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CATHOLIC
BOOKSHOP
The Catholic Bookshop was started 23 years ago as a small kiosk. With time it has grown in size and services offered. The bookshop is situated in the Old Catholic Church building on Moi Road, Nakuru with a branch within the town center along Mburu Gichua Road.
It serves a good number of the community through the
sale of religious books, articles, school textbooks, college books
and stationeries.
ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st DECEMBER 2007
During the above ended year, the Bookshop undertook a number of business activities which are summarized under the following sub headings:-
a) Main activities undertaken in 2007
(i) Sale of Sacramentals, religious items such as Rosaries, Bibles, Gospel tapes, Misale Ya Waumini and crucifixes just to mention but a few. The Bookshop staff constantly visited a number of parishes selling the above items as they continue to propagate the evangelization process to Christians
(ii) Sale of Text books, Stationery and Inspiration Books to individual customers, schools, colleges and other CDN Staffs in their respective departments which have indeed kept the wheel of the Diocese moving throughout the entire year i.e. 2007
(iii) The Bookshop undertook aggressive sales and marketing to schools, parishes and even institutions of higher learning with a view to increasing sales turn over hence, wealth creation
(iv) The Bookshop also undertook an intensive pricing audit on assorted items which resulted in price reduction in a number of items sold in the Bookshop
(v)
The Bookshop
also took steps towards recovering money due to Bookshop which had not been paid
by individual priests and respective parishes. Part of the amount was received.
A display of some of the items in the bookshop
shelves
A customer being given services at the counter
(b) Achievement of the Bookshop for the above activities undertaken
(i) From the sale of religious items to various parishes, the Bookshop received a total of Kh.227,796
(ii) Christians who were hitherto unable to get prayer tools could access the tools such as Rosaries, Misale ya Waumini and Bibles which deepen faith and commitment to Catholic teachings
(iii) From the intensive sales and marketing done by the Bookshop Staffs during the year 2007, the Bookshop is currently receiving orders from schools; some of the orders have been dully supplied.
(iv)
There are
increased sales in the Bookshop having reviewed prices. We therefore predict a
much better sales turnover during the year 2008.
(c) Challenges faced
(i) Stiff competition from other competing Bookshops
(ii) Transport problem – sharing the only means of transport by St. Mary’s printing Press, communication department, Procurator’s office, etc. This increases inefficiency in service delivery
(iii) Difficulty in receiving customers due to scratch my back syndrome
(iv) Debt recovery especially from individual priests and parishes
We pray for peace and tranquility. We have just tested the market for our products. A lot of ground work and marketing was undertaken in the just ended year 2007. We hope to make a real turn around in business prowess in the Bookshop.
We kindly invite other CDN Staff, all Priests in various parishes, Catholic schools and friends of Catholic Diocese to support the Bookshop.
ST. MARY'S PRINTING PRESS
This
section was started in 1986. It is a a diocesan operated printing
press housed with the bookshop in the old Catholic Church Building.
Objectives
The main objective of St. Mary’s Press is:
- To promote evangelism through the support of pastoral and catechetical work of the church, through printing and distribution of Diocesan circular.
- Contributes towards financial autonomy of the Diocese in creating additional income for the church and self reliance promotion.
- Provides professional printing advice to the communities NGOs and clients while maintaining confidentiality where applicable.
- To assist CDN departments, programmes and other clients by producing information and office supporting documents.
- Some of our parishes also come for printing work and advices.
Activities
We use lithography mode of printing. Our job starts from the planning section, designing, typesetting before we take it to the darkroom for shooting in order to make the substrate plate that is used for printing. We also use the modern print system of using paper plates for simple jobs like obituaries e.t.c.
Mainly we print diocesan newsletters and bulletins, office source documents e.g. receipt books, invoices, statements, church documents e.g. catechumenate cards, baptism, certificates, e.t.c
We also have binding section which does most of the finishing work for the printed materials e.g. numbering, binding and trimming before we pack the finished product for the customer.
Achievements
During the year we have been able to initiate a screen printing section. We have been able to screen print logos and Messages on T-shirts, school shirts, bed sheets, banners and e.t.c. for different clients.
We have also procured a colour printer, Lamination machine and a scanning for effective service delivery.
Challenges
-
Lack of modern machines to produce quality printed work in various sections e.g. Print section
-
Machines are not up to date and therefore lead to high running cost because of frequent repairs.
-
Working space is so squeezed and rely require expansion.
PHOTO GALLERY
The operator
printing customers job using Gestetner 301 Machine A
cutting machine and a Stitching machine at the far right
A staff using the perforation machine A staff showing how the darkroom camera works
Staff doing the print finish business
A display of our graphics machine