From Dream to Nightmare to – where do we go from here? November 19, 2009
Posted by Phil Groom in News.Tags: Authentic Media, Biblica, Buyers Consortium, Christian Bookshops, Christian Retail, IBS-STL, STL, STL UK, Trade buy-out, Wesley Owen
10 comments
It seems only a short while ago that I posted about daring to dream. But sometimes dreams turn to nightmares and the whole world comes crashing in.
It’s not my dream I’m talking about this time: it’s the hopes and dreams of my friends and colleagues in the Christian book trade, particularly those working for STL, Wesley Owen and Authentic Media. Because everything fell apart around their ears this week as their parent company, Biblica, decided to pull the plug on their UK operations.
The announcement was made on Monday and you can read it in full over on the UKCBD blog as well as a whole host of other places including Christian Marketplace, the Church Times blog and STL’s own blog. It’s a sad story of incompetence in high places as some buffoons — they called them “IT consultants” — took STL UK on a one-way journey into a new software system called SAP back in October last year. Unfortunately it didn’t work and everything went pear-shaped in the warehouses, shops weren’t being supplied with goods, customers walked away and cash flow trickled down to … well, not quite zilch, but to the point where they couldn’t pay their suppliers so their suppliers stopped supplying which meant more bookshops weren’t being supplied … and I think you can see where this is going. Very, very sad: add a downturn in the economy and crunch, down comes the entire edifice.
The plan is to find a buyer “within the next few weeks”, otherwise things start closing down. Unpleasant for all concerned, to put it mildly.
I’m spearheading a blog campaign to stage a trade/community buyout which has generated a certain amount of interest, but whether or not the level of interest will be sufficient remains to be seen. At the moment I’m waiting for the latest accounts and financial reports from the company, which I requested on Tuesday. No response yet from either Biblica or Baker Tilly, the company contracted to handle negotiations.
So time will tell. We watch and wait. Please pray, please take a look at the discussions so far, throw in your own ideas, pray some more, think about whether or not you’d like to become part of a buyers’ consortium — let me know as soon as possible if so, please — then pray some more.
Some interesting ideas over at Clayboy’s place: head across and throw in your own thoughts there too, please; and watch this space…
I’d say Christianity sucks, but it’s worse than that… July 8, 2009
Posted by Phil Groom in Christianity.Tags: Biblica, Christian Kitsch, Christian Retail, Christian Tat, STL USA, Testamints
14 comments
Much worse: now you can chew it and spit it out when you’ve sucked all the flavour out of it. What was that Jesus said about salt that’s lost its flavour? Maybe this bit of sad supposedly ‘Christian’ crap which arrived in my work inbox today courtesy of STL USA (or Biblica, whatever name they’re trading under these days) is what he had in mind.
Is this really what Christianity has degenerated into? Lord have mercy, but I am ashamed of the Gospel when this is what we’ve done to it. What next: print Bible verses on your toilet paper and claim there’s no need to wash your hands afterwards?
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