TimeUK mounts $22m Evesham bail-out

End of an era

Evesham really must have been desperate to sink that low.

I've bought three PCs from them before, obviously never again, and I doubt I am remotely alone.

Showrooms closed at 5pm today

but no other communication, so whats happening to the staff of these stores...

have evesham just stitched them up for any redundancy pay or what, if the new company exists surely they have to then make them redundant...

Evesham in Administration

Evesham Technology have just announced to thir staff 4:15pm 3rd Aug that most of the staff no longer have jobs becuse the company has been placed into administration - only a small number of staff have been retained.

as Alanis would say

isnt ironic that the same perosn who blames the government for his woes and mismanagement now expect's that same govenrment to compensate his ex-employees dont suppose i will see him down the unemployment line

screwed for redundancy

criminal - company has no assetts? yet it sold all its stock to a TIMEUK company 2-3 weeks ago!??

What a joke

excellent products and services to its customers

^ This if so funny Evesham doesn't give a ****** about it's customers the last few weeks has proven that, the products suck and the customer service is none existent .

Richard Austin didn't have a clue how to run retail showrooms, if you actually gave us stock to sell maybe it would of turned out differently.

And when your area manager email general assistants asking idea's how to drive sales you wonder that the hell they are doing in the position in the first place.

O and the tedious conference calls what a joke, half an hour of your area manager reapting himself constantly gets a bit much.

Staff

I am currently a member of staff at Evesham, although what I witnessed this afternoon was carnage.

People were stood outside the main staff entrance in tears, with guards at the doors not allowing anyone into the building.

Austin has **** on everyone who works there, the way we have been informed of what was going on is terrible and austin should hang his head in shame.

The staff have been treated like dirt, thrown out without a job. Those with a job just wanting to leave as not only collegues but friends are just gone. This happened around 5pm, with people still milling around long after this, people walking out were just carrying the personal possesions that they had left there, dignity shredded by austin himself. The question is how long are the remaining fish going to be there for, because thats what we have all been treated like, fish in a barrel. some shot and fired, the ones who dodged the bullet are allowed to stay... for now.

Thats the problem with this company, the technical support department is still there, but is this just to deal with the remainder of the repairs and speculation to get the word out not to call us again.

The article here suggests that the company will continue to run its top quality service. Well how is that going to happen with production, sale, tech support, workshop and all other departments losing staff.

What Austin has done is disguisting, he has not even been keeping us informed, he gave us a little meeting 6 weeks ago, this is the first we have heard since and for some the last.

For now the ones left will stay as to claim the redundancy pay rather handing in notice with no pay, but the buisiness is a mess and I urge you all to steer well clear of Evesham Technology.

lol..

You seem to know so much about running retail, yet laugh at the idea of senior managers asking you for your input and ideas?

That's even funnier `Evesham Guy` ;)

You think they will get redunancy?

When they've just shit on people that have worked that for 6-7 years+? the rest will go the same way with another dodgy pre-planned buy/sell administration affair.

You think Richard will spare a moment to think about the people he has screwed out of redundancy pay in this way, as he looks at his healthy millionaire bank account?

Don't count on it - someone who built a company from ground up on reputation and service has just shown what kind of person, even a good one, can turn into.

As for finding out - the stores were closed by administrators/bailiffs - they didn't even get a special Richard Austin announcement - half of them still don't know if they have a job or not because no ones told them Evesham is no more.

Government needs to stop companies from performing disgraceful acts such as this, Evesham had the stock and should have died with some dignity and paid the loyal staff that they did have their due monies.

Instead they took the cowards way out and shafted a lot of people, I hope their reputation is destroyed forever.

No Information

The area managers did what they were told. Richard Austin should be ashamed. Nobody has notified any of the store staff that they are redundant. We have no offical word at all from anybody. The bailiffs turned up at 5:30, and at 7:00, I was on my way home. For all of the birmingham customers that have machines in the back, we did try and call this afternoon, and for all the birmingham customers that have machines being built, you will have had a phonecall from us this afternoon, or a message left. Contact your credit card companies for a refund right away.

Richard Austin should be ashamed of the way he has treated staff, it really is disgraceful.

Jordy

Redundancy

Some of you here don't seem to understand what is going to happen to "sacked" staff. No-one is sacked. The laid off people are being made redundant. The company owes them all redundancy money plus payment in lieu of notice. The company doesn't have enough money to pay, possibly, but the staff will become creditors, and rank above banks and other creditors (the Inland Revenue will rank first for missing PAYE and VAT, though). So if there is anything to liquidate, the staff will get some of the money owed.

sympathies

I'm sort of sympathetic given my own business went tits up when New Labour required approved suppliers (like anyone sane would choose RM for anything!) in education. The amount of times I was told "sorry but I can't go to governors and say we're turning down money even though I know you'd still be cheaper" was something to behold.

It did however teach me never to do business with any part of govt as they change the rules/laws/quangos to benefit themselves - or so it appears. Hopefully Evesham have now learned the same lesson.

I think the problem with that is...

Evesham sold its good stock to TIMEUK weeks ago in order to get money back into the business to then pay disgruntled suppliers.

This would mean that once this type of deal was done, the suppliers would still be happy to trade with Evesham (or whatever the new company is called) afterwards.

I'm just guessing here, but that's where the staffs redundancy money will have gone - the company was running on empty prior to this closure.

lol

You seem to know so much about running retail, yet laugh at the idea of senior managers asking you for your input and ideas?

That's even funnier `Evesham Guy` ;)

^^^ Do u know why I laugh at area managers asking for input on driving sales because I have done so for 7 yeas and they just ignore you IT WAS A WASTE OF TIME but they still wanted ideas , Evesham wanted everything done on the cheap, didn't want to spend any cash and im talking about 3 years back the good times, still wouldn't to jack to get some exposure.

I did crap loads of cold calling and 9 out of 10 they would say "Evesham WHO ????" nobody had a clue about evesham

I think you'll find...

the regional managers got just as frustrated by the lack of "investment" in retail as you did, I know mine did, and his manager too - but their hands were tied, it's always been that way regardless of who the regional managers were.

Don't blame them for the companies inability to invest in retail, blame the people at the top who were so fixated on business sales - only then for business sales to ultimately be the cause of Evesham's demise - forget these excuses about HCI - yes it made up a large portion of sales, but what were they doing before this came in?

Retail sales alone will never carry a company along when it's main focus is NOT retail sales, this was just another angle of the business, and once the business side of Evesham failed to bring in the numbers (for whatever reason) retail was always doomed - regardless of how many cold calls you made.

There are some damn good staff (sorry, were) in the branches and they will be much better off (and better paid!!!!!!!!!!!! 15k for a store managers job with x amount of business sales required too was just a joke and you are worth more than that! The same goes to the sales people, the skills most of you had are unseen in so many retail companies that any companies with a clue will see the talent you have for selling *AND* customer service - something sorely lacking in a lot of companies.

Whilst it's not an easy time for all, think of it as a blessing that you actually got out with some experience with which to take to a company that will recognise your talents and reward you for them, and I'm sure most customers that you guys and girls have dealt with would praise you for customer service at the branches.

Yeah

I understand that area managers hands were tied but asking stupid questions about ideas to increase sales just really got on my tits.

I know this is all done to RA inability to run a company reallied far to much on HCI didn't have any sort of back up plan after HCI went tits up . I mean what happened to all the profit that HCI made did RA invest back into the company hmmm didn't look like it to me my showroom looked like a bag of shit falling to bits. How many times was my showroom promised a reimbursement hmmm about 20 even went to the planning stage before i bet RA pulled the plug .

Evesham fiasco

Please don't assume the Evesham management are to blame: they are probably between a rock and a hard place and have no input into whats happened. I would think it likely that the whole episode is orchestrated by the Mohans and sounds like a rerun of the Time administration. There we all knew the place was going tits-up but nothing was said by "the management". In both cases all the directors - bar the MD - did a runner before the eventual closure, presumably in objection to what was planned by the brothers, who were the real power in the business.

If they've managed it as well as they did the Time closure, all the money will have been extracted from the business and those redundant will be looking to the the goverment for their redundancy. At Time the DTI were involved at an early stage and rushed through the redundancy quicker than normal. If they are not involved yet - get them in, quickly. Also a point to remember is that at Time those in the Trade Union effectively got paid off twice - once for redundancy, but also a very similar award due to lack of consultation prior to the redundancy. If any of you are in a Union, get them to liase with the GMB over what happened at Time - there is a useful precedent there that you could be able to follow.

One thing seems for sure - there's no future for anyone at the Evesham site. There is so much spare capacity at Simonstone that there would be no point running both.

On a different tack, who are the administrators?

Still in shock...

