We are Re-Jigging and eek it’s never ending!

Yep yep – the pictures you see below this post are not now how we look in some part and by the end of the month will not be how we look at all!
yes indeed it’s true we are having a major overhaul and face lift – and yes no more would be comics out there with the ‘well boss you need’ it comments!
So anyway as you can well imagine the place is a bit of a mess as we move all the old stuff out and the new stuff in, rearrange units and change till points and displays, but by the end of the month it will be fantastic!
So far we have relocated all the New Fiction onto nice new units, and a tidy amount of the Secondhand fiction has also been rehomed as well.
We have the sale to end all sales going on at the minute as we have seriously culled both the secondhand fiction and the New Fiction and pulled out anything over 18 months old – these are now for sale at 10 secondhand for £5.00 or 5 New for £5.00.
Whicever way you look at it that’s some fantastic bargains going on there. The authors include Dan Brown, Arthur C Clarke, Audrey Howard and other top authors. Honest this is not dross just overstock we needed to shift to make room for the new units and stock!
So anyway Religious books are moving from their ‘stand alone and cannot be grown’ section in unit 3 over to the main bookstall – this way there is room for expansion – in fact there will be an extra 5 bays worth of space to expand into and some nice gift units and slat wall space as well – This will also put the Christian Books in a much more prominent thoroughfare than they are currently on – and the reason for this??
Because we are not ashamed!
In fact we are not ashamed of anything we do, including our LGBT section which has also been relocated in the move and this is now in a more prominent section as well – situated in the middle gondola of the main Fiction section rather than hidden in the corner!
we are not ashamed and we will not act as if we are – we will not apologise for our beliefs, for our friends or for our outreach!
That said we would like to announce that we are now also stocking Jewish Prayer Books and the Forms of Prayer, and we welcome all our friends from the Lincoln Branch of the Council of Christians and Jews to come by, it was good to meet you and be involved in a very small way with the ‘meditation of Advent and Chanukah’. Thank you.
Ok now also whilst I have your attention, Palm Crosses, Paschal Candles and the rest of the Lent/Easter paraphanalia are on order and in some cases even in stock! so NOW IS THE TIME to let me know exactly how many of what you want putting by!!
Pass the word around please – Lent Books are in and orders are being taken for Palms and Candles.
Thank you!
Ohh we counted how many jigsaw designs we had when we had to move them all for the new units! (These went fantastically well at Christmas and are still going well now, probably as we are one of the few places in Lincoln that does them, and we do them all year round and at very good prices as well!)
Anyway that would be just over the 100 mark! These span the gamault from 1500 piece puzzles down to the 8 piece childrens puzzles, with the most number being in the 500 piece range and then followed by the economy priced 1000 piece puzzles, though my favourites are the ones with the Gold and Silver highlighting – particularly the Indian Maid and Fawn one – just lovely! and then also the Shaped Fish & Dolphin Puzzle. Lots of different brands as well, Gibson Games, Jumbo, King, Paul Lamond Puzzles, Falcon, Heye, Classic Deluxe, Ravensburger and a few more as well!
Then there were the Paint By Numbers, both large, standard and small, and 2 different manufacturers styles in those as well. It certainly makes for colourful on top of the new units.
So anyway when the refit and rejig is done and about ten minutes after I stop doing my own victory jig all over the worklorn minions (who actaully have been working! and I have to admit may have some hidden architectural or interior design skills that have a lot to do with making best use of the tardis like propensity of the strange space in a Unicorn Tree domain! Thanks M1 & M2) then I will get out my camera and take new snappy snappies for you all who cannot come in and see it for yourselves.
See you in the shop soon – I am the one with 2 coffee’s on the go at the minute as one just doesn’t do it in a refit situation.

Happy Birthday or anniversary of something like that!

Today makes it exactly 2 years that I have in fact been the unicorntreebookshopboss!

Yes indeed on this day 2 years ago I did in fact sign over all the worldly goods I did not possess and indeed the hope of having them! in exchange for the messy little bookstall that was at the time browse awhile books! and now two years on it’s not so messy, not so little and indeed not so bad!

I am still impoverished and tortured by minions, but at least its my poverty and my minions and in exchange I have the ability to read whatever book I want ’cause I have thousands of them!

I have a range of speciality genres and markets that match my likes!

