The Prioritized Operations Plan working group (POP) was charged by the Council of General Synod with recommending a strategy that would enable the church to function within its means given the realities of declining revenues. The group, composed of members of Management Team, the Prolocutor of General Synod, representatives of CoGS and the Financial Management and Development Committee and Archbishop Terry Finlay, met in a 12-hour session on Sept. 25 and agreed to meet again after the November meeting of CoGS.
The most detailed and painful discussion POP had concerned the future of the bookstore. After analyzing the bookstore’s performance over the past several years and especially since the restructuring of Sept. 2005, the POP group is recommending to CoGS that the bookstore in its present form cease operations. This decision applies to the store only and not to the rest of the retail operation. In fact, we are recommending that the resources presently devoted to running the bookstore be redeployed to bolster telephone sales and, especially, to create and maintain a state-of-the-art web site that will allow ABC retail to compete in the modern market.
We want to emphasize as strongly as possible that it is our opinion that the bookstore is the victim of the times. The staff group that has run the bookstore for the past year has done hard, imaginative and heroic work to make a success of the operation. The work of this group has resulted in a much stronger performance by the bookstore so far this year than we had anticipated or budgeted for.
And yet, despite these efforts, sales continue to slide and the bookstore continues to lose money and to need subsidy from other parts of the General Synod budget. This, sadly, seems to be the fate of most small and specialized bookstores. Within walking distance of Hayden Street, we have seen several small bookstores close in the past few years. We believe that this process is irreversible and that the ABC bookstore operation as it currently exists can neither be maintained nor justified.
We are recommending to CoGS that the bookstore be closed as of July, 2007. This allows time for an orderly winding down and for plans to be made redeploying resources to telephones and web sales. We anticipate the creation of new positions to effect this redeployment.
We are mindful of the long history that the bookstore has as a valuable and contributing ministry of the church. But it is a Toronto-centered service the value of which has been and continues to be eroded by e-commerce and we believe the time has come to make the difficult decision to move on.
Links:
