Morecambe Bay Walk

On Sunday, 24 August a group of us joined several hundred other people and walked across the sands of Morecambe Bay on what must have been the only dry afternoon of the summer! Guided by Cedric Robinson MBE, the Queen’s Guide to the Sands we walked approximately 8 miles and waded across the River Kent which was several feet deep. We all expected to be walking in the rain but the sun shone and the views across the bay were stunning. Finishing the walk at Kent’s Bank we headed straight for KB’s Restaurant where we enjoyed drinks, an excellent BBQ and more sun!

CONGRATULATIONS TO DINGER

Paul Bell, Contract Coordinator at the Parkway Green project in Wythenshawe recently received special commendation from the Considerate Constructors inspector in his report following a site inspection on 16 July 2008. The inspector awarded a total score of 32 which is the best score achieved by any of our sites since January 2005 and one of the best ever. The inspector concluded that “this was a very good and considerate site and Paul is to be congratulated”. This mark of 32 is particularly pleasing as the Constructors Scheme has recently announced that it has raised the bar in its marking criteria in a drive for continuous improvement. Well done to Paul, Mark and the rest of the Wythenshawe team.

Run Forrest Run

Well done to the HTF team (Run Forrest Run) who came 3rd out of 9 teams at the It’s a Knockout competition. It was held at Guy’s Court in aid of St Catherine’s Hospice. This was the only part of the day that the team were dry!!

2008 Mountain Challenge Update

In the April 2008 edition of the H T Forrest newsletter, John Chew threw down the gauntlet of walking "The Welsh 3,000’ers", which is a challenge that involves tackling the 15 mountains in Snowdonia whose peaks are above 3,000ft, all in a two day period. This was a step up from the Company’s previous endeavour, which saw a team of 10 Forrest employees raise over £5,000 by completing the National 3 Peaks Challenge within a 24 hour time slot. With the challenge set, John has been busy organising a series of training walks for his intrepid volunteers, to ensure that everyone was used to the rigours of fell walking.

The challenge this year is set to take place over Saturday 16th & Sunday 17th August, with the team camping out on the Friday and Saturday nights, to ensure an early start to the days walking. The team completing the walk will be assisted by two "support staff" in Bernard Bolton & John Heaton, who will be in charge of transporting the team and also looking after the camp & providing the team with some well needed food at the end of the day’s walking.

This year, we are once again raising money for Derian House Children’s Hospice & Lesley Roberts has kindly volunteered to take charge of organising any donations that people wish to make. Should you wish to show your support and make a donation, Lesley can be contacted at Beech House on 0845 634 2750.

Finally, on behalf of the company, I would like to say good luck to the team, and we look forward to hearing about the outcome of their challenge in next month’s newsletter.

Graham Hacking

Team members Graham Hacking, Ste Laker, Kevin Riding & Greg Altham on a training walk in Wales - John Chew on the other side of the camera

Congratulations

Congratulations to Neil Davies who passed his P4 exam (Organisational Management and Information Systems) with 64%! Neil is combining his studies with 3 years practical experience with the company and will eventually gain membership to The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. 1 down, 6 to go!!

Clever Clogs

Well done to Paul Cabo who achieved a 2:1 BSc Commercial Management and Quantity Surveying from The University of Central Lancashire.

North West Football Challenge 2008

Well done to The Gumps who reached the finals of the Hays 2008 Challenge on 16 July 2008. The team consisted of Graham (Strech) Hacking, Dave (Wee Sprite) Gibson, Ian (Dr Doom) Lucas, Michael (Dingle) Renwick, Andrew (Cruncher) Falconer, Paul (The Legend) Cabo and Ian (Simmo) Simpson. Working as a team they won the first four matches for a place in the semi-finals.

"Expecting a really hard game against the favourites, The Gumps worked hard and made the opposition look futile eventually winning 5:1. The final was a hard fought affair which either side could have won. The Gumps found themselves 2:1 down with minutes to go until a cross took a wicked deflection and flew into the net 2:2. The lads survived the penalty shoot-out until Dingle failed to convert and Strech missed his shot. Bad luck but well done to all the team."
Paul (The Legend) Cabo

John Chew - 25 years celebration

2008 marks a special year for John Chew as he celebrates his 25th anniversary working for Herbert T Forrest Ltd joining an elite group of nine other employees currently working for the company. John joined the company on 17th January 1983 but was only offered a post at the second time of asking! John first applied to join the company in 1976 as a 20-year-old Surveyor, then working for Blackburn Borough Council, but was passed over by Herbert at the time. We have kept both job application letters in Beech House and Herbert noted that John ‘might move on’. However, when John reapplied in 1982, after a spell of working as a Quantity Surveyor in Nigeria for several years, Herbert noted that he was due to be married and obviously thought the time had come for John to settle down! Looking at the second application letter John offered to work on ‘a subsistence salary for 12 months in order to prove his capability as he was out of touch with British prices at the time’. Herbert took this as a level of commitment from John and he was duly offered a position within the company.

John worked initially as the sole Quantity Surveyor in the company and most of his duties involved pricing, preparing valuations and final accounts for the company who then concentrated on sub-contracting for local builders such as Walter Carefoot and Sons. At the time John joined HTF, the company had just started working for the local authorities such as Preston, Blackpool and Blackburn and this was a market John was keen to grow.

After proving to be an essential member of the team, John became a Director of the company in 1991 along with two other colleagues, Bernard Bolton and Bert Laker.
The rest is history as they say. As part of the senior team John’s financial acumen was a key part in the company’s growth throughout the recession of the 1990s. John became a shareholder in the restructuring last July and is now Commercial Director within the company.

Congratulations and thank you to John for his invaluable contribution over the last 25 years.

Sue Simister Unleashed

As we are all aware Sue joined Forrest in April as HR officer and has settled in very well.

Sue was born and bred in Cheshire, where she attended school and moved to Thornton (Cleveleys) approximately 20 years ago.

She commenced her career as a Personnel Assistant working for a company called I.C.I. She flourished during this decade not only by progressing within her career but she also attained a certificate in Personnel Studies and later on achieved a CIPD qualification from the University of Central Lancashire.

Sue later worked within the HR department for a Japanese company for 6 years. I think we can safely say she is a well experienced addition to the company.

Outside of work Sue is kept busy caring for her 3 horses, which she dressages and shows whenever she has the chance. She also enjoys eating out.

Suggestion scheme April 2007

Again we have received a number of good ideas that may be adopted by the company, this months ‘bright sparks’ are as follows:

• Steve Rich – Process improvement
• Matt Belshaw – Company reference library
• Anne Doherty – Office recycling
• Chloe Strange/Paul Cabo – Internal communication
• George Figgest – Health and Safety improvement
• Martin Slater – Human resources - Long service award

As a general rule we don’t reward ideas that suggest alterations to forms or branding, whilst we appreciate your feedback in these areas they are areas of continual change particularly as the QMS system is still ‘hot off the press’.

Partnership of the Month

Mark Croston’s Helena team are becoming the team to catch. Since the beginning of 2007 they have maintained a 100% ‘passed’ record and have had the highest number of properties surveyed. This consistent level of performance has ensured that the Helena team have won the March award for ‘Partnership of the Month’.

We have set a benchmark of 90% for this KPI and our March average was 88%, we are within touching distance of achieving our goal and believe that with a little more concerted effort we can achieve it in May.

A mention should also go to the Wigan and Leigh team working on the environmental improvements. The past few months have seen a significant turnaround in their performance – well done to Gini Eddleston and Andrew Worthington for ‘digging deep’ and delivering a demanding client programme within time and in accordance with the clients budget.

The Calendar Simpsons

Andrew Simpson on the front Cover

We have all heard of Bart and Homer and indeed the Calendar Girls but Longridge Cricket Club have gone one better and merged the two Hollywood films into their 2007 Calendar featuring none other than three of our Longridge born employees, the three Simpson Brothers.