I still can't believe we had no official statement to say we were all out of work. The first most of us knew about it was when the people representing the administrators walked into the showrooms, said they were there to do a stock check and someone was going to change the locks and we had to send our staff away. We all assumed we would at least get *some* notice, and a chance to find new jobs, but nope - Richard Austin screwed us all over by doing this, and the people who get to stay probably won't get to stay for long. I finally left my showroom at just gone 9, having stayed behind to help with the stock check, and I'm actually still in shock.

There were some truly great people working for this company, and none of us deserved this, especially after the last few weeks of having to bullsh*t to our customers about the lack of stock. To all my former colleagues at Evesham, whether I knew you or not, I wish you all the best.

Moral Standards........

Any company undergoing a major re-structure would at least have the decency to discuss this with employees. I find it totally incredulous that any company that has spent so long building a solid and reputable foundation can now find it so easy to throw this out the window and not even notify the employess in the showrooms until some gray faced gentleman with a warrant badge turns up late afternoon on a Friday and says I'm sorry your out of a job!

This is not how you play the game Mr Austin.

I understand you have a business to run and need to make money, but do you really need to treat the people that run your business for you like that?

Appoligise from an suddenly ex employee

firstly can i say sorry for the customers of evesham technology, you are no longer goin to get the help you need.

due to fact is lots of the employees lost there jobs today.

For there reasons richard austin the chair man was there in the canteen standing silent while we were all told by some other person from administration that we all lost our jobs!

barely a hand few were left,

Engineers, buisness, technicians, sales, u name it were all told we were sacked so to speak!

I have given that company the best part of 5ish years and to see my job be gien up just like that makes you sick!

Why Richard never had the balls to tells us makes you think!!

The company wont continue the way it was cause there is hardly anyone left to do so!

i regreat to inform the customers of evesham this has happened

What a mess

I Also work at evesham and I spent 2months worrying about my job, when it was announced.

We were kept in the dark for 2months and then all rounded up into the canteen and told to to leave etc. Department managers had no idea what was going on.

The day before customers machines couldnt be repaired because of no parts. Items werent being shipped out due to not being able to pay for collections. The whole place went into total melt down.

I sat outside watching mates and employees leaving and probably never returning :(. (Was there a real need to get rid of 90% of staff.) This is a real sorry sight as most people i knew and got on with have been with evesham for years.

As 5:00pm drew closer it became obvious that something was happening. 4:30 mail server was turned off, 4:45 Meeting called, 5:00 employees being escorted out of the building.

Once again i cant describe the havoc this week has been, I can only feel dissapointed in how Richard dealt with this matter and how badly the we were treated. Im suprised that we didnt all walk out .

Thanks for all the fish

Evesham staff

Posted Friday 3rd August 2007 23:37 GMT

For all the many years I've bin with Evesham, i can say it was great, until the last 2 or 3 years. Both middle and top management were the most blinkered and useless I have ever worked for. swapping whole systems out just because a fan on the agp video card didnt work, as we didnt do agp any more.( customer new pc, evesham, loss of sale and a stack of parts that are old and useless.) As Evesham micros / technology or woteva it has mutated to, my heart goes out to my fellow collegues, who like me, have been really screwed. If Richard had any heart, he would have employed us all to the new company, and then made us redundant with the money we deserve. The company isnt 'bust', its just a different name, the same as Time did. Its left us to wait for compensation from the government, while it carrys on trading under some new name. I dont know whos worse off, those laid off with no redundancy pay, or the poor people now working for Evesham-Time-Geemore or woteva its called. As for all of you that have bought Evesham kit, well good luck with it, you now have less than half the staff to support it. If you are an employer, and you have an ex evesham employee in front of you in an interview, just know that this person will be loyal and hard working, we all did our best to the end, and we were discarded and treated like street trash. As for the future of Evesham , well only TIME will tell

think this subject needs a forum

Why no mention of Administration in reports?

I can't understand that none of the reports have mentioned administration, just restructuring or rescue package.

I was confronted by a bailiff and told he was acting for an administrator, the fact that Evesham is still trading as the same company and claiming that it is just a restructure almost certainly means that this is a pre-pack administration and all staff that have lost their jobs should get their redundancy from the new company, or the old one if you believe what they have reported.

A good customer of the Nottingham showroom, who is an administration advisor, has explained to us that in this situation the new company takes on the contracts or responsibility for redundancy payments from the company they are buying or "rescuing".

He said above all do not panic, this takes a little Time.(excuse the punn).

This is very different from a full administration, in that Evesham are still trading now and have turned this around in hours, this can not be a full administration, so the company we all worked for is still there and should have to pay us all redundancy. I am certain we will all hear something on Monday.

If not I will see you all out side Evesham HQ Tuesday 10am

:-) and for a drink at 12PM.

I wish all the ex-staff and the loyal customers a good future.

Disgusting

I was one of the lucky few who saw what was coming and managed to get out early, however i have been on the phone to friends and ex-colleagues all evening many in tears.

Evesham was more than a workplace we were like family, It wasn't about the job it was about the comaradarie.

RA seems to have forgotten the people that put that ferrari in his garage (well at least until the floods hit - divine retribution???) and the food on his table

The whole situation was handled abysmally by all concerned, the people who have been made redundant now face an uncertain time waiting to hear how long they will have to wait for redundancy packages and where these payments will come from - Do you think their bank managers and mortgage lenders will be sympathetic - will they say "you know what don't worry about paying your bills this month it's fine!" i doubt it very much.

What is even worse is there are a large number of couples who both work(ed) for Evesham and so they have now possibly lost complete household incomes - many of these people have famlies to support and with a new school year about to start the expenses are horrible - but hey - Kids don't need shoes do they!?

For the few staff that remain - i wouldn't be in their place for anything - can you imagine the number of calls that are going to be flooding in as soon as the news goes out to all the Evesham Customers who are expecting to recieve that World Class customer service Evesham has banged on about for so many years.

To my firends that are left - good luck you are going to need it!

To my friends that have been scrapped - Look at it as a lucky escape.

Amazingly a lot of the (ex) employees still feel that RA did his best by them and had no choice - remeber that on Monday morning whenyou have no where to go besides the job centre!

Amen to that...

I have to agree the way the late great big blue 'E' has behaved have been absolutely disgusting.

With no methods of payment left to the showrooms (debit, cash, cheque and finance ALL being withdrawn) and the laughable balls up with the courier company leaving us no stock; it's no wonder the whole retail arm of the company ground to a halt! And people wondered why we were all bordering on the side of caution..? Sales is a cut throat world but 99% of all sales staff in the big blue 'E' were real human beings, we had lives and we had moral issues with over-selling to people (unlike some firms...), always put the customer first and (more often than not resulting in putting ourselves out personally with no hint of thanks) prided ourselves in giving the customer the very best service we could, thus earning ourselves the highest recommendations as 'the' bespoke (and only premiere UK based) IT manufacturer. We often would not think twice about putting in that extra mile for a man who never bothered directly communicating with the people who made him his money!

Despite threat of closure and for those in the know you know who we are, we managed to hold back the wolves from our doors and hold on to our pride and dignity until the bitter end; which happened around 5.05pm Friday 3rd August 2007. This day will always be remembered as a mark of disrespect from someone on 'Mount Olympus' to all those 'mere mortals'...

I feel a new verb has been added to the 'E' nglish language. 'To Austin'... Make of that what you will...

To my former colleagues, and there are unfortunately quite a few; my respect and sincerest sympathies, my heart goes out to you all. If I'm ever in a position to receive a CV with Evesham Technology in it, rest assured you are guaranteed a job for I know the calibre of employee you are. To my customers; I am ashamed. I hope in the next life you will find it in your heart to forgive me; for I was like mushroom - fed on s**t and kept in the dark.

Ex Employee

Having worked for Evesham Technology for just short of 11 years I thought I deserved more than a 2 minute phone call to say I no longer worked there.

I was not even told face to face.

I hope Richard Austin and his side kick Shaun Morris can sleep at night knowing just what a shambles they have made of this whole fiasco. The pair of them can keep their crocodile tears, what a joke that was pretending they were upset,obviously loyalty means nothing these days but hey as the saying goes what goes around comes around.

Title

As the wife of one of the managers, can I just say virtually everyone was kept in the dark. My husband was as shocked as Joe Bloggs was and is now going to the job centre on Monday like everyone else. He enjoyed his 10 years there and loved the atmosphere most of the time-but the last 6 weeks every one was in limbo.

There had been rumours E would merge with another company but then when RA turnedcoated thats why the directors left enmass in disgust.

You chaps/chapesses were good why not approach Gordon Brown and ask him to set up the 1st nationalised computer co. you have all the skills needed-just money required or get together and set up your own co. Maybe approach some of the old directors for financial backing. Become the "E-phoenix ".

I hope you all get your due monies ASAP and all find new employment, maybe still working with some of your old colleagues.