The newest of these of course being the Christian Books (completely with its own unit! see not so little!) and I am so glad to have these on board, to be able to spend some of each day discussing a subject I absolutely love is phenomenal and a real dream continuing on.
Today’s discussion was on the Shack and the imagery presented as to God and if it is indeed heretical and if so why?
This addition hasn’t come without pain and heartbreak, but what it has come with is a continuing commitment and fervour to serve and reach out, after all pretty much all my book career had been in this section of the book trade and leaving it was painful (though also thrilling and enjoyable on another level as I was moving into the sphere of all books and not just one section!) but I remained resolute and with God’s grace and a smidgen of faith in face of adversity it came to be that I got it back this year, lets hope that together we can all continue to grow it – oh and did I say that Advent Candles and Advent & Nativity Books and Christmas Play material came in this week?? No? well it did – so if you are a church then get in touch as we are now taking Advent & Christmas orders!

Then of course we have the Craft section – formerly an independent business in its own right this came into our safekeeping a year ago and now lends itself wonderfully to our creative talent discussions and displays – believe it or not I am in fact a whizz at tea-bag folding, usually after they have been dried out from the copious cups of tea needed to cope with minion antics! This is still called Al’s Arts & Crafty Bits, but of course its now housed in Unicorn Tree Books!

Next is the LGBT section which is continuing to build a following and reputation and expanding as time goes on. The yaoi manga has been going phenomenally well.

All in all I am pretty proud of the changes that the shop has undergone and hope that in the years to come these will continue to grow and develop as we go forward together in faith, hope and community commitment!

So as its a new year we have old news to report on and new resolutions to put forward!
So old news – our sponsored charity, Great Ormond Street Hospital Childrens Charity was given £373.00 in the end, given our target was originally for £200 I think we did pretty well together!

Thank you all who gave their change, those 1p’s soon add up, as of course does the tithe we make from our sales – actually truth to be told that’s apportioned from the bookshopsboss wage as we still aren’t quite there enough to say its from the profits – its a commitment I made and so its one I keep!. We really do believe it is right to give to others when we can, as in giving we receive, even when we don’t know it or see it. After all sharing is caring!

So anyway this year we are continuing with the Children’s Hospital theme but this time its Alder Hay hospital that will be the recipient of our donations and tithes:

(though of course come October there will of course be our Christmas Charity to give to as well – last years Christmas Charity was Habitat for Humanity and we gave £50.00, lets hope we can give more this year when we decide on the Charity!).

So anyway I want to say thank you all for using us, supporting us and following along with us – if you want to come in and celebrate with us, then please do and remember my favourite celebration tipple is a Caramelatte from Nero’s or a Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks!

Thanks guys for the last two years, and I look forward to serving and working with all of you in the next few ahead!

www.lincolncentralmarket.co.uk
Unicorn Tree Books, Central Market, Lincoln. LN5 7ET
www.browseawhilebooks.co.uk
www.alsarts.co.uk
htp://unicorntreebooks.blogspot.com

Uggh Ingrams!

You know at the minute this bookshopboss is not amused!
It would seem that the americans are conspiring against me this week – first the issue relating to the post before and now INGRAMS (this is said in the same tone and intonation as a very bad swear word at the minute!).
I have now been waiting for nearly a week for a delivery to leave the US warehouse and make it to these shores so I can share the lovely books inside with you my lovely and desperate customers – well don’t hold your breaths as US systems transpire again to thwart the UK bound.
They can’t send it as the card details they have to transact the payment expires this month – and because in the US that would mean the card had actually expired, their cards expire on the first day of the listed month it would seem, and would be unusable their system automatically keeps declining my card – even though in the UK our expiry date means the last day of the month its dated! So they won’t be able to send the books until the 1st of August when the new card becomes active!! all because of an automated system that does the payment transaction and the fact that it would seem they cannot overide the system and do a manual transaction!
UGGGGGGH!!!

So ok moving on – it has been unbearably hot in the shop for the last few days – well thats what happens when you work in a glass roofed building – its like being an orchid in a hot house – and yes as you all know I really am that dainty, delicate and blooming wonderful!
Still we have the fan going, the doors open and the books in to help you all keep your cool and enjoy the time basking in the garden, on the beach or wherever with your books!

