Regular customers – and anyone living in Worthing passing on South Street – will have noticed that the lights aren’t on.
As it typical of asset-stripping venture capital companies in the current climes, ArgentVive has found itself somewhat over-extended and has been forced into administration. Unfortunately, because ArgentVive is the ‘umbrella’ that extends over both remaining branches of Methvens Booksellers, Worthing and the Head Office/ coffeeshop in Chertsey, both shops have been closed (temporarily, we hope).
Staff were not informed by senior management or directors but were shunted out of the shop by a strongman hired by the administrators who rightly assumed that staff being told that they weren’t being made redundant (and therefore couldn’t claim any benefit) but were nonetheless not going to be paid their due salary in March, were going to be upset. The locks were then changed. In a supreme example of blithering irony, the adminstrators then proceeded to hang a sign on the door informing confused would-be customers that a stock-take was being conducted but the sign itself was made out of another sign advertising the loyalty card scheme. Doh?
There is a Facebook campaign – among other initiatives set-up by staff and loyal customers – to save the shop. The most recent – publicly available news – about efforts by several interested potential buyers for the shop can be seen here on The Bookseller, the book trade’s professional weekly journal.
An article by one of the affected members of staff, James Pearson, describing how the staff were informed – among other things – can be found at this link.
Links about Methvens Booksellers, Worthing:
Recommendations from the staff ~
Recommended reading (by subject) ~
Superior fronts – a great looking bookshop
The Methvens Studio & ThinkTankTheatre
Alan Clifford, obituary and condolences
How the shop could look in the future (refurbishment 2008 )
What happened to the ‘old’ blog?
In the years since Methvens Booksellers opened a shop in Worthing – in 1996 on the premises of the shop still remembered as Kinch & Lack – the bookshop has changed considerably. It has seen economic downturn and with the removal of the Net Book Agreement, increased – and unnecessary – competition through the bad discounting practices of large chain rivals that stifle future investment in publishing. The bookshop has seen a change in government (and two PMs), global war since 9/11 and a change in the town’s demographic as housing in Brighton becomes less affordable and the value of pensions diminishes.
In all that time, the staff of the bookshop have held to one goal and that is to give a quality service to any and all customers by offering fast book ordering (now the fastest in the UK) and by trying to keep in-store as substantial a range as any town bookshop could hope to viably keep on its shelves.
Methvens, a proud independent maintained by passionate, intelligent staff, is about to change. The new owners of the shop are a retail web technology start-up company who hope to showcase the best of their in-development technology by literally using the shop as a ’shop front’, a showcase for how technology can be utilised by other independent booksellers. Many changes have been wrought already.
Where possible, the love of The Worthing Bookshop (as it will come to be known formally in the new year), will continue to be written about as many friends remain working there. Pages relevant to the shop are preserved in the indexed links above.
[...] Pearson, a graphic artist and employee of Methvens Bookshop in Worthing, called the novel ‘a feast of unusual, high-concept horror’ and recommended [...]
By: Horror Reanimated… the home of Bloody Books » Booksellers go public about MEAT by JD’L on January 26, 2009
at 4:18 pm
I don’t know If I said it already but …Great site…keep up the good work.
I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks, 
A definite great read..Tony Brown
By: Tony Brown on September 24, 2009
at 1:42 pm