An update – don’t get too excited, nothing has been decided yet but as i’m being lazy and can’t better what Pete Ashton wrote I thought best to copy it so…….
Hello, this is Pete with one of my occasional retail-related posts on the CiB blog.
It’s been 6 weeks since the Created in Birmingham shop closed. Since then I’ve had some time off to recover and have started thinking about beginning the process of commencing planning for the second shop, tentatively scheduled for late September.
From this you may infer a hint of uncertainly, a reticence almost, so I’ll cut to the chase.
* I think there’s a good case for there to be another CiB Shop.
* I don’t feel capable of doing a large swathe of the things necessary to get to that stage.
* And, if I’m honest, I’m not sure I want to own and run a shop in the long term.
Developing this further:
* The CiB Shop, at it’s zenith, was powered by the community. Without diminishing the time, effort and investment we put into the shop we couldn’t have done it without the incredible support of our suppliers, customers and supporters across the city. The challenge for me was shepherding this torrent.
* Since closing there’s been a huge desire for the shop to happen again. Barely a day goes by without someone asking when it’s going to to open.
I had a meeting last week with the Economic Development bod at the Council. It was a useful, if sobering, meeting but one thing stuck in my head and wouldn’t go away.
* If the community wants this to happen they should invest in it.
That doesn’t necessarily mean a financial investment. But it does mean a constructive investment in making the shop happen and ensuring it’s sustainability.
Maybe I’m suggesting a co-op or collective model, coupled with the benevolent dictatorship necessary to get a bunch of arty types functioning together. But whatever the method I think we need to go in mob handed.
I’ve booked the upstairs of The Victoria on Monday 26th July. The meeting will start at 7.00pm to allow folk to travel in. I’ll start with a short presentation covering what we’ve got and what the current options are and then chair a big discussion. With any luck there’ll be people in the room who are good at the things I’m rubbish at and who want to do the things I don’t. And then we can have a shop.
To book a ticket for the venue click here. Looks as if there’s around 50 or so already attending so it might be packed. However it is important, so if you valued the CIB shop and want to contribute then please book and turn up. A little late notice I know, but at least I did it before the event.