This week we have had deliveries of more books – a great set of christian books, including some great kids ones and a snuggly sunday bunny! great fun and at good proces (*edit: that was my ‘allo allo’ british fake french accent in honour of my friend Aude, the continental market that was in town and the fact that I can’t actually type!!)too. We also have an offer going on some NT to give away this summer – they are only £1.50 instead of £3.99, and we are offering £1.00 off Richard S. Taylors ‘What every Christian ought to know’ (9781853453168) as well! For a review of this book go here its a site I am very involved with and even review for on occasion and I heartily endorse it for impartial christian reviews!(but whatever you do remember to come back to me to buy it!!!) :
http://www.thegoodbookstall.org.uk/review/1853453161/richard-s-taylor/what-every-christian-ought-to-know/

Oh we had gifts in too! Very Very cool wooden toys – a Noahs Ark! A Nativity Set in a String Bag and some square blocks – 26 of them with words and pictures of them – the people in the pictures look a bit like BOD! I love it. There are also some BOD like magnet sets as well – a nativity set and a Life of Jesus set as well. Honestly they are great – I am thinking of going over to the kids corner and playing with them as stress relief from the week.

In the craft section we have had in some new stuff too, Christmas Card making materials and a whole load of pens, glitters, glues and other fun stuff to make a mess with over the summer while you pretend to be getting ready for Christmas!

Ohh talking of Christmas Cards – I did the Christmas Card order this week, lots and lots of Christmas cards will be in at the end of August – charity ones and normal ones! and the Christmas nativity and gift order is going in this week too! they too will no doubt arrive much to soon – there are some lovely Christmas ornaments going to be coming in.
and talking of charity -

So anyway come by and see – bookshopboss vent and share over now! going to have a coffee now. See you soon.

www.lincolncentralmarket.co.uk
Unicorn Tree Books, Central Market, Lincoln. LN5 7ET
www.browseawhilebooks.co.uk
www.alsarts.co.uk
htp://unicorntreebooks.blogspot.com

electrical mayhem

HI all,

Well if you have been in this week, which I know of course you will have been! then you will know that the week was totally disrupted by the comedy duo and all round great guys – Dennis & Brian – the electricians who had the delightful job of trying to sort out something like 10 years of messed up wiring! we are talking attack of the killer cables, light switch from hell and find the hidden live socket! Its been fun and noisy, dusty and generally crowded in the space usually dedicated to browsers and books! still at least I can sleep well now knowing that my bookshop will not be an electrical short short of a blazing inferno!

I took this time to sort out some older stock that was cluttering up the place and got moved to make space for ladders and electricians and am now having a buster of a sale – hardbacks are marked at 20p each or 10 for £1.00 and once those are gone there will be no more hardback fiction taken in as it just is a dying medium to a larger extent ( though personal complaint here – I wish the darn publishers would stop with this stupid US type large paperback format – again its functionally useless as it don’t fit a bag so wrecks the concept of portability, everyone complains at the extra price, and it ruins the look & flow of a bookcase – so come on guys can we just have standard paperbacks please, and if you ahve to keep a larger format then go with a special edition hardback for collectors!).
So anyway hardbacks done, overstocks of paperbacks – well there’s the secondhand ones at 50p each or 5 for £1.00, and then on the unread and never owned before stock we have a yellow sticker offer going – any 4 yellow stickered books for only £5.00 – again top authors and titles.

I also rejigged the Jigsaws! as we had a new batch of over 6 large box loads in – new fantasy and gothic jigsaws in, a great collection called ‘Wanted” where hidden in the wonderfully manic pictures are wanted characters you have to find – these are great!
For the kids we have glow in the dark scooby doo! (did I ever tell you all that the worst nightmare I ever had involved Scooby Doo! he was behind me as we ran up a never ending staircase trying to get away from what I now know to be the demon hoards of minions incapable of alphabeticising and the customers whose favourite puzzle mags got misdirected to aberdeen! I mean how do you mistake aberdeen for lincoln??), so anyway along with Scooby and gang there are some fantastic Famous Five jigsaws, which include the story that you read, a jigsaw to do and in the jigsaw the clues and answers that allow you to solve the mystery – again great concept fun. Jigsaws just seem to get cleverer!

On the Christian Side, well ok the 2009 Church Diairies are in -out – and in again!!, The 2009 Lectionaries are in – and there’s a shed load of new books in this week from SCM-Canterbury, Church House, SPCK and Alban, along with Jeff Lucas’s new book – well worth a read though at the minute I am reading his ‘Prodigal Friendly Church’ (Zondervan – 97803102678249 – £8.99) which is an excellent read and really speaks volume I can agree with!
Lots more cards now in and all in all the shelves are pretty full – but luckily people are beginnning to come in more now, oh yeah and Book Agents are now being canvassed for, there is a cool new leaflet all about the schemes we are offering on this one, but we are offering the service not just to churches but to Schools and other community groups and ventures too!

