caithness glass

[wickcouldbegood]

do the people of caithness really know what has gone on with caithnes glass? caithness glass has been bought by an edinbrugh crystal consortium. edinburgh crystal purely wants the name. (why?) too buy in cheap imports to sell as caithness glass!
Caithness glass made in polland or caithness glass made in china will now be the lable on the bottom of glass. This can't be right surely? [mad]
The management of caithness glass were the most incompetent people ever to have run the company. The managing director was layed of straight away (probaly with a big fat payoff) the top sales man today is up for gross misconduct! this is the man who said he could sell glass and because off the his lack of drive sale's was down 2 million in the last year, not due to market conditions. and the other four yes four managers are up for getting layed off. big pay offs again i might add!
In total there was 47 managers in perth alone! and only 32 glass makers in wick and perth combined. too many chiefs and no indians i say.
There chief designer was reguarly going to china to train the people to make our design's so they could buy in cheap imports and they then complained that the competition was getting better! how stupid can they be!!!!!
I am so mad and feel sorry for the people of caithness not just the workers that were there, tourism will be down affecting hotels, guest houses and shops mainly in wick.
There was a chance that people in wick could restart a little visitor lead factory, taking more time with visitors and giving them the chance to blow glass for them selfs. 65 thousand visitors visited wick factory alone last year and this number is half of what it once was. sadly we have been let down by MP'S and case in this one.
One person is making a pound from the consortium. a former manager off course!!! as he has bought all the machinery(paid for by case 2 years ago with our money) in the factory allegedly on behalf of the consortium but is now selling it to anyone that will take it.
People in wick will continue to get a ra deal if we don't speak up and fight for what we beleive in

[Loafer]

An excellent point, but the way things are going nowadays. Look at Hunters of Brora, they received endless millons of taxpayers money from CASE (9 million pounds in fact), they went into receivership, Mr Minter, a director of the company, now owns the name and has inferior products sold under that name.

It makes my blood boil. [mad] [mad] [mad]

The Loafer

[wickcouldbegood]

A lot of poeple campare caithness glass to hunters of Bora but this is not the case. caithness glass received very little compared to hunters 200k compared to 9 million.

If case would have help'd the people of caithness rebuild a glass company for caithness and tourism it would have been great but sadly no word has been heard from case since it closed, it was all just an act for the papers and the same can be said about 2 MP'S who's voices were loud but actions were not [lol]

Imagine a small glass factory themed in the style of old highlands (as all the technics and tools have not change) even the glass blowers wearing light weight kilts taking the time to talk to visitors (65,000) and giving them an opportunity to blow and take pictures of them self's blowing glass. this is just one idea of many that had the chance to help tourism in wick and we had contract to supply the perth factoy with glass they could not produce.

What did we hear????? It would have to be in Inverness. I MEAN COME ON!

[squidge]

I think thats a great idea... another thing a friend of mine suggested was to let parts of the factory to artists who would like studios at cheap rates. There are kitchen facilities and traditional food could be served rather than freeze dried pre prepared stuff. I cant imagine why CASE are not getting interested parties together sitting down and coming up with some ideas. Seems a bit daft to me

[CHESTER]

We would all like to see Caithness Glass should be the hub of a Tourist Trail It's not only attracting Tourist but keeping them here on the wet and windy days .Not only bus tours but family friendly events that also need to be catered for. The right accomadation at a standard that can compete with France ,Germany, etc that means on-suite ,hot-tubs ,sauna's .
If CASE invested in the small thing's(business) that we do well and let them grow ,the anchor stones in Tourism and jobs would last . They say good things come in small boxes (or lets say cornerstones) .It's great to see that local folk wanting Caithness Glass up and running on a smaller more Caithness friendly way and to build on the success that will surely come
.The hard bit is to get the money people to see thing's your way . All of Caithness should lend support to such groups .GOOD LUCK.
Ps my Grannie called Caithness God's Country as it had everything .Great landscape ,lochs ,beaches, rivers, cliff's, the sea ,History (old and new in the making) and the people adaptable, inventive, hardy ,quick tongued and smart ,enjoyers of life and respecters of the weather .A people at Home in their COUNTY

[DannyThe Manny]

If only somebody had the idea to register Caithness Glass as a product that could only be made here. We've got Champagne, only from one region of France and, just recently, Arbroath Smokies, only from one town. But 'Caithness Glass' is just a trademark, make it anywhere and a salesman will tell you what a choice piece you've selected.

Incidentally, has anybody removed the 'Caithness Glass welcomes you to our county and factory at Wick' sign on the border? Not having seen a show of hands, I'll assume that we've got to wait until it either falls down from old age or the Highland Council removes it at our expense.

[wickcouldbegood]

In one day 48 car and a bus came to caithness glass still thinking it was open. maybe this is due to the signs still being up.

Maybe there leaving the signs up so at least some visitors come to wick. They must be very dissappointed to find out it's no longer open.

Is there no way we could register caithness glass just to be made here? If the people of Arbroath can do it why can't we :D

[bacardibabe]

aye the sales director in perth spent most of his time at the back door of the factory smoking.he wasnt interested in the wick site or employees only in brown nosing up the backside of j morris the overall director who came from royal worcester in england of course!!!but what goes around comes around alfie might now be out of work himself.as for selling the equipment left on site well J R was the rotten egg.could this be the reason for the windows being smashed???it makes one wonder how many people would like to pay him back for the way he treated the employees.comments on this please!

[Stacker]

Like your previous post, argumentive again,is this a hobby?