Wearing nothing more than cricket gear Ian, Andrew, and John all feature on the calendar although we are sure there must have been some needling when Andrew appeared on the front cover! The calendar will raise much needed funds for their new pitch. As main sponsors we want to promote the calendar, copies are available for £10 from the brothers. By the way, congratulations to Ian for achieving his B.Sc (Hons) in Building Surveying – we know he sacrificed his sport this year to achieve his goal, well done.

Workshop Bowling Night

The lads from the workshop enjoyed a night out ten pin bowling at Preston on Friday 17th November. The team at Longridge work very closely together so it was great to see eighteen people all “having the banter” pitting their skills against each other. The Joinery Director, Andrew Cross turned out to be “Top Dog” recording an incredible score of 360 for the two games. The lads went onto Frankie and Benny’s for a Pizza and most returned to Longridge to finish the night off in the Townley Arms. The evening was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone and more social nights are planned.

HTF Golf Day

On Sunday 30th July the fourth annual golf day was held at Longridge Golf Club. Due to its popularity with staff and the consequent impact on the sites the event was moved to a Sunday. Also we took the decision to make it a family day inviting partners and children. Fifty‑three people participated in the golf, entering into a Texas Scramble competition ideally suited to all members of the family. Throughout the day the sun shone and a crowd of non playing staff gathered round the very popular BBQ. Food and drinks were being served all afternoon, the catering being carried out by a mixture of Golf Club Staff and our very able office staff – a big thank you to them. Congratulations to the winners John and Sue Ellison (John works at one of our supply chain partners, Redmond Painters), Gary Williams, his son Saul, and Liz Francis, Gary’s partner.

Suggestion scheme

In August we introduced a ‘suggestions box scheme’. This scheme enables us to capture good and innovative ideas that we can then roll out throughout the company. To date we have received a number of suggestions that have been adopted and others are currently being written into our procedures.

The main aim of the initiative is to make us more competitive, to improve our service, end product and to give our employees an opportunity to influence how the company operates. Between us, if we can identify areas in which we are wasteful or in which we duplicate things and then we change our approach, we will not only achieve our objectives but also stay ahead of our competitors.

We pay £50 for each idea used and there is an additional prize for the best idea of the year. Keep the ideas coming in; send them to Andrew Falconer at Beech House either by email, fax or post.

Twenty five service years

that's nothing compared to his Mum and Dad

Steve strutting his stuff at the Xmas party 1987

Congratulations to Steve Laker on achieving his 25 year milestone with the company this year. Steve started as an apprentice joiner back in 1981 following in his father’s footsteps. He progressed to Site Agent and more recently has taken the role of Dilapidations Surveyor. His trade knowledge contributes immensely to producing working drawings for kitchen layouts and his input has been invaluable in assisting clients to achieve the most appropriate layouts. Steve’s dad and mum, Bert and Audrey were invaluable members of the Forrest team until the 1990’s when they retired with a combined service period of 80 years, a record that surely will never be beaten. Bert might argue that we haven’t let him retire as he still shows the pupils of local schools around the joinery workshop at Longridge every year. Well done Steve, only another 55 years to go to match your ma and pa!!

Employees drink to success

It was champagne all round as Tim made good on his promise to give a bottle of bubbly to all employees for their contribution to such a successful year!

H.T. Forrest Company Ramble May 2006

Staff, family and friends gathered together on Sunday 21st May for a ramble in the countryside.

The walk commenced at Hurstgreen and followed the Ribble Way, passing Winkley Hall and travelling through the grounds of Stoneyhurst College, before ending at the Bailey Arms for a sumptuous buffet.

Although the outing was plagued with rain the group were not discouraged and even managed to complete the walk with enough time to freshen up and have a well-deserved drink.

Tim would like to thank everyone for attending and hopes the weather is more favourable next time.

Games Night - 2006

Once again the games night went off with a bang or was that the Giant Jenga crashing to the floor.

Employees and family gathered together at Longridge golf club on 27th April, to compete in various events, with Remote Control Mini Racing proving the most popular, closely followed by Giant Jenga. Steve Taylor of Longridge golf club thought he would have to build a new ceiling to house the construction Tim and Andrew produced, however it too came plummeting to the ground shortly before reaching the tiles.

