It strikes me as particularly ironic that having started the day by promoting Mark Greene’s Christian Life & Work DVD this morning in my post about Small Group Resources, I now end it with a report on the latest shenanigans at SSG. Maybe someone could set themselves the task of producing a DVD on the topic of being a Christian employer? It could start with lessons in how not to fire your staff…

Yes, you’ve guessed it: another round, apparently, of firing-by-email. I have in front of me an email, apparently from Mr Phillip W Brewer, addressed to “Staff (in Chester)”. Dated June 1st it states:

Effectively immediately, all former SPCK Bookshops being operated by the SSG trading company are to be staffed by a new management company. Should you wish to continue your employment at the Chester bookshop, you may do so by applying for a position with the new company. The company which will operate the bookshops is ENC Management Company.

This is not a transfer of your employment under TUPE. Rather, this is notification to you by St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust that the trading company known as SSG (St Stephen the Great, a limited liability company) will no longer be operating the bookshop. 

I’m told that the staff have been in touch with their union and are being advised on how to proceed. Or not, as the case may be: who can say?

I invited the Booksellers Association (BA) — of which SSG and I both happen to be members — to comment, but have been told that there can be “no official or unofficial response from the BA, the ruling body of which has in this case specifically taken the established line that we do not comment on how members run their businesses.” That’s OK, then, I guess: I can abuse my employees as much as I like and no one’s going to hold me responsible. Where did I read that story about someone washing his hands? 

In the midst of the nightmares, some good news: Dave Walker’s Cartoon Church Blog is back online, albeit at a temporary location: http://cartoonchurch.wordpress.com/ — welcome back, Dave!

Please feel free to post your own suggestions on what SSG or the new initials ENC might really stand for…

Update 5th June 2008
Have just been informed that the Brewers have now advised staff that they can continue to work under their old contracts whilst SSG takes legal advice… watch this space…

Update 6th June 2008
Dave Walker has posted a copy of an email “sent to most if not all of the former SPCK shops by Mark Brewer” which states:

SSG (St Stephen the Great – limited liability company) has been terminated as the trading company to operate the bookshops formerly known as SPCK Bookshops.

From: SSG files for bankruptcy.

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SPCK/SSG News Round-up in Christian Marketplace

Posted on May 31, 2008 by | 1 Comment

June’s Christian Marketplace magazine provides a fairly comprehensive round-up of recent news relating to the ongoing SPCK/SSG shenanigans.

Industry News starts on page 6 and first up is SSG Shops pulled from auction featuring Simon Kingston, SPCK Publishing’s General Secretary and CEO, expressing surprise that the shops were even being offered for sale. Whatever may happen to the shops concerned, however, he confirmed

that there was indeed “a covenant on the freeholds limiting their use for some time to that of Christian bookselling with a broad multi-denominational stockholding.”

Next comes New Bookshop for York: the closure of SSG in York certainly doesn’t spell the end of Christian bookselling in the city as St Paul’s have announced the opening of a new store in September, “making St Paul’s the largest chain of Catholic bookshops in the country.” (Not to mention, of course, the continued presence of the Barbican Bookshop/Wesley Owen on Fossgate).

Moving on to page 7, Beware spckonline.com – Google picks up on my report here warning people of the potential danger of visiting SSG online. Astonishingly, as I write exactly two months since the problem was first reported by a contributor to Dave Walker’s blog on March 31st 2008, SSG still do not appear to have got their house in order and Google’s warning remains in place today (sorry, did I say ‘astonishingly’? My typing finger must have slipped…).

The Dawkins DelusionAlso on page 7 we have SPCK Publishing off to a record start announcing “the best monthly sales in the history of the company” during January this year, “despite the company no longer having the advantage of their own chain of bookshops, following the transfer to SSG…” Part of that sales boost is, of course, due to the McGraths’ riposte to Richard Dawkins, The Dawkins Delusion.

Finally, page 9, Ex-SPCK Bookshop staff get together reports briefly on the meeting for former SPCK booksellers and others held in Esher on 14th May, which I was privileged to attend.

All in all an excellent round up of news and related stories: my thanks to Clem Jackson, Christian Marketplace’s Editor, for giving me and this blog more than a few honourable mentions along the way, and I suspect I speak for many more when I say particular thanks for helping to keep the SPCK/SSG situation in the spotlight.

If you, gentle reader, are not a subscriber to Christian Marketplace may I encourage you to consider signing up? At only £25 per year (monthly: 12 issues) it’s excellent value for money and will help keep you up to speed with both the world of Christian retail and the world of Christian publishing: never again will you need to ask “What’s new?” — you’ll know already.