[luskentyre]

Re: Trading names. Arbroath Smokies can only now be made in Arbroath because of a "Protected Geographic Indication(PGI)" status which has been given to them by the European Commission.

I raised this point with John Thurso to see if it applied to "Caithness Glass" and apparently it doesn't! It comes under the heading of "Intellectual Property" - although I don't see the difference myself.

[JAWS]

I suspect the difference is that Caithness Glass is the name of a Company whereas Arbroath Smokies, Champaign etc. refers to a particular product made in a certain location.

Only the Caithness Glass company can use that name whereas there is nothing to stop anybody going to Arbroath and making Arbroath Smokies.

[bacardibabe]

see by the courier today the council are thinking of moving into the glass factory.they didnt take long to jump in there. [evil]

[JAWS]

Well that's one way of stopping it being turned into something useful.

And how many new jobs will that create in Wick?

[Anonymous]

it might create quite a few if the current building is raiised to the ground and replaced by something less of an eyesore.

[JAWS]

But that could be done in anycase.

All it needs is renovation. Replacing it with a modern monstrocity would do nothing for Wick!

Making the Glass Site unavailable is one certain way of making sure it isn't used by anybody who wishes to bring a little competition into Caithness.

[Hate Mornings]

im glad to see the place donw the drain an all them staff outta work, hated workign there! wish it blew up with half them in it!

an dont go banning me coz i gave my opinion niall!

[Anonymous]

Renovation???? its sinking into the ground!

Anyway, as far as I hear it, the council have only said that if the building would be left empty (ie no other interest) they would have it.

I think that whatever replaced the council buildings would have to be better for the town than a lump of offices slap bang in the middle. Plus what about the people who WORK for the council. I'm glad to hear that the council are considering a move thats NOT to Inverness.

To be frank, I'd be happy to see someone manufacturing "little tartan drummer girls in plastic tubes" if they can fill the building and employ a few folk.

[simian sally]

Lo Niall! Hows about "little tartan webmasters in plastic tubes"?

It would create a few jobs, it would be free publicity for caithness.org, and you would be famous.

I hear you are a fine figure of a man in your kilt. ;)

[JAWS]

"We do not tolerate swearing or sexual content (or innuendo) of any kind."
Steady simian sally that's awful close, the thought of Niall's knees - Wow!

[katarina]

I used to work for caithness glass first in the finishing shop35 yrs ago and later in the engraving. In the early days the designs were unique and very caithness. They ruined themselves by growing bigger and importing cheaper glass. I mean, if you want to buy venician glass you have to go to a small factory in venice, yet it is world famous. If caithness glass had remained this way, it would still be viable. i still think that if the ex employees got together they could salvage something.
by the way, John Ross' idea about a sports center is much better than boring old councio office space!

[moshmosh]

As a high school student thoroughly indugled in art I would love to be able to work with glass and I do plan to go to art college and get a degree in glass along with a few others possibilities. The closing down of the factory in Wick and the suggestions of creating the factoy into offices, sports centre etc would ruin my chances (already has without a buyer or whatever) of working in Wick and moving south if I really want to not waste my degree, which is something I'm not that keen on doing, 4 years would be bad enough probably. Then again maybe not.

[Anonymous]

Sports centres are known to be highly profitable and never need huge grant support or increadibly high fees. Thats why there's so many private ones about the country :roll:

[2little2late]

In this Friday's Perthshire advertiser there are vacancies for full and part time sales assistants at Caithness glass Perth visitor centre.

[weeboyagee]

You know the saying "What goes around, comes around"? ;) I hear Edinburgh Crystal bought what was left of the Perth operation of Caithness Glass. I hear they beat the management buyout (who I heard was headed by JM and AI) to the purchase. I hear Dartington was Caithness Glass' main competitor and I hear they have just been sold to Enesco. I hear Enesco pipped Edinburgh Crystal to the post. Guess who I hear the new Managing Director at Enesco is? None other than JM. Guess who I hear the new Sales Director is? None other than AI! I guess then that it won't be long before SP joins the ranks of Enesco ('cause I hear she resigned from Perth). I hear that ALL but one of the directors is now out of a job and that the remaining director is not DM - he's gone too. I hear that most of the administration staff have gone and that the stores goes shortly too. I hear that no orders are going out the door and I hear that the admin block is shut and that all the stuff in there has gone. I also hear that the monkey is being left in charge of the barrel organ in Perth now as well! [lol] But of course,...none of this may be true. ;) EC and Mssrs D&T may have closed the Wick Factory because they didn't see it being part of the continued operation BUT considering that EC are now closing everything else in stages can anyone honestly see any of it being continued? If EC didn't manage to get Dartington (the only company left that could fight them in the market) they have just come up against their most difficult competitor yet - Dartington's buyers who are now headed by the right dishonourable JM and his side kick his disgrace AI - the failed management buyout! What a pity there wasn't a real challenge left to both parties from the home of what they have now quite certainly destroyed! The factory that once operated here, it's employees, their families and this county were dismissed in an instant one evening several months ago at a board room meeting of RW&S Ltd. No matter who holds blame corporately, JM and AI can thank themselves for the promotion they have corruptly received on the back of the people and the creators of the world reknowned Caithness Glass and the remains of their pitiful pension fund. What infuriates the collateral damage trail left behind is the fact that these individuals got their full redundancy and the start of their pension again (most likely not as damaged as the rest of those who were there longer). Some day what goes around will come around - and it will hopefully be in it's ultimate form of humiliation for the directorate of EC's newest competitors. [mad]