St Mary Redcliffe A Year at Redcliffe Magazine 2022

Heritage, visitor experience and retail
St Mary Redcliffe Shop
Since October 2019, we have been very lucky
to have Jackie James working as an almost
full-time volunteer managing the day-today
operation of the church’s gift and book
shop. Prior to Jackie taking on this role,
purchases from the shop were made (almost
at the visitor’s discretion) by dropping coins
in the slot on the welcome desk that is also
used for donations. The lack of a dedicated
member of staff meant that we were unable
to stock more valuable items that might
have been stolen at quieter times, while the
informality of the payment process made
it almost impossible to accurately track
purchases and measure profit.
As a dedicated shop volunteer, Jackie fufils
an important role by enabling us to stock
the shop with a wider variety of items and,
because she is present and available to
take payments, we are no longer reliant on
people dropping coins in a donation box.
A knock-on effect of this is that we are now
able to take card payments using a new (to
us) system called Zettle that links a card
reader to a mobile phone or tablet allowing
card payments to be taken more securely,
limiting the amount of cash that needs to
be handled and held in church. The system
tracks payments and sends funds directly
to the church’s PayPal account. This system
has also allowed us to create a digital stock
library and product inventory, and generate
reports on sales activity. During the next
six months, I hope to integrate this system
with the online version of the church
shop - currently using a different payment
processing software platform - which will
make stocktaking more straightfoward.
All of this is made possible by having a
dedicated Volunteer Shop Assistant and I
am grateful to Jackie for her role in helping
to build what will become an important
source of income for the church during
the coming years. As indicated in the
aforementioned organisational Business
Plan, income generation from hospitality
and retail will be key as we move towards
long-term financial sustainability.
Redcliffe Talks
In autumn 2021, I launched a series of
online lectures on subjects pertinent to the
history of the church and the surrounding
area. My intention in starting this series
of Redcliffe Talks, as they’re known, is to
build awareness of the church’s history
and context while providing material for
the growth in exhibition, storytelling and
interpretation that will be a major outcome
of Project 450 .
The first talk, entitled The Real Thomas
Chatterton, was delivered by Professor Nick
Groom, Professor of English Literature
at the University of Macau; probably the
foremost academic expert on Chatterton
and literary gothic.
The talk was well attended and successful
with some positive feedback submitted
following the event, examples of which are
below:
It was interesting to understand just how
influential Chatterton was in his time on so
many poets and writers. It counteracted all
the misinformation we read about him. A
very good lecturer.
It was such a fluent and cogent talk, given
from a standpoint of authority but without
pretension.
46