May those booksellers still working for SSG find the strength they need to face an uncertain future, and may those whom the Brewers seem to have cast aside so carelessly find justice in their forthcoming employment tribunals: grace and peace to you all.

 

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Free Food, Free Drinks, Free Books…

Posted on May 15, 2008 by | 9 Comments

and I guess I ought to mention free admission, courtesy of Speaking Volumes, sponsors and organisers of the UK Christian Book Awards. I’m referring to my day at CRE, the Christian Resources Exhibition: catching up with people, collecting catalogues, meeting publishers and authors… all in all, a day of serious networking and a lot of fun along the way. If you’re one of the many people whose paths I crossed on Wednesday and you don’t get a mention, please don’t take it as a slight: it was simply one of those days where it’s impossible to talk about everyone and everything. My thanks, however, to everyone who conspired to make it a very worthwhile visit.

I arrived just in time for the Award Presentations, being given by Adrian and Bridget Plass. Adrian and Bridget entertained us with a sketch about Anglicans and Free Churches attempting to work together and eventually discovering that the one thing they had in common was — UKCBA Winnersbut I’m not going to say because that would ruin it if ever you get to see them in action. Typically spot-on Plass humour that takes the lid off the  Church and its pretensions to leave you amused and squirming uncomfortably at the same time as you recognise some of your own follies…

And the winners, pictured here along with Paula Renouf (in the blue dress), who ably co-ordinated the whole event, and various others from the Speaking Volumes Board, are:

  • General: Philip Yancey, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference (9780340909089, Hodder & Stoughton)
  • Biography: Richard Taylor, To Catch a Thief (9781903725573, New Wine Press)
  • Children’s/Youth: Jonathan Brant, YP’s Guide To Knowing God (9781853454073, CWR)

Congratulations to the winnersSharp-eyed readers may wonder about Philip Yancey’s gender reassignment; fear not: Philip himself couldn’t be with us, that’s a publisher’s representative accepting his award. Congratulations to all concerned, and commiserations to the runners up (not losers, please note: runners up).

Cliff's 50th Anniversary BadgeEveryone who attended was given a bag full of goodies including a selection of books, a stack of publishers’ catalogues, a couple of bookmarks (“Praise the Lord,” I hear you cry, “he’s got his bookmarks!”) and, since no Christian event can be considered complete without an appearance from the blessed St Cliff, a Cliff Richard Badge! Thank you, Lion-Hudson. I think…

Authentic Author Cafe

Next on the agenda was the Authentic Author Café, with sandwiches, fruit juice and coffee courtesy of Authentic Media and personally served by none other than STL’s Pete Barnsley. Thanks, Pete! Nick Battle told us something of his life story as recounted in Big Boys Don’t Cry (watch this space for a review), then interviewed fellow authors Chris Rogers (9781850787822, A Monkey’s Orientation), Peter Meadows (9781860245688, The Book of Y), David Cowan (9781932805727, Economic Parables: The Monetary Teachings of Jesus Christ) and Anona Coates (9781860247019, I Wish I Was).

Then came the real highlight of the day: a trip down Esher High Street to The Bear Pub to meet up with a group of SPCK’s dispossessed booksellers — Phelim McIntyre amongst others, who organised the get-together — and the ineffable Dave Walker whose blogging has kept us all up to speed on the Brewers’ misdemeanours. It was an honour and a privilege to be able to use some of the money from the UKCBD Save the SPCK Booksellers Fund to help some who came with their travel expenses: thank you to those who have contributed to that.

I had a fairly long chat with Alan Mordue (SPCK’s Sales and Marketing Director) afterwards. He assured me that SPCK have not washed their hands of the situation: it is in the hands of their solicitors. I’ll say more when I know more. In the meantime, let’s hope and pray that the forthcoming Employment Tribunals bring some justice for those whom the Brewers have treated so appallingly…

Finally: on departure from CRE, a bottle of mineral water for the journey home courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse as part of their Turn On The Tap appeal: it’s so easy for us to take water for granted here in the UK. Let’s spare some change to bring about a change in the lives of our brothers and sisters elsewhere, where water is not so simply obtained.

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SPCK Booksellers Get-together

Posted on May 6, 2008 by | 2 Comments

Save the SPCKMost readers are no doubt familiar with the shenanigans surrounding the St Stephen the Great acquisition of the SPCK Bookshops, but if you’re not up to speed check out either Dave Walker’s Save the SPCK section or the UKCBD SPCK/SSG News page. Dave is usually the most up to date: he seems to have a better network of informers.

