Our group of managers and frontline staff primarily from Twin City area church bookstores had been meeting for several years before the creation of regions for the Church Bookstore Network, so it has been a natural fit into Region 6 (Indiana, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Wisconsin).

We have a mailing list of stores we are aware of in the five states that make up our region. We meet at 8 a.m., on the second Thursday of the month, for a couple of hours. We occasionally hold a meeting in the evening in an attempt to offer an alternative to managers who cannot attend a morning meeting. The regular attendees represent stores from Lutheran, Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopal and nondenominational churches.

We take turns hosting the meetings, and it's the host's responsibility to provide coffee and continental breakfast. After we catch up on graduations, weddings and grandchildren, a typical meeting will start out with a short devotional or scripture reading and prayer.

This will be followed by a time of catching up on what's happening at our stores. If a manager has had a particular issue with a customer or vendor or church business manager-these are the most common areas-we will spend time advising or sympathizing as is appropriate. Managers who are less experienced will often bring questions and more seasoned managers will offer council regarding all areas of bookstore management.

The host or anyone else who desires will often invite a local vendor, sales rep, artist or author to attend the meeting and talk about their particular product. This gives us a chance to see things "in person" rather than online or in a catalog, and perhaps buy on the spot-saving shipping. It also gives us a chance to see unique product from a vendor operating on a smaller or "start up" scale. We have also had several meetings with a guest who is attempting to launch a new product, and we will function as a round table panel offering critique, suggestions and encouragement.

--Heidi Macias is manager of Books of Hope at Community of Hope Lutheran Church in Rosemount, Minn.

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