Mark and Sara of Ribchester Caterers provided a wonderful spread to end another successful event.

Pink Nails turns Marathon Man

Everyone would like to congratulate Paul Cabo for taking part in this year's London Marathon.

Not content with his contribution to Breast Cancer Charity last year when he painted his nails pink on ‘Wear it Pink Day’. This year Paul ran the London Marathon. He trained for five months and his efforts were rewarded with a finishing time of four hours twenty eight minutes raising almost £1000 for the Breast Cancer Care Charity.

Well done Paul.

Wear It Pink

Pretty In Pink

The Staff at Herbert T Forrest were delighted to be involved with the “wear it pink” day to help raise money for breast cancer campaign.

By either wearing an item of pink clothing or purchasing a ribbon on Friday 28th October, Employees managed to raise £100.00.

The day was madeespecially memorable when Paul Cabo agreed to have his nails painted pink if everyone in the office paid £1 – as you can see he looks pretty in pink.

Staff News

Things you may not know about H.T. Forrest Staff

Steve Rich – If we said Steve Rich likes his chicks, you may not think of the feathered variety but you would be wrong. Steve has kept Bantam’s for over 20 years and travels all around the country to various shows winning local and national trophies. He has also travelled to Ireland to judge in the breed club show

Caron Walton – You can hear it in the hills you can hear it in the vales and thank goodness she’s been practicing. Yes Caron Walton is learning to play theBagpipes. She plays for the Oldham’s Scotish pipe band and has recently been involved in the Edinburgh Pipefest in August this year, where approximately 10,000 pipers from all over Europe raised £250,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Darren Maxwell – We have a budding photographer in our midst. Darren has taken his hobby to the next level and has set up his own website doing weddingphotos. He started doing a few weddings for friends he now has several external bookings for later in the year. Visit his website at www.darrenmaxwell.co.uk

Ann-Marie Brewer – The windows have been rattling recently as Ann-Marie has been on full form. She was principal soloist at the Last Night of the Proms at Clitheroe Castle, raising the roof with her rendition of songs, such as “RuleBritannia”.

Barry Vickers – Its congratulations all round to Barry and his Girlfriend Vicky, on the arrival of their first child, son Harley Thomas. Weighing 6lb 8oz he was born on Friday the 8th July at child, Harley is a delight to proud parents.

Congratulations Simon

Simon Ellerton passing his NVQ level 2 with mentor Ben

All at Herbert T Forrest were pleased to hear of Simon Ellerton's achievement of his NVQ Level 2 in Painting and Decorating, in July of this year.

Simons route into the company was not via the traditional path. By his own admission Simon struggled at school and found it difficult to manage the academic demands. He joined the company at the age of 14 as part of an extended work experience programme, where by he attended school Monday to Thursday and came to work on Fridays.

As a result of this and the promise he showed, Simon was put forward for an apprenticeship in painting and decorating. He was assigned William (Ben) Gunn as his mentor. His hard working, no nonsense out look to training has helped Simon in developing his desire to achieve, he also assisted him with the more theoretical side of his apprenticeship, from key skills to revision techniques.

Simon has worked and studied hard during his time with us and he has overcome many challenges and faced many changes. He moved out of the Local children’s home into his own place that he now shares with his dog “Zac”.

Simon would like to thank everyone who has helped him achieve his NVQ, "especially Tim who gave me the opportunity to reach my goals".

HTF - Annual Golf Day

We held our third annual golf day on July of this year. Over 100 staff and invited guests, of all abilities, attended the event.

Veiws From 1st Tee

The afternoon kicked off at 12.30pm. Players were divided into teams of four and used a Texas scramble system, where by each player hits a shot from the same place and the best hit is chosen to establish where you hit the next shot from. This format enabled non-golfers to enjoy a round and finish before it went dark!

Various prizes were on offer for the winners and any notable achievers, such as nearest the pin, straightest drive and putting, just to make it interesting.

