News

reggie reynolds - 30 June 2008

[edited]

Clive Upshall - 30 June 2008

and he's still blaming the union for all the damage HE caused and customers HE let down......in my opinion

gary brake - 30 June 2008

no doubt just like jeff heyes this man is another nodding dog

Mark Hutton - 30 June 2008

Somebody "ambushed" a months worth of shop floor wages and pension cash when i was at B&T'S. Wonder who that was Mr Dolan?

Friary Press lost the customers confidence because they couldn't deliver the jobs on time. Jobs were put on the large sheet B&T KBA presses to try and clear the backlog - we had to jerry rig blocks of wood in the delivery because the work was below press minimum size. We did stuff like that in good faith to try and keep our jobs and still Dolan attacks us on this site.

The Friary ten colour was sited next to my press and despite using B&T purchased ink, isopropanol and sundries i never saw any of it accounted for.

No wonder profits disappeared.

BT Meatman - 30 June 2008

Well said Henry!!!! Like you said the only 'AMBUSH' was done by the man himself also the customers and suppliers who he let down and he keeps blaming the union, if more people were like us and stand up to the bullies then the world would be a better place, all the dodgy crooks that are about would be non-exsistant.

You know who you are !!!!!!!

BT Meatman - 30 June 2008

Watch out Jon Parvin you will be Mr Dolans yes man like Jeff Heyes was at Butler and Tanners. Lets hope you dont get in to the same position as we were in when getting bullied into signing stupid contracts. Stand up to the bully man !!!!!!!!

(mind you he dont like it hehehe)

Martin Davies - 30 June 2008

Mr Dolan stop blaming the union for the down fall of butler and tanner you had no intension of keeping the company open after all if you wanted to keep it open you would have payed our pension money to standard life which you took out of our wages only 1,000 of mind (in my ipinion)

STEVEN ROGERS - 30 June 2008

what happened to Friary reputation Mr Dolan had nothing to do with B&Ts it was down to you ask the many ex employees from Friary that you made redundant last year without the proper notice (sound familiar) saying you had to relocate to Frome. We all no why you did it! now low and behold the poor people who believed you are being told oh by the way Iam relocating you to Worcester not to far away is this all sounding repetitive you go to Goodman Baylis and we will pay your mileage for a month and we will rent a house for you to live in (only he wont say we wont pay the rent) what happens when he changes his mind yet again and they find that they are left with the bill. As for Jon Parvin coming back why did he go in the first place?

brett mann - 30 June 2008

The lies just roll off his tongue. The only ambushing going on was when that muppet wanted us to sign a contract that would have left us open to being sued, if we ever made a mistake during production. The contract was just another obstacle put in the way by that muppet, so as not to do a deal with the union. Just ask ACAS, he did'nt even bother showing at one of the arbitration meetings. What a nasty piece of work he is!

ginger dyer - 30 June 2008

parvin must have hinted he would do it for nothing

and thats probaly what he'll get

Steve Newport - 30 June 2008

Yet more rubbish from Dolans mouth, when will he admit that he just bit off more than he could chew, the man had no idea how to run a print company in my opinion, so continues to blame the union.

Also it makes me laugh when he says about rebuilding Friary Presses enviable reputation in the magazine market, I worked right next to there stitching line, the work from it was awful and B&T's would never have allowed it out of the door, it was only fit for the bin.

meer kat - 30 June 2008

mike dolan is an absolute tosser!!!!

