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PRESS RELEASE
20th October 2006
SPCK Bookshops
In October 2006, the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) transferred all 23 of its bookshops to Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust. Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust’s partnership with SPCK will enhance and broaden its mission of distributing Christian literature.
Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust’and SPCK share a strong commitment to communicate the richness of the Christian Faith. Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust intend to employ a vigorous marketing strategy for the SPCK Bookshops. "People in our stressful, modern age, care deeply about spirituality and long for a deeper faith. SPCK Bookshops will offer a primary solution to these questions of faith" said Mark Brewer, Chairman of Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust, in a press release accompanying the transaction. "SPCK will continue into its fourth century with its shops as places where all people, Christian or otherwise, are welcome and given the chance to widen their spiritual horizons."
"We are delighted to have found partners with a similarly strong vision and a determination to invest in the mission of presenting the Christian message imaginatively and effectively in an attractive environment", commented SPCK's new Chairman, Bishop Michael Perham in the same press release4.
Under the new arrangements, SPCK Bookshops will continue to serve the broad and diverse SPCK customer base, and expanding the products that it offers those customers. Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust will also place a major emphasis in online marketing at www.spckonline.com, utilising the internet and harnessing the market power and presence of the venerable SPCK and its 308 year-long history in the U.K.
In this way we believe the Bookshops will be both maintained and strengthened, remaining broad and looking ambitiously to a growing future.
We believe that this is good news for the whole Christian community.
About SPCK
Founded in 1698, SPCK is a registered charity and Christian mission agency. For over three hundred years, it has helped people t o grow in the Christian faith, especially through the ministry of Christian education and literature. The SPCK Bookshops group is currently the second largest Christian bookseller in the UK with 23 stores in England and one in Wales.
In addition to its retail activities, the Society is a major publisher of Christian literature, producing some 75 new titles each year to help their readers come to a fuller understanding of the Christian faith and a deeper commitment to it. The Society has over 600 titles in print.
SPCK also equips Christians throughout the world with financial grants, resources, advice and encouragement in partnership with Feed the Minds. Working with Christian communicators and educators in many countries, in an average year it supports about 200 projects in more than 60 countries.
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