Howard Squires and Mick Hammersley provided a glorious barbeque at the half way house and looked very fetching in their designer aprons!

Everyone enjoyed some much-needed R & R at the 19th hole and shared amusing stories about the afternoon’s events, before proceeding downstairs, where a delicious buffet was waiting.

In the evening they were entertained by the comedian, Johnnie Casson, who recounted some very humorous anecdotes.

Tim would like to thank everyone involved in another successful event and urges everyone to practice for next year.

THREE PEAKS CHALLENGE

On the 12th and 13th of June, a team of ten HT Forrest employees took part in a Three Peaks Challenge, which required them to climb the highest mountains of Scotland, England and Wales, within a 24hr period. In total they climbed 22355 feet and drove over 900miles.

From Left to right: Mark Holden, Steve Laker, Graham Hacking, Ian Simpson, Raghu Medisety, Mark Ingham, John Chew, Darren Maxwell, Graham Critchley, Andrew Cross.

The inspiration for the challenge came from one of the Directors, John Chew. He is experienced in hill walking and mountaineering and envisaged the company taking part in a team event to raise money for charity.

Ian in training

As the other members of the team weren’t as proficient in “hiking up mountains,” in February they started a set of six training sessions, mainly consisting of fell walks in the Lake District. During this time, the task of spear heading the fundraising was given to Heidi Dewhurst, who did a marvellous job in helping to raise £5000.00.

The sponsors were given a choice of two charities: The Multiple Sclerosis Trust – who support sufferers of MS, their families and friends. They also do research into the illness and provide education for MS nurses and other professionals.

The other charity was Derian House Children’s Hospice – who provice care and support to children with terminal illnesses.

On the day of the challenge the team were driven to Ben Nevis, Scotland by Bernard Bolton and Ray Cross. They started the climb at 5pm and were back down by 9.30pm, at which point there was time for a quick tea (whilst fighting off the midges) before setting off for Scafell Pike, England.

The team at the top of Snowdon

After driving through the night they arrived in Cumbria at 4am. A light seemed to guide them to the top of the mountain. On reaching the summit they discovered it was a torch held by Bert and Audrey Laker who had brought some well-deserved soup. They descended the fell by 8am only to be whisked away to Snowdon, Wales. They started on their third and final clamber at 1pm and were relieved to reach the summit in plenty of time.

However disaster was about to strike – they lost Raghu in the mist on the way back down. Fortunately they found him and after hurrying down Snowdon they made it with a whole 4 minutes to spare. The team were said to be “exhausted but elated”.

Herbert T Forrest Ltd. would like to thank all involved in the event and everyone who sponsored the challenge.

Congratulations On Your Retirement, Harry

We were delighted to celebrate the retirement of one of our long serving members of our staff, in June of this year.

Harry Eastham joined the company in February 1977, at the age of 37, as a Joiner. Moving up through the “ranks” he left the company as a well established and much respected Site Agent.

His party was held at the Forrest Arms and was attended by friends, family and some former colleagues. We would like to thank Harry for his service to Herbert T Forrest and wish him well in his retirement.

Games Night

It was fun all round, at a Herbert T Forrest games n ight, in March of year.

Held at Longridge golf club, on a cold wet evening, groups of four people competed in events, such as Giant Jenga, Darts, Bullring, Putting, cards, Table football, Remote control mini racing and many more. The games were followed by a wonderful buffet, provided by Mark and Sara of Ribchester Caterers. Prizes were given to the winners but the evening was more about enjoyment and helping to fill in the long slog between Christmas and summer.

Obituary Jack Holden 1918-2004

Jack, pictured here, third man from the left

Some sad news in 2004 was the passing away of Jack Holden, one of the few joiners who worked for A.G. Nichols before the business was bought in 1955 and renamed Herbert T Forrest. Jack worked from 1931 until his retirement in 1983 and in that time he had the record of only having a fortnight off through illness in 50 years. When he started work his wage was a princely 5 shillings a week. He was one of the few employees who made proper cartwheels and was regarded as one of the best joiners the company has employed. Our thoughts go to his family.