i worked for dolan and all i got was this lousy st - 01 July 2008

the amount of jobs the we had to re-trim from friary press was unbelievable i dont think a week went by when a friary job didnt come back into the guillotine room to be trimmed as square as possible which was near enough impossible as half the time they resembled a diamond shape......dolan wanted to pay us peanuts and peanuts get you monkeys shows the kind of workforce that was at friary press

reggie reynolds - 01 July 2008

well said "i worked". i agree with you their work was absolute rubbish and alot of my day was spent trying to put it right. pay em peanuts you get monkeys. trying to get unskilled people to do skilled persons jobs . premier league firm having to sort out league 2 rubbish. in my opinion of course

i worked for dolan and all i got was this lousy st - 01 July 2008

friary press=the bristol rovers of the print world haha

darrin chutter - 01 July 2008

Thank you for your comment regarding The Friary Press monkey slur! Through no fault of any Friary employee we have also been through the mill over the past year,it is difficult to understand how you (I see you have not left your name) can describe a workforce who has won so many awards over the years for the excellent work produced as monkeys.I have been privelidged to work for The Friary Press for nearly 10 years and the work we produced was of the highest quality so blaming the workforce is a cheap shot.

The work we produced was different to the work produced by B&T but both companies found it difficult to adapt to each others work in the short time we worked together on the machinery in place.

reggie reynolds - 01 July 2008

i have left my name as you can see. alot of your work was of a rubbish quality . i got on well with your workers but you produced poor work. i served an apprenticeship of 3 years so i do know what im talking about.

i worked for dolan and all i got was this lousy st - 02 July 2008

let me quote something you said "so blaming the workforce is a cheap shot." well it didnt stop dolan blaming us did it? whats good for the goose and all that. to be fair i also got on well with most of the friary press crew but you also had some complete muppets down there who did nothing but mess work up and accuse us of stuff if i remember rightly there was a racial incident regarding polish workers? that and ur "top worker" kerry and her "special" friend who on there last day drove past us all on the line and shouted abuse at us knowing they would never see us again (think we are the lucky ones) now that was a cheap shot. But to be fair the guys who dropped off some crates of beer for us on the line were very sympathetic towards our cause so i apoligise to you regarding

branding you a monkey maybe not all of you were but some definatly are which was proved during the picket line.

As for my name well im not going to post that on here when im looking and hoping to get my job back at bulter and tanners that would be stupid im sure some people might guess who this is though

Charles Anderson - 05 July 2008

Darren, thank you for your kind comments about being privileged to have worked at Friary. Like so many of MPI’s manoeuvres Friary’s move to Frome has failed to live up to the publicly announced intentions at the time and no doubt added to Friary’s difficulties.

However the truth is that these difficulties started before the MPI takeover and the man who has just been reappointed MD should take much of the responsibility for Friary’s situation. Whilst no doubt he would claim that circumstances were against him, there is a parallel over the same period in the same market, this being the success that Tony Jones has made of his MBO at Pensord. The contrast is all the more remarkable as Friary was profitable and well equipped at the outset, Pensord was not.

Charles Anderson, MD and owner of Friary Press until Feb 2003.

Adrian Hale - 22 July 2008

 Until Friary moved to Frome work was being produced to a high standard at Dorchester good quality work produced on time to happy customers I cannot comment what happened after the move but the staff were certainly not monkeys B&T were not the only ones to win awards

Mark Hutton - 22 July 2008

To be honest the Friary guys told me they originally ran their jobs on three presses, cutting that down to one was bound to affect production and was down to the managements decision to get rid of the other machines, not the guys who operated them. Thus dates were broken and customers let down.

Keith Shilson - 31 July 2008

As an ex customer of Friary who had been with them for some10 years I feel I must defend the "pre" Dolan Friary press workers output. Never have I known such a relaiable and proffesional bunch of people and managers. the quality of their work in my experience was unbeatable and their passing was a loss for the industry.

If the team's work in the closing days of Frome was poor it would have been because of outside forces beyond their control and to produce work of a poor standard I know would have been a bitter pill to swallow. I have spent hours at the end of Friarys presses with these guys sometimes to the small wee hours and nothing but the best was all they would accept and thats why I stuck with them for over 10 years.

I wish Jon well and can only hope that Mr Dolan leaves him alone to do what he does best, running the Friary Press. As for the lads and lasses at Friary I wish you all the best and thanks for all your hard work in the past. You were the Top Guns of Print in my view....