SPCK/SSG Durham Cathedral Bookshop in the Northern Echo Newspaper
- Durham Cathedral Bookshop: Mark Brewer Responds
- Durham Cathedral Bookshop: One Month On
- Durham Cathedral Bookshop: Petition Update
- Management of Durham Cathedral Bookshop in Spring 2008: Society of Saint Stephen the Great
- SPCK/SSG Durham Cathedral Bookshop in the Northern Echo Newspaper
- Rescuing Britain’s Christian Heritage: Durham Cathedral Bookshop
- Durham Cathedral Bookshop Petition: The Dean of Durham Replies
- Durham Cathedral Shop VAT Number History: Auditing the Brewer Business Trail
- Have you got a Till Receipt from Durham Cathedral Bookshop?
- Durham Cathedral Shop Finances and questionable Saint Stephen the Great payments
- American Werewolves in Durham Cathedral
- Durham Cathedral Shop: The Story That Won’t Go Away!
Last week I posted about the plight of Durham Cathedral Bookshop.
Today there is an article about it in the Northern Echo Newspaper. The article features the petition we started a few weeks ago, which now has more than 300 signatures.
Background
I have covered the rundown of the bookshop chain that used to be known as SPCK (now Society of Saint Stephen the Great and a couple of other names) and have 23 shops over several months. You can read the background at the dedicated News Blog, but it currently involves (over more than a year):
- Bullying.
- Sackings by email.
- Sacked employees who were then told they had “resigned”.
- 31 industrial tribunals.
- $1.5m in unpaid debts to suppliers.
- God knows how much in possible future compensation to the 31 employees.
- About half a dozen different corporate entities.
- A shoal of Cease and Desist letters by email which weren’t worth the paper they weren’t written on.
- 750 members of Facebook support groups.
- An attempt to put a British-organisation into bankruptcy in Texas.
- The lawyer running the show - J Mark Brewer, being accused of “fraud on the Bankruptcy Court” by the “Trustee in Bankruptcy” and ending up being required by the Court to take remedial education in Texas Bankruptcy Law and Ethics.
- An official Charity Commission Enquiry.
- Now a Trading Standards investigation as well.
- A whole lot of people who are absolutely furious.
- Four new independent bookshops which seem to be succeeding in places where old shops have been closed down.
- And much more that I’ve probably forgotten about.
Yes, it’s all fun and games down at the Society of St Stephen the Great.
Read it and, and you will understand why Texans carry two six-guns - that would be one bullet for each toe as well as the one to shoot themselves in both feet with.
Perhaps somebody will make it into a film one day.
Storm rages over cathedral shop
AN unholy row has broken out over the running of a cathedral bookshop.
More than 300 people have signed a petition calling on the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral to “rescue†its shop from its US owners.
Critics say Phil and Mark Brewer’s Saint Stephen the Great Trust has “ravaged†the shop, once described as “the best theological bookshop in the worldâ€, leaving it a shadow of its former self.
The trust took over the bookshop from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in November 2006.
Disgruntled opponents have a growing online petition, called Rescuing Britain’s Christian Heritage: Durham Cathedral Bookshop, which invokes a Biblical story of Jesus to support their case.
It reads: “Surely enough is enough.
We urge you (the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral) to take decisive action now to rescue the shop from further decimation…
The Messrs Brewer, who control the company that runs the bookshop, did not want to be interviewed.
I wonder why not?
[tags]bplaw, brewer and pritchard, j mark brewer, phil brewer, society of saint stephen the great, spck, ssg[/tags]
Categories: All WW, Arts / Culture, Campaigns, Comment, Media, News - Current Affairs, SPCK Bookshops, Web Traffic / Statistics
They did not comment because they cannot defend themselves.