News – SSG declared Bankruptcy in the US Courts under Chapter 11 protection, but then founded a new managment company called ENC Management and told all remaining staff there jobs were gone and they would have to apply to the US courts if they wanted redundancy or their currently owed wages, however they could apply for their jobs to ENC and this would not be covered by TUPE – there are questions as to the rights of this situation, and at last report they had recanted on the last part whilst they sort a legal opinion! http://www.thebookseller.com/news/61032-st-stephen-the-great-files-for-bankruptcy.html & http://www.thebookseller.com/news/61032-st-stephen-the-great-files-for-bankruptcy.html & http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/chester-news/local-chester-news/2008/06/13/jobs-worry-at-bookshop-59067-21065437/

cool or what – this raises a wonderful ethical question – how many ways can be found to hurt people and continue to try it on??
So anyway its an interesting proposition going on here – I tell you if this was fiction non of us would buy the book as it would be just way too unbelievable!
More details on all this can be found here:

http://christianbookshopsblog.org.uk/2008/06/04/new-name-for-ssg/#comments

and here:

http://www.cartoonchurch.com/blog/category/save-the-spck/

OHH and we want to say congrats to the minion no.2 also known as Snowflake (and Eunice to her mum!) as she just got a new full time job (though she assures me she will still be available for saturday cover – after all she is the only minion that doesn’t sing the alphabet whilst tidying the shelves!!). As I am sure you will all remember she was one of the staff sacked by email without notice by the SSG bookshops directors based in Texas! well done Eunice and enjoy – we know without doubt that you will be an excellent edition to your new employers team and will excel at the job as thats just who and how you are!

So that leaves one of the four that were so wrongly treated by them still looking for a job – again I put out a plea to you all that if you know of a job for a hardworking dedicated member of staff that has excellent office based, and shop based, skills, that was in charge of SPCK Lincolns Goods Inwards operations, then please get in touch and I will pass the details on! I can personally vouch for this member of staff and can assure you she is well worth hiring and a committed team player but more than able to organise herself and others (yes even bookshop bosses! so that just shows you what amazing skills she has!).

Oh yeah and we now have our LGBT Fiction section up and running now – we are intending our shop to be one that really serves the needs of Lincoln’s Communities and outreaches, networks and welcomes everyone – after all its through our actions that we build community and show the light! – especially now the electricians have put new fittings and tubes in.

Ok other news and worthy mentions -
i want to wish my cohort Pinky ( who is also of course the teams Childrens Section Advisor) a big hug and get well soon as she fell off her Scooter last week (probably practicing dangerous curby stunts as pinky knows no fear!) and has broke her leg in two places and is in plaster to her knee! As you can imagine this puts a bit of a damper on our regular schemes to take over the world during the next 6 weeks while she heals up – but we are sure we can find other things to do to amuse ourselves! ( the colouring books are incredibly good fun and amazingly therapeutic, but we are not sure what people mean when they keep telling us that there are other colours to use then red, black, purple & Pink and we are meant to colour inside the lines!)

Minion no. 1 might provide some enjoyment for us yet! though of course she is taking up her Counselling Placement in the next few weeks (don’t panic this has been arranged as a day off thing, so she will still be in store three days a week for you all to torture!) – for which we wish her all the best – we are sure that she will find all the help she needs!
oops of course we mean we are sure that she will recieve lots of assistance as she continues to grow her own skills as a training counsellor! No really we are sure minion no.1 will rock at this and many people will benefit from her assistance and we wish her all the best and are proud of her.

Anyway so ok then thats about all the news from the bookshop for now and the bookshop boss seriously needs a rest after all the activity of the week – yay sunday!, so I shall see you all in the shop next week!

(This post has been edited as a safeguard – for the reasons as to why this may have been necessary visit
http://www.cartoonchurch.com/blog/category/save-the-spck
, Oops now wait you cant – I guess you better go here instead:
http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/series/cease-and-desist-notice-on-dave-walker/
Should I be notified personally and directly by the concerned parties of anything then I will of course let you know and then take any further necessary actions as may be required)

www.lincolncentralmarket.co.uk
Unicorn Tree Books, Central Market, Lincoln. LN5 7ET
www.browseawhilebooks.co.uk
www.alsarts.co.uk
htp://unicorntreebooks.blogspot.com