BB Site

Chaps - FYI if you need a site to contact each other on, the old Time Independant Employees Forum is still existant (though not used much) as was specifically set up to be a point of contact in cases like this. Its at http://pub2.bravenet.com/forum/123673187

Unfortunataly the other two forums tinycon.com and tinysux.com were both shut by legal action. However the ITEF is still there, works and is available for postings.

The other point is get together to act.

(1) Push for a rapid redundancy payoff. If the old company has been closed and is cashless, then you have to claim from the DTI. Do it as quickly as possible

(2) As there has been no period of consultation over the redundancy you have an additional legal claim for this failure. If you take them to court you will win. Speak to your Union over this - if you don't have one, try discussing it with the GMB - they've had a longrunning campaign against the way the Mohsans treat their staff.

another interesting thing is the time on the byeline

some seventeen minutes before we were told anything

Laughable

As a now Ex-Employee of Evesham you can imagne i have been checking out all the on line stories around yesterdays goings on.

I find it laugable that the representative from Time who have supposedly sent Evesham a $22 million pound lifeline has commented on a couple of sites that - “Evesham is an excellent brand which has always offered a level of service which its customers have grown to love. By funding this restructuring, we intend to allow Evesham to continue delivering excellent products and services to its customers, so it’s business as usual.”

How exactly are they intending on offering the service our customers have come to expect and business as usual with only a handful of staff to cover not only their own jobs, but also the jobs of their now missing colleagues?

It seems that even now, after all that has happened those that are supposed to be working for the best of the employees and customers alike still cannot tell the truth, or maybe they are just burying their heads in the sand?

Or worse still maybe now that most of the staff who could have sold, built or supported the products have been given the boot, Time will use the stock Evesham sold them at a ridiculously low margin last month to fulfill all the Evesham back orders, i doubt any of the Sales staff will see the commission on these orders even though it is they that have gone out and found the customers in a vain attempt to help keep the company going.

The management could take a lesson from it's employees - we didn't look for the easiest solution when the going was tough we pulled together and tried to find new channels and new customers to bring in business - makes me feel sick now to think of the hours i personally put in working on deals that i won, but never received a word of thanks for, i know it was my job and sales was what i was paid for, but like many of my friends at Evesham i put in more hours than i was paid for and i know for a fact that we all went above and beyond the call of duty to try to save our Evesham Family.

Lets just hope that some of that $22 million goes to the now ex-employees who come Monday when the reality sinks in will find it is anything less than "Business as Usual"

Another ex employee from Peterborough

Well after reciving a phone call from my friend at work telling me the Administrators had arrived and i needed to come in on my day off to hand my keys in as i had no job any more i was very pissed off as you can imagine. But what really was annoying is when i turned up at 11am ish i was told by my reginol manager that the whole thing was a cock up and the showrooms were not closing down and that we were all still in our jobs shortly after the Administrator left and my manger returned after i had called him telling him this was a balls up i went home after all this was supposed to be my day off!!! imagine my utter disgust when i recive a call from my manger this morning informing me not to come in to work any more as i no longer have a job, this is beacuse after being promised we still all had a job the admistrator turned up again ariund 5pm yesterday telling him he had to leave again and this time it wasnt a cock up :(. I cannot belive that both the loyal Staff and the customers have been treated in such a way to the customers who have returned your goods to us under warrenty i am sorry but you may never see your goods again to they guys at peterborough i worked with you guys were the best Manger / deputee manger i could of worked with if only the people higher up would of listend to your suggestions maybee Evesham wouldnt have gone the way it did. And finaly to the rest of the Evesham staff that i didnt know good luck to you all i hope you all find jobs where you are treated with the respect you all deserve (rant over :D) G

tearful descibes last night.

FIRSTLY I MUST SHOUT AT THOSE THAT PLANNED ALL THIS.

Just a short message from thse in the know to people "saying keep your eyes open for a job guys" As it was, they were probably scared most people would walk out leaving the fiasco to fall to peices before they were ready to take their cut.

Stupidly, most long timers such as I (9 years) would have rallied and pulled out all the stops to help should they have told us. That's your loss Richard.

there is a good chance we'd have stayed for a pay cut. thoses that decided to leave may have been large numbers but i doubt it would have been much different to those that were dumped.

Giving staff no information was WRONG

"managers" telling everyone the rumours were not true was WRONG (i use the term manager as a name not a description of what they did)

WE ALL SAW the stock moving to TIME over the last few weeks. stock that was already paid for by customers and just needed building or shipping.

EVESHAM was more than a place, it was filled with some of the best people i know i will ever meet.

ONCE AGAIN, JUST A MESSAGE SAYING "JOBS ARE AT RISK" WOULD HAVE SAVED A LOT OF HERATACHE. BUT NO, YOU WERE SCARED PEOPLE WOULD WALK AS YOU HAD PAID THEM EARLY.

MAYBE IF YOU HAD A LITTLE MORE FAITH RICHARD YOU MIGHT HAVE DISCOVERED JUST HOW FAR THE BEST STAFF IN THE COUNTRY WERE WILLING TO GO WITH YOU

I am sad, very sad, but there is a GROUP of people at evesham that don't need to work in the same place to keep freindships made at Evesham into the rest of thier lives.

look this GROUP up on face book, just type in evesham for those lost on Monday. some solace can be gained from good freinds should you need it.

J

Life in the PC Business

Just a few words from someone who has kept a watching eye on Evesham for many years after leaving. The company achieved sales of over £100M some years, anyone who says Richard Austin cannot run a marketing led business needs to look at that figure. I am confident that Richard will have done everything in his power to save the business in its original form, whatever people may say or think his business meant a lot to him personally. As for all the comments here about not knowing how to run a company, perhaps those people could try it themselves? The PC market place is incredibly wafer thin margin wise thanks to the transparency of the internet, The Gross margin that most PC companies make is near the Net margin of most other business sectors. It is a consistent rule of business that to keep going and keep employing people you have to make sufficient profit and not lose money, it is clear Evesham were not achieving this but to blame Richard Austin for that is extremely narrow-minded.

Yes people have lost their jobs and this is a real shame and with the business in the state it was not avoidable. To those that worked there in recent time remember that Richard paid you early to ensure you all got paid until the end of July, or has that been forgotten already?

To the person who highlighted the removal of all 'cash' based payments for customers. This would only be to protect those customers from losing their money. Another sign that Evesham were trying their best to prevent to issues caused by the previous failures of other companies.

Companies go bust every day for various reasons, I am sure Evesham could have done things differently but so could every company. One thing is for sure is that Richard will be worse off without the 'old' Evesham, maybe some people may say that is justified but he built the business to where it was and his marketing skills pulled the company out of trouble many times. I am sure we can all run 'perfect' businesses in our heads but reality is so often different. To all those people who I classed as friends when I worked there for my 11 years I wish them all the best.

Ex Employee MK201

I used to work for evesham (as from yesterday) and eventhough I am without and job. I met a lot of decent people there who are in the same position as me. I feel gutted and let down, just like other people who have commented on this site. However, no one has mentioned the position the customers are in. What I mean is I have been told to lie to my customers about the delays on their orders when I know dam well that they will not be getting their goods! There is no courier and no stock!! I know I should be thinking of myself first, but that is the wrong attitude. OK, I have no job to go for but most people who I dealt with have been saving up for ages to spend £1.5K with a "reputable comany" and parted with their cash with me under the trust of myself and the company and I feel that they have been let down big time. If you are a customer and is waiting for your goods, please think VERY hard in what your position is at the time of speaking.

Best Wishes

To all my old friends at Evesham, I hope everything goes OK for you. I meant to keep in touch with my best buddies, wish I had now. HCI wasn't to blame, it was just a natural process of PC's becoming a commodity. Anyone who remembers me, get in touch any time. Darren.

Wiki

The Wiki page for Evesham Technology has been updated and suggests they're still going to exist... just from India!

Quote:

"Evesham Technology has on the 3rd August 2007 made almost their entire workforce redundant as Time UK plans to restructure using the Evesham name on their inferior products. The remaining staff will stay to complete outstanding orders until they will finally be made redundant. PC manufacture will then be relocated to india where lower production costs will ensure competitiveness. Support will also be eventually outsourced overseas to reduce operating costs."

Disappointment

I am in the same boat as most of these people who have Commented on this site. I was one of the people in the canteen yesterday. Not only am I angry about losing my income. I am more angry about loosing my best friends who have helped my throughout my 2 1/2 years of fun, hard work and teamship. The company had a great, professional team who were dedicated towards the welfare of the company and we all got was a let down, big time. Cheers RA, my mate. I just hope you can sleep tonight in the back seet of you Ferrari.

Another Ex.Exployee, but one who escaped in the nick of time!

Shocked and horrified to read this morning what happened at Evesham yesterday. By a stroke of luck I managed to escape from, what has always been a wonderful company to work, only 6 weeks ago! And that's after 16 years there!

