Durham Cathedral Bookshop: A Case Study in Dealing with Debt – Philip Brewer Style

Phil Groom writes: Updated 20/11/2008

If you’ve got a longer memory span than a woolly mammoth you’ll remember last month’s post on Dealing with Debt – Philip Brewer Style. It’s all about lateral thinking, and I have before me some very interesting email correspondence between Durham Cathedral Shop Management Company and Philip Brewer dated March 12, 2008, the day after the new company was established on March 11.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions: comments are enabled and welcome. My apologies to those who left comments on the original post, 19/11/2008 — I will contact you individually about reinstatement of those comments, or, if you can remember what you said, please feel free to reinstate them yourselves. Thank you.

Durham’s questions in plain text, Brewer’s responses in blue:

1. What happens to the cheques that will be sent in for ledger accounts made out to St Stephen the Great of which the statements have already been sent. What are they now to have on them as you won’t be able to fit Durham Cathedral Shop Management Co on the cheque. (would Durham Cathedral Shop be enough) I will instruct the bank to take them as per normal. Just deposit them to the new account number I gave you.

2. Do we have to wait until new accounts are opened before we place any more orders for stock or customer orders. Please work with your suppliers as a new entity. Ignore whatever was and whoever was in the past. We are now a new company, with no relationship to the old going forward. So, contact your suppliers, tell them the drill, that you are a new company and that you would like to begin trading. When and if asked about billing, tell them they should process that at vendor-accounts, as you are not aware of how they are paying old invoices, etc. they will need to chase Saint Stephen the Great Trust as they have been doing. We also need to know of who we can say will be our references. What are your recommendations? Also what do we say if the suppliers ask about the invoices that we already owe for ? since we are new, we can’t owe anyone anything yet.

3. Is it okay to contact Booksolve to get the tills and computers changed to Durham Cathedral Shop (do we need to have Management Co on this or will Durham Cathedral Shop do Yes, you may do this. I have already requested they give me a cost for the service to continue. So you are welcome to contact them to make this change. Remember, we are a new company. No need for you to get involved with or diverted with what bills etc are being paid by whom.

Petition Update

As I write the petition to rescue Durham Cathedral Bookshop from the Brewers now stands at 279 signatures. We need another 21 signatures to reach the 300 mark, at which point it will again be presented to the Dean and Chapter.

If you have not signed the petition, please consider doing so.

If you have signed it, thank you. Please consider following it up by:

• Writing personally to the Dean and Chapter of Durham
• Writing an article for your church or community magazine
• Writing to the press
• Writing to the Rt Hon Roberta Blackman-Woods, MP for the City of Durham
• Writing to the Rt Revd Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham

Ask them: why is the Diocese of Durham allowing a rogue trader to run its Cathedral Bookshop??

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