This note is for two reasons:

  1. To provide a reminder that a get-together of  former SPCK booksellers and other interested parties is planned on Wednesday 14th May, 2pm at The Bear Pub on Esher High Street, just a few minutes walk from Sandown Park Racecourse, where the Christian Resources Exhibition will be taking place. Dave says that he plans to be there, as do I. 
  2. To say to any ex-SPCK staff out there who want to go but can’t afford the travel expenses: please do get in touch. There is (limited) funding available in the UKCBD Save the SPCK Booksellers Fund; as I write only one person has requested help.

Please note that the fund is still open to receive donations from anyone who’d like to join in offering assistance…

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Christian or… what, exactly?

Posted on April 28, 2008 by | 1 Comment

What, exactly, do we mean by the designation ‘Christian’ when we refer to bookshops or publishers? Is it simply that we trade in products that relate to the Christian faith — are we simply a subset of other businesses and commercial enterprises? Or is there — should there be — something more distinctive than that? A sense of mission, perhaps? A sense of mission that goes beyond questions of finance, profit and loss, that makes us determined — somehow — to continue trading no matter what the odds stacked against us?

Or is it something about our business practices? Honesty and integrity, compassion and humility — a willingness to put others first: an emphasis on service, on service that goes beyond the call of duty to offer our customers, our co-workers — whether employees or employers — the best that we possibly can? Treating others with respect, as better than ourselves…

I ask these questions not out of idle curiosity but out of deep concern as I watch the debacle of the SPCK/SSG bookshops deepen, a once excellent chain brought to ruin (latest reports listed below)… and as I see Christian divisions of secular publishing houses increasingly dominating our marketplace. Lorna Roe, responding to my ‘Bibles and Bookmarks‘ post, puts the question about publishers bluntly:

There are a lot of ‘Christian’ publishers out there who try and cash in on the huge popularity of that one most important book, the Bible. Blatant materialism.

So, to get to the crux of the issue: is being Christian about what we (say we) believe or about how we behave? I put it to you that what we believe only matters insofar as it affects the way we behave. Jesus himself warned us about wolves in sheep’s clothing: “By their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7:15-20).

In that light, what does what we’ve seen to date of the behaviour of the Brewer brothers tell us? What we’ve seen of the their attitude towards their staff; towards their suppliers; towards SPCK… of their disingenuity in their correspondence here, denying the reality of shop closures? Can we, with any sense of integrity, continue to refer to their shops as ‘Christian’?

I am in a quandary: on the one hand I want to support those SPCK booksellers who have somehow survived the storms thus far and are still working in their shops; on the other, I find myself wanting to expunge every record of the SPCK/SSG Bookshops from the UK Christian Bookshops Directory. The designation ‘Christian’ is sullied and brought into disrepute by the Brewers’ behaviour.

Would Jesus recognise them as having anything to do with him? 

What would you do?

Lord have mercy…

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Google Warns Visitors: Beware spckonline.com

Posted on April 10, 2008 by | 2 Comments

Google Warns Visitors: Beware spckonline.com 

Google has posted warnings, screenshots below, against its search results for spckonline.com, the online trading division of St Stephen the Great (SSG) Bookshops. 

The basic search result is flagged with the message “This site may harm your computer” and visitors who disregard that message are given a second warning: “continue to http://www.spckonline.com/ at your own risk”. No link to the site is provided by Google. 

The warning message was spotted by ‘Steph’, a contributor to Dave Walker’s blog, on March 31st 2008. 

Links to spckonline.com were removed from the UK Christian Bookshops Directory earlier this year due to the uncertain legal position over SSG’s continued use of the SPCK name and the following advice has been posted against all SSG/SPCK Bookshop entries in the Directory since 19/02/2008:

Although the SPCK name is still in use over the shops and online, that use is subject to ongoing legal discussions. SPCK have emphasised “that they do not own, manage or otherwise run the Bookshops” (online statement dated 12/11/2007), whilst SSG have declined to comment. In view of the uncertain legal position no link to spckonline.com can be provided at present. Online fulfillment is apparently being provided by St Andrew’s Bookshops: again, in view of the uncertainty, prospective customers may be wise to consider shopping elsewhere.

Screenshot 1: Google Search Results for ‘ssg online’ (02/04/2008 ) 
spckonline.com 'may harm your computer'    

Screenshot 2: Google 2nd Warning (02/04/2008 )
continue 'at your own risk' 

Google Help Centre 
Information about Malware Warnings 
Help for Website Owners 

StopBadware.org 
Badware Report for spckonline.com 

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