My thoughts go out to all those splendid people who have worked their socks off over the last few years and have found themselves in this situation. It's easy to throw blame around here, but I don't think Richard (Austin) had many choices left to him in the end.

Employers be aware! Evesham Technology ex.employees are 'GOLD', give them a chance and you won't be disappointed - some of the finest employees I've ever worked with!

Gordon Brown and his 'guaranteed' HCi scheme, that was pulled with only 10 days notice!!! Hang YOUR head in shame - his personal decisions at that time had been a major factor in this (what can I do, but change my vote next time).

Good luck everyone involved. I'm thinking of you all!

so I take it the web site needs updating:-

http://www.evesham.com/cms/info/jobs/default.asp?e=AA4C1709-AFD6-4D89-A9E3-3583CB6AA549

N o surprise...

RA just got lucky and had no massive business skills but was just in the right place at the right time and finally his luck ran out.

Its amazing some people are shocked they ended it like this considering sounds pretty much the same way they ran they did it and treated the staff in the past 3 redundancies - Anyone remember PRP? ever heard of completive salaries anyone?, working hours changed at the drop of a hat? and no hope of moving up within the company except for the favoured few.

I'm glad I got out when I did and its been obvious for a long while the end was coming, and I wish all the staff that didn't manage to in time the best for the future. You put up with their poor working conditions for far too long and without a doubt the grass is much greener on the other side.

To the friend of Richard trying to defend him...

Before you start talking about how Richard did this that and the other over the last few years, why don't you think about the fact that Evesham continued to pay only its most senior staff (directors) a high salary whilst most others remained on an income that was only "mediocre" SEVEN years ago.

It took showroom staff to put pressure on a completely misguided marketing manager (no names) who believed that advertising in any other national paper such as The Mirror, Sun and so on, was something only "cheap" companies would do despite the fact that so many young professionals with incomes of 20-25k+ read these papers on a daily basis.

Is that your idea of "amazing marketing skills"? lol you're as ignorant as they if you truely believe that.

Where did the money go from the year Evesham pulled 100+ profit, because I'll tell you now - it wasn't invested back into the company, and that's what you do if you want your business to really grow and succeed - you invest in it, instead most of the showrooms for example look like run down £1 shops.

But hell Richard and co - you probably never knew that because I personally don't EVER remember seeing you at one in 7 years.

Instead the business was left to slowly deteriorate over time with a lack of investment and lack of direction, HCI came at a point when Evesham were heading for trouble - if it hadn't arrived then all this would have happened a LOT sooner.

The fact that HCI was such a success was down to one man too - Curtis Maclean, former Director of Sales, who funnily enough - also got shat on by Evesham - the man who probably saved Evesham through his realization of HCI and sheer cockney talent, wasn't safe from this kind of treatment either and you can find stories about that if you search too! :)

There will are a lot of bitter people after this, but as I've said before - move on, I know it's hard, but claim what you can from these scammers/government, and take your skills to a job where you will get paid what you are worth!

The only company I know where they expect their sales people to be the best in the industry, yet pay them less money than the spotty kid working for McDonalds.

It's testament as to why so many people stayed as long as they did, because they actually loved the company as much as you Richard (obviously more it seems).

We deserved more

A sad and rather undignified way to go out, but then given the last few weeks I suppose we should've expected nothing more or nothing less. I wasn't in on Friday, but heard all about the sorry debacle when my boss called me at 5.15pm to say I was out of a job. 5 and a half years gone in the blink of an eye. C'mon Richard, a months notice is the LEAST we, your loyal employees should have expected and received don't you think? :(

HCi might have played a big factor, but of course its not the main reason a few hundred staff are now out of jobs and heading for the dole queue Monday morning...however I'm not gonna sit here and start slagging off the management, no point.

I'd just like to say I worked with some great people at Evesham, more than a job, it was a group of friends who I hope to stay in touch with. I thank Evesham for the opportunites given to me but a bitter taste is left in my mouth at how this has been handled. Now the good people of Evesham are left competing for jobs...fingers crossed we all get work at companies where we are are treated in a more dignified and professional manner in times of hardship. Next few weeks will be tough on all of us, especially those with mortgages to pay and families to feed but we'll survive and come back stronger. Good luck everyone. Tom

Better news ish

If my calculations are right and Evesham made over 100 people redundant on Friday, according to the DTi website and hand book he would have had to have given them 90days notice or he personally faces a £5000 and court costs. If he has carefully limited the redundancies to less than 100 it would have been 30days.

If he is not taken to court, he knew what he was going to do back in May.

As for the posting that say's we should not blame him, I'm sorry but he took the profit and bought a Ferrari when times where good, he can take the blame now it's gone tit's up.

There are other options when down sizing a company due to falling sales and the low profit without shafting your friend and colleges that have given many years service to you. As for the marketing skill did you ever see the E2u that he proof read?

I am sure anyone would feel differently if they were working there over the last month and were now out of work.

When things get sorted out we should apparently be due roughly 1 weeks pay for every year we worked for the company, providing it is more than 2 years and less than 12, in lue of notice payment and roughly the same for anyone of showroom manager and below wage in redundancy payment. Unless we get a job before we claim, then things change a bit and you could loose lue of notice.

The funny thing on the DTi site is that if we have not been officially told in writing that we are redundant we still accually class as working for Evesham Technology.

See you Tuesday Morning at HQ :-)

A Customer

I've just dropped my £3000 computer at Evesham for repair. Ever since the original purchase back in April I have found support to be very poor. I am now concerned what will happen to my computer??? No one at the main office showroom in Evesham mentioned anything about what was happening. I feel really sorry for you guys.

eveSHAMbles

Having been at Evesham for the last three years, its a real shame how it all ended.

I'm sure Richard tried his best, but unfortunately the PC market is volatile and we just couldn't keep up. A lot of posters are conveniently ignoring the fact that we got payed a week early by Richard to ensure that we were payed for July.

However, the way the whole administration was conducted was clandestine, to say the least. Endless speculation during the last 2 months was the worst with the rumour mill being in full operation.

Recivieng an email at 4:25p.m directing half your team to the canteen and the other half downstairs.

Shutting off the email servers at 4:30 and having an administrator with short-man syndrome keeping it short (sic) by telling you to collect your belongings and leave the building with 5 minute notice was a bit difficult to stomach.

Made so many good friends at Evesham and its those who will be missed the most.

I hope for all the best to everyone I worked with and for the few guys still at the SHAM, hope it works out for you.

What happens next?

My mother worked at Evesham for over 10 years and yesterday, like many of her colleagues, was suddenly told she no longer had a job (although her Manager didn't even have the decency to tell her face to face and only called her on her mobile after much cajolling by her colleagues on site).

It appears that the staff were sent X Factor style into two rooms to await their fate with one being the "Winning room" (ha ha) and keeping their jobs and the other employees being told to leave almost immediately. Surely, if the company has been put into administration, as stated by RA, how can certain employees be retained and others told to leave when no appropriate consultation period or selection process for redundancy had taken place previously. Who decided which employees stayed and which didn't and upon which set of criteria was this based upon according to appropriate employment law? Who will the employees be working for from Monday and will they need to reapply for their own jobs?

So many questions... but what I really feel is that those employees who have been so badly let down should not give up and roll over. Let Richard Austin and his merry men know exactly what a mistake they made in treating such loyal staff so badly by showing them what you are capable of. Why not jointly appoint a legal representative to advise upon the legality of these actions? Set up a pressure group, contact local and national media, whistleblow and tell your stories. Do not let this lie and do not allow the Directors to walk away and continue to trade upon the good Evesham name - let it become synonymous with underhanded dealings, lies and deceit from a Management that should have known better and should have done much more to protect its loyal staff.

Questions

So a few questions

1) Were any of the staff in a union? If so which one, and are they on the case?

2) Have you heard anything from the DTI about redundancy payments? You should have been given claim forms to fill in. Have you? If not get onto the DTI urgently

3) Who are the administrators? So far I've not seen them identified anywhere.

Another Ex-Employee

As an ex-after sales support technician (tech support) dealing with the more tricky issues, I can safely say that it's unsurprising that the company had ended this way.

Constant releases of products that were basically un-fit for the intent in which they were sold, with little or no information about said products given to anyone in tech. In fact, only really the product managers ever got to see the products before our customers did, oh apart from the people who packed them into the boxes.

QA checks before equipment was sent out were non-existant, bad components were continuosly used (and sold) with known problems that *would* affect customers, presumably due to some cushy deal with said suppliers. R+D were completely unable to do their jobs and completely over-ruled by the profit margin. I personally was a specialist for one product, that I'd never even used .. we ended up learning more about our products from customers than from any internal source, not that the more senior technicians didn't try, but they were so bogged down with bereaucracy and an almost conspiratorial veil of secrecy over any information that could prove to be useful that they simply could not perform the job which they were aiming to do.

