CELEBRATING 25 YEARS of the WOMEN’S BOOKSHOP

Several hundred people turned out at Ponsonby Central on Monday evening to celebrate the 25th birthday of Carole Beu's Women's Bookshop. 

Present were many of the shops regular customers, along with authors, publishers, booksellers, volunteer helpers, former staff, media folk, publishers reps and friends from far and wide. It was a marvellous occasion.

For those unable to be present here is the speech delivered by Random House NZ's CEO Karen Ferns:

We are here to honour and celebrate the Women’s bookshop 25 years -  a

TRIUMPH of RESILIENCE AND VISION and to recognise what an enormous effort it has taken……..to  not only survive but flourish and become the icon bookshop that it has, where customers feel a strong sense of ownership too.

I am sure Carole will acknowledge the many volunteers and paid staff who have been the very important chorus line to Carole’s lead performance.  .

But on behalf all publishers I want to highlight how grateful we are to Carole for her advocacy of our authors to her customers and the importance of books and reading in contributing to a fulfilling life..

Passion and Energy are the words closely associated with Carole Beu

Thank goodness she had those attributes as they were needed in many challenging months and years that followed the opening of the first site on Dominion Rd.

Carole  arrived a multi tasking school teacher   and understood little of what was ahead of her.

She certainly had no natural affinity with cash flow projections and balance sheets and end of month accounts no matter how hard her accountant tried

It was about learning on the job. But she has great instincts and she knew it was not only about what happened inside the store but also where she could take the store to in the world beyond .

Inside the store it would be about enthusiasm , good personalised knowledge  and great hand selling to loyal customers, tracking down hard to find book s, inviting them to instore events.

All the ingredients of a destination store as it had to be in the early days just to survive particularly in Dominion Rd. The Ponsonby site added an element of increased foot traffic and new customers. She adjusted her stock mix accordingly.

But what Carole excelled at was recognising the Women’s bookshop needed to get its name out and about. So she developed her website and her newsletters full of strong recommendations. She went to conference after conference of social workers and counsellors and worked the breaks to sell high priced specialist books she would import form the US. She leant on publishers to persuade them to fund authors travel to Auckland  her  big theatre events which in time became the ladies literati events. 

She recognised that even though she was often superwoman she needed support to  run the AWF bookstore and joined in with what has become the regular gig with Unity. As part of fulfilling some of these bigger events Carole learnt to drive the quirky Random house Van and made clandestine arrangements with Jill Ewing to pick it up or drop it off in back Auckland streets at strange hours of the night. Because she was always willing to do what it took   to make sure her business was actively managed.It wasn’t just about waiting for customers to come to her. She was happy to go where customers were and sell books there too.

She also reached out to the industry and sat on the Booksellers NZ board and numerous 

sub-committees. She has been very giving of the knowledge she has gained from running her own store. She is a force of nature even if a mellowing one in her grandmother phase of life. She can be

(and I put this in the most delicate way) quite persistent when she gets on the case. As many publishers will know saying no to a request from Carole can lead to a spirited and protracted affair often involving high emotion on both sides. But we publishers have all weathered those moments because it comes from the same source as the passion for what she does and the drive and vision she has to make the Women’s Bookshop succeed. That is to be admired.

I encourage all of you who buy books from the Women’s Bookshop to continue to do so. Give them your support because they deserve it. They work very hard at it and they care about matching the right book to your tastes.

Today Carole we salute you and the team both present and past for this 25 years, it’s a glorious anniversary to celebrate and we also wish you well for  the future and whatever the Women’s Bookshop becomes under your care.

Ladies and gentlemen raise your glasses in celebration of 25 years of  the Women’s Bookshop.

In response Carole graciously acknowledged the many who had helped her over the years - her staff and volunteers, the publishers, the publishers reps,, authors, festival friends and colleagues. 
And she managed to get in a plug at the end for the new Face TV book show that she is helping to get up and running and urged everyone present to donate $5 during May via  www.boosted.co.nz. The fund raising effort is going to be launched at the Women's Bookshop on 1 May at 6.00pm. 
She is endlessly energetic in the cause of books that woman!

A selection of photographs from the celebration.

 Carole addresses the crowd

Anne Kennedy, Alexa Johnston, Carole Beu, Sue Orr, Sarah Laing

Colin Pinfold (Penguin), Rachel Cooper (Random) Marthie Markstein (Random) Michele Hyland, Carole Beu, Margaret Thompson (Penguin), Suzie Maddock (Hachette)

Witi Ihimaera, Carole Beu

 Graham Beattie, Carole Beu, Glynn Lorrigan, Jilleen Cole

Anne O'Brien (AWF), Christine O'Brien (AUP), Carole Beu, Ka Meechan, Karen Ferns (Random)