So essentially a company reliant on it's image was forced into selling inferior products coupled with an under-equipped after-sales department collapsed, as it was inevitably going to do in most people's eyes, and especially at the Director / MD level ..

Which is such an incredible waste as there were some truly talented people in tech support and across the whole company, a great bunch of people, united in the face of adversity until the end, unfortunately they've all been totally bitchslapped by the very hand that fed them.

I just hope that everyone can move on to other jobs and stay in contact with each other, and to all the ex and current employees of Evesham Technology Ltd - Nill Illigitimi Carborundum.

To the author of life in the PC Business

You ar right the margins in the PC industry are incredibly tight and the whole product area is a nightmare to try to deal in.

However - Evesham had diversified into TVs, PVRs etc to broaden their market and continue to bring in much needed cash and i for one know that although the margins may not have been earth shattering they were still good.

I think the problem most ex and current employees have is the shabby way the whole fiasco has been handled, to be herded into the staff canteen like a load of slaughterhouse cattle to be informed that they no longer had jobs was diabolical - where was the loyalty in that - these staff have been working their socks off in very trying circumstances to try to save not only their own jobs, but also the reputation of Evesham and to try to ensure that customers received the goods and services they had paid for - you have no idea how hard it was to try to explain to customers that we had no idea when their PC or TV would be with them and then watch critical components and hundreds of peripherals ship to Time's warehouse was annoying to say the least. The number of understandably irate people i have had to talk to recently is terrifying, i began to dread the phone ringing because whilst i could empathise with the customers i also did not deserve the amount of verbal abuse i receieved, especially when requests for senior management to contact some of the larger customers were ignored.

Yes Richard built the company from scratch and put a lot of effort into it's continued growth, but take a look at the real picture - i doubt he will be worrying where his next pay packet is coming from, whether he can clothe his children or even pay the mortgage next month and i very much doubt he will be off to the job centre on Monday to join the queue of people looking for a new job - on the contrary i am sure he will have ensured that his back is covered.

Disgusting

As a former manager I can tell you that HCI had an effect but it was not to solely to blame. All the directors played part, not just RA. More than anything he is guilty of letting a people run his company into the ground! The directors have all done a very poor job for the last 2 years. They have talked an awful lot about great plans and delivered nothing. The board has not been able to manage business sales properly for 4 or so years. Last count was 5 or 6 assorted managers and directors over the period and a steady decline. HCI was the great saviour and when that went the idea was to base everything we did on the HCI model because that was the great saviour. HCI HCI HCI… What a load of bollocks. They have just made one poor decision after another dating back to before Mertec was purchased.

All the directors were paid out a month ago and you can be sure the man at the top is not going to struggle. Hang your heads directors! I would also suggest not showing your faces around Evesham town for a while.

The last 2 months and Friday’s fiasco were disgusting and unforgivable.

I have one suggestion to the staff still there. Get Organised! Don’t take their rubbish! And get out as soon as you can!

Good luck

Firstly I would like to say good luck to everyone that has gone, there ARE better jobs out there, where you WILL get better paid and get YEARLY salary increases

Any staff that are left will need to seek assurances that there is money to pay them, they should also be asked if they want to carry on working for this "sham" of a company and if they don't they too should be given redundancy

Notice on the Door (Sunday)

I was in Vale park, and passed by Eve, it was all deserted and shuttered up. There was a notice on the door.

Important Notice, Apologies due to low staff levels(due to annual leave) Evesham showroom will be closed Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th. We are open as usual on Monday the 6th. Sorry for any inconveience.

And as per another comment the mail servers are off.

this was the bounce, from a email sent to evesham.showroom@evesham.com via www.

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

Jam<snip>@evesham.com

Jon<snip>@evesham.com

Kar<snip>@evesham.com

Ada<snip>@evesham.com

Ric<snip>@evesham.com

DTI etc

lol no claim forms, nothing, the bailiffs turned up to close the branches and do stock counts, that was it.

If RA also took a group of people to one side at Evesham and basically told them that they've all got jobs, whilst the rest of the company 200-300+, were dumped on their backsides through administration - then I think he has a lot of industrial tribunals coming his way for unfair dismissal.

Life after Evesham

I suffered a similar blow at Elonex last year - the circumstances were remarkably similar - only the owner in that case didn't even have the guts to turn up the day it closed down. All I can add is a reassurance that the government's Redundancy Service were quick to pay the statutory redundancy money - but only after the statutory notice period had expired - in my case I was entitled to 7 weeks notice (after 7 years service) and my cheque arrived in week 8 after the shut-down. Another tip is to immediately look at any household insurance you may have that gives you free legal representation - and immediately ask them to consider your case for unfair dismissal due to lack of notice and for the lack of consultation over redundancy. You may then get something extra back after a long delay - my case has still not paid out after a year but a judgement has already been made in my favour by the Unfair Dismissal Tribunal. The sequence of payout has been: statutory minimum redundancy from the Redundancy Service; preferred creditor payout of any extra holiday pay and pay-in-lieu-of-notice when the company is liquidated; non-preferred creditor status for any unfair dismissal payment when Tribunal finally gives a judgement against the liquidated assets. All-in-all a poor substitute for fair treatment by the state and Evesham - but be quick to get over it and move on to another job. I was fortunate enough to find a job in another industry after 7 weeks (one that wasn't in a declining sector like PCs) and now enjoy annual pay rises, pleasant working conditions and a human employer!!

RE: Questions

In answer to your questions Tibb the cat,

1) Most unlikely, we worked for a majority of the time for love.

2) My forms have already gone in

3) Leonard Curtis

RA all smiles this morning...

Tribunals for unfair dismissal? Try going for WRONGFUL dismissal.

Some people I have spoken to seem to think that we might get an extra months pay out of them for the lack of notice given, on top of our rather pityful redundancy of 1 week for every year (providing you've been there 2 years+)

However I am sure RA did his homework! We'll see, I'm taking my contract into the C.A.B and will be taking some free advice from a very experienced solicitor. Rest assured it will cost me nothing but if I can get more money then I will and so should everyone else in the same boat.

I feel sorry for the good people left there, they won't get anything...other than the chance to reapply for their jobs. And lets face it who wants to work for that bunch. Tahir Mohsan?! lol. Just a little scouring of the web and you'll see how he likes to treat his staff...and its not pretty. Those people left are worth more, get out and get a job for a better company.

Finally, I heard RA and the new bunch of crooks were ALL SMILES going into HQ this morning...all getting out of their nice posh cars. They must think they got off lightly and the hard work is done.

Spare a thought for the rest of us having to go through the indignity of claiming benefits while we look for jobs. Thanks for the memories.

Lost respect

RA you should have given us notice of what was going on.

I appreciate you were caught between a rock and a hard place, but you could've just given us an inkling and this would have given us the time we needed. I have massive respect for you for building up Evesham Technology from its humble beginnings...

However you have HURT alot of LOYAL,hardworking staff that were prepared to go that extra mile for you. I hope that this poor show stays with you for a long long time. Some of us here are on the breadline and DON'T HAVE ANYTHING.

All we needed was some notice, it wasn't much to ask.

Beware Evesham employees...

Time phuqed over Tiny employees and they'll do the same to you.

Get out now!

Evesham

Well, they're still taking calls... just got through to domestic sales, 'Matt speaking'.

Whats going on??

15+ year Evesham ex-employee comment

Now that I have been made redundant, I would like to set the record straight about Richard Austin and Evesham Micros (Evesham Technology).

First of all, it is wrong to blame Richard for "relying too much" on HCI. The government HAD made a commitment on HCI, which it broke. You can't blame Richard for taking advantage of it.

Yes, HCI was flawed right from the start, in it's assumption that there is so great a "benefit" in people owning a personal computer that a "socialist" government needs to (indirectly) subsidise it. But we did not just sell personal computers, we made them as well. Production requires a lot of "risky" initial investment. Richard obviously had made an investment decision at the time, on the reasonable assumption that any decrease in the consumer market share due to saturation by "box shifters" like PC World (or Tesco!) could be compensated for by switching to HCI. This assumption proved to be correct - up until the point HCI was stopped.

Yes, whenever Brad Walker gave us our HCI "projected sales" figures at crew meetings, I expressed my reservations. But these were more to do with the scheme itself, and the potential for underestimating any resulting "support" costs, not our decision to take advantage of it. And to be fair, until this year, Richard had proved time and time again that he could continue to be successful and competent director and manager, when so many of his competitors had failed.

Yes, it was more than just HCI that killed the company. With hindsight, perhaps we should have pursued our "TV monitor" and "e-box" (our home PC & set top box combination) products more aggressively - I said as much in the last crew meeting. But this would have exposed us to even greater risks if we miscalculated either the markup or the product. And even if the after sales support costs were not the final nail in the coffin (as I suspect them to have been), we still had to pay production employees higher wages than they would get if they worked in China or Turkey, and to pay for a higher level of after sales support than a customer would get from a box shifter.

My point is this - it is easy enough for you to blame Richard, just as it is easy for me to say to Richard now that he should never have let Brad Walker run his company, or relied too much on a "socialist" government to keep it's promises. But at least he made the effort to continue to compete in a "globalized" market, where the Chinese and Turks work for lower wages, and where Tesco can sell standardised "boxes" supported only by a premium rate telephone number.

Yes, I lost my job today. But just ask yourself this. What happens when NOTHING is MADE in the UK, because "globalized" labour costs are too high? What happens when the ONLY place you can buy anything is either Tesco or Amazon? Or when ALL "after sales support" is "contracted out" to India? Or when NOTHING manufactured is ever FIXED, just thrown away? We can't ALL work for the government or stack shelves in Tesco. Some of us have to take risks.

And so I CAN forgive Richard - even if I have to fight for my redundancy pay. As everyone who knows vig@evesham.com knows, my motto is "it could be worse".

Evesham...

i'm sorry - but this affects us how?

I didnt know the register was to become a shouting box for the unemployed.

Take it to the dole office, or industrial tribunal. Evesham shedding its UK staff has no implications to the IT world.

Vig - Make up and smell the Coffe.

You miss the point tottally here.

It is up to the management of a company to manage the company. If something goes wrong, it is up to them to sort it. To have funds ready to take it through hard times.

No one doubts that Richard has done well. I have been involved with Eveshm Micros from the very early days, so can comment on this. Taking it from Freeze Machine through Atart/Amiga , Zydec stuff, Vale Pcs to the present has been an achievement. However the company still went down. Action should have been taken log ago. If staff needed to be trimmed it should have been done long ago and with fair payment to them.

The Shops should have been closed long ago or even not opened in the first place. The real money has always come from the Mail order / internet. Not the shops. ( Sorry no disrespect to the good staff in retails here). Again, with the money due paid.

The Sham on Friday cannot be justified. it was pure evil. looks at it this way Vig. You have been their 15 years .. dont you diserve more ??? We are taking about real people here .... people with bills, and worse still Kids to feed and cloth ( Sept going back to school).

However I think that everyone here will have the last laff, as I think Richard will become victim to this as well. The Time Brothers will end up taking him for every penny they can get. They will take what is left of Evesham and spit him and his mates out. He may not end up at the Dole office, but it will cost him in the end. I promise. Just bide your time.

TFM

Karim

You have a choice wether to read these comments or not. If you don't like then don't read.

The fact of the matter is alot of Evesham Employees were escorted off the premises and our emails cut off...this is one of few ways we can communicate and air our views until something more official is set up.

We're obvioulsy sorry for inconveniencing you Karim.

Real Tragedy

Really tragic to see this happen as a customer of Eveshams for about 6 years - 2 PC's and a notebook in that time - but just to say two things - (1) the staff helped keep the quality in the brand and (2) instead of 'fighting' for redundancies individual consider a class action - much more 'poke' that way!

Pete

Leonard Curtis website

Website. with contact details for the Administrators Leonard Curtis.

I suggest you start phoning them asking for answers

As also should any customers with outstanding orders / repairs

http://www.leonardcurtis.co.uk/index.html

Regarding the payments, at Time eventually everyone got redundancy payments through the DTI. Also the GMB union took the company to court in an undefended case and claimed for the lack of consultation prior to redundancy. The GMB won the case for their members, who got an additional payoff - unfortunately the rest didn't. However the principle applies - you should be able to get a protective award as compensation for the lack of consultancy IN ADDITION to redundancy. I strongly suggest you all put together a collective joint claim to court through one set of solicitors.

Heart felt words

I have worked closely with many of the guys and girls @ Evesham and when i found out from an associate a few months back that thngs weren't quite right i had feared the worse.

Now that time has come I have pure sympatathy with all the work force. I have been this same position so i know how you guys feel, it know its not a nice feeling but you will come out the other end wiser and in some ways a better person.

Good Luck to you all. My thoughts are with you.

Rip off Richard

Can anyone answer 2 questions for me.

1) Evesham Technology Ltd is bankrupt, so how the Fook is it still on the website as the trading as company ? Surely if its gone bust how can it still be trading ?

2) Has anyone started organising a website / forum, or the class suit against evilsham ?

Indeed...

Someone do it and then we can get this going! :)

GeeMore Technology

have a look at about us on the evesham website right at the bottom you'll see

GeeMore Technology Ltd t/a Evesham Technology. Registered Number 6319550. VAT Registration applied for

Condolences

I would just like to express my sympathies to those who have lost their jobs and to say thanks for the excellent support and service as a customer of many years.

Guess my PC (bought a month ago) will be my last Evesham............Oh and I don't suppose the technician will be calling tomorrow to sort out the overheating problem!!!!!

Eric

The retained

Still have no written confirmation of:

:: Outstanding pay (whether or not they'll be paid from 1st Aug to present)

:: Why they are retained, for what purpose.

:: How long they are to be retained

:: How long administration period will last.

Word has been passed down from RA that no further redundancies will be made. However nothing in writing has been given to confirm this; doing nothing to repair the serious trust deficiency.

Of course, without the "retained", the shell that is the present Evesham Technology would crumble in on itself. It is therefore in RA's interest to give this vague assurance of no further loss of staff, so that whatever job the retained are there for, is completed and RA may close whatever deal is being or has been cooked up with TimeUK.

Without RA's committal to paper the staff feel they are being used further. And the 6 weeks of hell (prior to administration) where no communication and no assurances (or even hints) materialised, quite unfairly continues to drag on making for an extremely unmotivated, unenthusiastic, dejected workforce.

The feeling is that the retained are there for one purpose. Sort the crap. Then say hello to redundancy too.

Forum...

Is on it's way so we can take this off of the register's servers...

Guys

The GMB will be outside ET HQ at 8.15am tomorrow morning.

They are looking for 50% of the employees to join to give them automatic right of entrance to the offices - they can then start supporting the staff and help us get what is owed to us.

So please please either join them tomorrow morning and join the union then or join online at www.gmb.org.uk

I have used the GMB before with an employer who refused to pay me what i was owed - needless to say within 48 hours of me contacting them i had all money owed and an apology!

For less than a tenner a month it is well worth it!

Why...

would anyone in their right mind want to stay there...

for a start it sounds extremely illegal what they did in telling x amount of people they had jobs still and the rest of us got dumped on our backsides without any consultation period or from what it seems, notice/redundancy pay. Claiming the company was in administration - how then Mr Austin, did you maintain 100+ staff.

and as someone has said, there is no mention of Evesham being insolvent anywhere, and the fact that they tried to release press statements to the effect of a "reorganisation" so as to try and protect their ONCE respectfull image - all wreeks of dodgy dealings.

and trust me, Evesham never were good at "playing by the rules" generally not through their decisions but more so their own incompetence!

the day showrooms closed down, 2 branches were closed citing the company had gone into administration around 11am Friday 3rd August.

they were then re-opened 10-15 minutes later and told it was all a "mistake" and to continue trading.

they couldn't even get that part right.

Catalist

Has anyone told Catalist? The much hyped Public Sector supply accreditation (which was also going to save the company). I suspect they would be interested in recent developments, I think they might just take Evesham/Geemore of the list.(and who could blame them).

Interesting how the press can be manipulated

What deeply saddens me is that on Friday, the people involved in the change to "Geemore"/Evesham Technology cynically used the press to mislead future and past customers- the press release wasn't worded to give information but to obscure the real situation-

How can you throw a lifeline to a "new" company? Maybe I'm tired and upset but this piece of "good news" hides the fact that basically Evesham is now Time in all but name but the release makes it seem as if the good 'ole company soliders on-whihc is doesn't if Evesham can't stand up and say without prevarication that all warranties will be honoured.

C'est la vie, no doubt in a week or so this will all just be history-be interesting to see if PC Pro et al withdraw the gongs for support awards- after all, it's not Geemore who won them- might just cause some concern to the editors to know that their awards will be used in this way- but then again, they're all struggling in the market, so I doubt it!

Stop blaming HCI

this is purely down to mismanagement from the board.

HCI was a great inititive but PC companies got greedy and abused the scheme, it was meant for selling PC's to workers so they could expand their IT knowledge, but suppliers (evesham included) started taking the pi$$ and were supplying flat screen TV's, PDA's, and all sorts of non intended equipment.

Stand up Mr Austin and admit you failed your company, your employees and your customers, you have treated people that gave everything to your company like dogshit on your shoe, at least have the guts to admit you failed.

Setting up with a couple of cowboys is disgraceful, you should have had the decency to go down with your ship

Monday

Well i dnt know what to say really i was gob smaked when i walked in to work today to see the offices with less than 10 people on the after sales care lines.

It really showed me how bad it really was and it also sunk in how many of my friends where lost to fridays events. all i can say its its a shock to the system that a lot of good people who had familiys to support lost there jobs.

I do really feel for them and i hope this all gets sorted ASAP.

Talk to you all soon guys.

Emu :)

Come on Jason

tell us how much your holding out for with the domain names!!!!!

no one _wants_ to stay there

the reasons are obvious why people have to keep going in

Delay Tactics?

for all screwed evesham staff you should get the later feb 2007 version of the form RP1 could be a delay tactic as they have sent out the older form

http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/forms/rpforms.htm

Recievership?

Interesting point for all ex-employees.... The letter we got from the solicitors now in charge (?) is invalid and out of date. I have this confirmed by an independant solicitor... The listed amounts for redundancy pay and the method/time scale for claims is inaccurate, and new guidlines made earlier this year are in our favour...

Will post more details when I know more.

my advice... PERSUE THIS INDEPENDANTLY.

VAT Registration applied for????????

VAT registration applied for. Well for a normal company thats an eight week minimum wait at present, But for an IT company - especially one whose (new) investors have been subject to carousel fraud investigations in the past (though never proven) that will take more like eight months to be approved. I don't see Evesham doing much trading for a while - unless through one of the brother's existing companies.

media interest

If you're interested in getting your stories and concerns about the collapse of the company on air call Adam at 102 Touch FM on 01789 262636

Claims etc

Guys, download the revised RP1 and guidline forms from the http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/ as they are more uptodate.

Also, make a claim for a "protective award" worth up to 8 weeks x £310 as there was no consultation whatsoever.

this can be done at

http://www.employmenttribunals.gov.uk/ as it is a separate process.

good luck

Catalist

OGCbuyingsolutions who operate the Catalist agreement have already suspended Evesham Technology from the contract and will probably terminate it as Geemore Technology are not the original contract winners

to the child...

since you expect some sort of help from a technology news website after losing your job, here you go:

http://www.multimap.com/maps/#t=l&map=52.09198,-1.9481|16|4&loc=GB:52.09198:-1.9481:16|WR11%204SA|WR11%204SA

its the nearest job center...

Job opps

Hey - sorry to hear about this horrible situation and just to let you know that Cristie in Stroud is looking for experienced IT sales people (preferably data storage related) and support staff. Please email me at ianc@cristie.co.uk if you are interested.

FAO - Karim Bourouba

Karim,

I left Evesham a long time ago. I have had several IT Jobs since then. So I am not directly part of this. However, IT is one industry, and one that has had its fair shair of Job losses.

People who are not involved are interested in what happens to fellow IT Proffesionals. In short it is not a crime to care .. is it ? These people are sharing their experiances. So where is the issue.

We should be helping our own here .. and not making childish Job Centre posts.

So stop this right now. Grow up and show some compassion.

I just hope that you dont have to go through shocking experiance that the Evesham crew have.

Respect 96.6TFM

Shame

Another one bites the dust. I had reasonable success with Evesham in the past.

Unfortunately this gives another boost to the White Goods computer sellers like PC World.

rm -Rf /Evesham

Helpful Karim

Look guys, Karim is telling us all to go to the job centre isn't he helpful?!

Once again, this is a place for former/current Evesham Technology employees and friends to air their views on the article and the company until an official forum is set up. Don't worry we'll be out of your way very soon.

Karim - You seem to dislike this idea or it offends you? Perhaps you'd like to explain your hostility. No one here has said they expect to find 'help' ???

Oh, and I don't think anyone who likes Batman comics, "especially ones with Superman in them" should be calling anyone "child" either.

Another for Karim

A quick google of your name shows that you like to post your opinions about everything on everything....too much time on your hands...and too many opinions that we are not interested in....opinions are like a**holes everybody has one.

BTW i see from another post you don't like living in scotland, and have lived else where...do us all a favour and move

Good luck to all you boys and girls who were shafted on friday, let's make them pay for what they did

All the best

Karim, you're comments are not welcome on this thread and you are showing yourself quite frankly as a despicable human being. People here are left wondering where their next pay cheque is going to come from, many with children to feed, partners to support and mortgages/rent to pay with no notice of redundancy. If they wish to post about it who are you to complain?!

Its so easy for people to sit here behind their computer and make smarmy comments about heading to your nearest job centre. You google mapped it. Very funny. Adds a whole new dimension to a rather tired old joke eh? Let me tell you now many of us were their first thing Monday because we do not wish to have to claim benefits the likes of which you're paying towards in taxes (or maybe not)

In my experience of forums wind up merchants like yourself (possibly a result of short man syndrome..well, short something syndrome anyway) are the first to start complaining when things turn around on you and the shit hits the fan! Don't you deny it now 'mate'.

I wish the former employees of Evesham Technology all the best with their job hunt. TJ

Catalist

Good news about the Catalist de-accreditation. What about BECTA and all the other ones we used to shout about? Surely they to are no longer applicable.

Announcement

GMB Union will be present at Strawberry Fields tomorrow, 1pm where we hope to have a big turn out from the 150 or so made redundant.

The need 50% of people to sign up to force immediate action.

so sorry about my previous comments...

no, actually i am not.

this isnt a help group for companies that sink. this is a technology website.

stop posting anonymously, its obvious you are the same poster over and over again.

you may be right, I may have too much time on my hands, but if i were in your position i would be using that time to get a new job, not flaming people here.

for gods sake, you dont need The Register to organise anything, so just take yourselves elsewhere and moan in unison there.

I will assume that all the other ex-evesham employees are busy finding themselves new jobs instead of enjoying the limelight here.

It is also strange how the evesham website still doesnt mention that you are all jobless...

oh, and well done on using google to find out all about me - arent you a clever boy.

Ex-employee

I am very sad to hear about the demise of "Evesham Micros". I worked with you all for 12 years and they were some of the best years I had. It used to be a great company to work for with some of the best employees around. I wish all of you the best in your fight for compensation and luck in finding future gainful employment.

To All ex-evesham and current employees

some people have been asking for a dedicaded forum for you guys to keep intouch etc. I have set one up at http://www.essentialhomepage.co.uk.

yeah and if Karim ruled the world

until then, ta ta!

The Register appears to welcome comments about this story. As far as I can see the only comments diverting from the story are those of Karim's.

The comments here are related to the story and expand on the story, giving readers an insight into the realities of what has happened to real people - those affected by this incident - giving the article more depth.

If the comments were not posted (and I personally thank the Register for allowing the continuation of this thread) then the story according to the press in general would be incredibly one-sided in favour of Mr Austin and his own press-releases. Now that wouldn't paint a very balanced picture would it?

All the best to those involved with Evesham Technology.

See you guys on the forum.

Part of the IT Industry

Despite the caustic comments of others Evesham Technology (born Micros) was part of the UK IT Industry for many years. From the early days through Freeze Frames to Evesham PCs everyone at the company could be relied on to pull things through, a truly great place to work and anyone who I know who needs a reference can find me on LinkedIn. The Evesham of now may be a different place but I wish those with and without jobs the best of luck for the future.

Luke

Union

Guys & Gals - I see the GMB have got involved. Good - they've had a lot of history dealing with the Mohsans at Time and they have seen all the tricks before.

For those of us who were in the Union at Time/Granville they did a good job at getting more cash. I know it may sound like bolting the stable door now the company has gone under, but I really would suggest you go along and see what they have to say.

Based on what I've seen here it looks like the new company may be trying to short-change you. If you join the GMB you have a good chance of blocking them, and of getting what you are owed. Please go along and see what they have to say. For £10 / month (or thereabouts) it really is worth it.

I repeat - they got their members more cash at Time, they should be able to do the same for you as whats happening is a virtual rerun, with the same people behind it again.

Forum status?

Has a forum been set up yet and does anyone have a link to it?

To the GMB union poster

Remember there are a lot of field based employees and ex-employees that would like represented too

For field people...

you need to register with the GMB *ASAP* and they will act upon your case along with everyone elses.

the existing staff at evesham and the redundant, are two different issues and will be dealt with seperately.

they need 50% of CURRENT employees to turn up in order to try and protect their futures.

the meeting today is an information meeting, if you can't make it I suggest you phone them at their Tewksbury office - 01684 290650 - and register, make them aware it's in relation to Evesham Technology and they will do the rest.

Re Field workers / union

In that case you still need to contact the GMB yourslef and sign up.

I'm not posting on behalf of the union - I'm just trying to point out that - for us at Time - having them around helped a lot.

Title

Dean

A forum has been set up at www.essentialhomepage.co.uk

Career Opportunities at NFU Mutual, Stratford Upon Avon

As an ex-Evesham Technology employee I would like to express my shock at their sudden demise.

However, I have been asked by my managers here at NFU Mutual to point out that we are currently looking for Service Desk / Helpdesk analysts and system testers based in our offices in Stratford Upon Avon.

Please contact Mark Johnson at Latham HR for more details:

recruit@lathamhr.co.uk

Career Opportunities at NFU Mutual, Stratford Upon Avon

As an ex-Evesham Technology employee I would like to express my shock at their sudden demise.

However, I have been asked by my managers here at NFU Mutual to point out that we are currently looking for Service Desk / Helpdesk analysts and system testers based in our offices in Stratford Upon Avon.

Please contact Mark Johnson at Latham HR for more details:

recruit@lathamhr.co.uk

Well....

End of an era I suppose. It was bound to happen. I mean, when Evesham branched into selling TV's, that was a warning about future times.

There was a stage, back in the old building, where we had customers queuing out of the door to spend their hard earned cash with us. Not recently. In my opinion Evesham tried to move too fast with schemes that never panned out. Relying on HCI was just an excuse for a business that tried to run with the big guns like Dell and HP, before it could really toddle along with the little ones.

I was with Evesham for longer than most so I've seen the company grow. Slow and steady progress for the most part. Again, in my opinion, the opening of all those outlet stores in one hit was a mistake. We should have stuck with what we had... A dedicated client base, a brand name that commanded respect and with a staff to back it up.

But what is done is done. I wish all my ex-colleagues that are reading this the best of luck.

CDC

PS/ Richard, although you've come in for a lot of bile in this comments thread, I don't see you as Mr Satan. You tried to save things, circumstances prevented that. I am sure you did everything you could.

Just like to say

There seems to be a few people angry at Richard Austin both on here and in other places, which I don't think can be entirely justified.

As far as I am concerned, going back to my earlier comment, the one thing Richard Austin was guilty of is not keeping us informed. It is the 1 and only thing he owed us then we couldve had time to look for other work. Its now a race against time to find work. This is the hardest thing to come to terms with for most of us.

However, I am sure it has been difficult for Richard seeing his company struggle and to an extent I sympathise with him a little. We were all pulling in the same direction and unfortunately it didn't work, well not enough for most of us to keep our jobs. I am saddened to see the company in the hands of others, as far as I can see standards will drop and naturally so will the good reputation of Evesham Technology. Very sad indeed :-(

When all is said and done though I'd like to thank him, the company and my departmental managers for the opportunites given to me. For the most part it was an enjoyable 5 and a half years with fantastic working conditions and colleagues. I will miss Evesham Technology greatly and look back on my time there fondly (minus the last 2 months)

Sandles and Cheese.

Just a lite heated Notes.

In the early days of Evesham Micros, Richard Austin alwas used to wear Sandles and Green Socks. We used to reffer to him as Sandles. He looked a right Doyle.

His fellow Co-founder and Director Bob Hitchcock ( a real nasty peace of work, who used to love comming in twice a year and either try sacking staff for nothing or reducing them to tears. Sounds like he would have loved Friday) we used to call Mr Cheese ( Because he left a nasty taste in the mouth).

It was a company run by Sandles and Cheese.

I could tell you some stories .... Like a certain MD jumping up and down on a Star LC10 printer , that the user wanted to return , when no fault could be found on it.

Shocked .......

I am truly shocked to hear this news of Evesham, but not surprised at all at how it has been handled.

Having worked at Evesham in the early years for many years I have seen staff treated like this many times.

Some of us oldies still have get togethers with Bob Hitchcock who founded Evesham with Richard and to this day he still thanks us for helping to make his fortune.

So come on Richard give these guys some thanks for the years and lifestyle that they have given you.

And I will say to all the employees that there is "Life after Evesham" as us oldies put it - you will eventually get back on your feet and be happy just like us.

WWW.GEEMORE.COM

Evesham staff old and new please log on and don't be scared to post! people with jobs, links stories, or want to keep or get in touch with old friends!

its worth it just for the showroom video link, so go and drop a post in.

thanks all!

Forum

A forum has been created and is at

http://www.geemore.com

Geemore.com

I cannot believe that the Mohsans didn't register geemore,com. Given their supposed internet knowledge (ie they owned Supanet until that was forced into administration last year) it seems incredible that they would miss out on registering that site. Good luck to whoever owns it - AND TAKE LEGAL ADVICE IF THE BROTHERS OFFER TO BUY

Geemore domain

To be honest, I dont think they will want the domain, as they are not going to trade under Geemore. They will be changing the name of this company back to some form of Evesham Technology in the near future.

Just like Evesham Micros started like as a t/a for Walltone Ltd. Then in 1988 it became Evesham Micros Ltd and finally in 2002 it became Evesham Technology Ltd.

However I think it was a nice touch getting this domain.

Now ex-Evesham customer...

We moved over to Evesham as our PC supplier a few years back and found you guys gave the best support \ sales \ PC quality of anyone we'd used before so it's a real shame it's ended like this.

Heard something was going wrong from the guys we deal with last week then emails started bouncing on Monday and we knew something big must've happened. Got a call from our contact at Evesham about all the redundancies, we cancelled our orders straight away out of principle, certainly won't be dealing with the "new" Evesham that's for sure...

If it is indeed the Time scammers taking over the "new" company won't last long in the market these days!

Thanks to all who did a great job before providing the service you did and good luck for the future...

RE : Now ex-Evesham customer...

Well done.

Evesham has always been about the staff. Not just a brand name, but the life blood. The staff.

I just hope more people exercise good moral vales like this Gent ( could be lady), it would show Austin and Morris what they can do with their GEEMORE.

this is ridiculous

I really must say, I have been reading the Reg for quite some time now, but never needed to make a comment as most things that needed to be said had already been said.

Unfortunately though, this sorry story has forced me to register and voice my opinion.

Basically, I come here to read articles on IT and new technology. From time to time I read the other non-IT related stuff as an aside (however it is worrying about how much non-IT stuff is being published here now). So I took a look at this story concerning Evesham going, apparently, bust. I thought that this may be an interesting way for my company to pick up a whole load of IT resource at a cut price/quickly - how wrong could I be....

Never before have I seen a site like the Register stoop so low as to allow this sort of nonsense to take place. This is awash with people using this good site as a soapbox to air their greivances with Evesham management as well as people circling like vultures trying to drop recruitment ads for ex-employees. This is shameful.

Lets put this into perspective, Evesham were a second rate computer maker, thats it. They didnt do that very well either - hence the UK staff being released in favour of offshore resources. They spammed quite a lot and the service was pretty shoddy (I used to work for a company that got a quote from Evesham once, we didnt accept). The register isnt a chat forum or job board, the comments left here should have analysed the collapse of Evesham and nothing more. I also noted that once someone had commented similar views, s/he was shouted down by an recently unemployed Evesham cultist. Evesham were pretty bad at what they did, and the staff working there were a large part of that bad business, so if I were you I wouldnt be shouting about how good they were on a site as popular as this.

Also, the comment made by the Reg staffer concerning the ability to be anonymous here - it doesnt apply. These people are trying to organise a protest against Evesham management, why would they post anonymously here for that? Granted, I can understand why you cant have names and phone numbers etc in the posts, but the names they post under would be invaluable. It only goes to show that the person making all the anonymous posts is indeed jobless, and not putting their time to good use by using it to get another job, but instead google people who disagree on here!!

Shame on you Register, and shame on you Evesham people.

Evesham failed, and you were a huge part of that failiure.

Wow you ARE narrowminded...

Whilst I don't agree with people trying to make personal statements on here, I do believe that these people are fully entitled to express their opinions and the way that they have been treated, especially in light of the fact that Evesham practically tried to cover up the whole "we've gone into administration" thing and shafted hundreds of staff in the process.

Whether you believed Evesham were a 2nd rate manufacturer or not is neither here nor there - Evesham won the awards on a yearly / monthly basis.

Yes the staff were part of that failiure purely because they worked at Evesham, that doesn't make them failiures however - you should be ashamed of your tactless comments when trying to tar all that worked for Evesham with the same brush.

There were a hell of a lot of good staff at Evesham, and if you believe that they offloaded their UK workforce in favor of "offshore resources" then you really don't have a clue and I hope your decision to post under your real name and show how narrow minded you are, raises a few eyebrows with your employers.

Title

Perhaps because the Evesham "brand"-its staff-are one of the most passionate and caring lot it's been the pleasure for many customers to use, perhaps its because the techies know their stuff, perhaps because Richard built up what he did in a less dishonest way than most, perhaps that's why everyone is sullying your byte size world with raw and sad and bad and ugly emotions-

no doubt the ex staff and staff will eventually all get jobs and this will die down-but you can't just smother a life that had spark, vigour and a touch of class just because half the team (and it's still a team) lwere sacrificed fo rthe good of the company.

Mr Austin was genuinely gutted at what he had to do, whatever the reason for having to do it-we came this close to everyone loosing their jobs so please, give the guy a break even if all you want to do today is break his kneck-it'll pass, just like the floods.