Tough Tires & Co.
70 Green Street
Concord, NH 03302
(603)567-7689
Media Release
For Immediate Release
Tough Tires & Co. Releases 750 Employees
Concord, NH-February 23, 2012- Michael Sillinonte, CEO of Tough Tires & Co., announced the layoff of 750 employees today during a press conference held at the company’s headquarters.
The layoff will take effect April 2, 2012. The released employees were notified about the company’s downsizing last week by personal letter.
The layoff occurred due to the drastic 40% increase in raw material prices from Tough Tires & Co.’s suppliers. This escalation in costs prevents the company from purchasing large quantities of materials pertinent to manufacturing their tires. A decline in demand for their 15 varieties of brand name tires also contributed to the downsizing. The sales quota for the year of 2011 came up short by 65%, leaving many of their products untouched in stores.
“The 25 Auto Body shops that we distribute to in New England have sent back almost all of our brand name tires in their inventory,” stated Sillinonte. “I regret having to reduce our staff of 1,000 dedicated personnel, but our specialized tires are hardly in demand this year.”
The Human Resources Department will be offering seminars to assist the employees in their transition away from the company. The seminars will take place April 9-11, 2012. In response to the layoff, questions regarding severance pay and health benefits will be addressed. An employment consultant will be available to all who were let go.
Sillinonte is confident that Tough Tires & Co. will return to their usual operating size. He hopes to begin rehiring employees by the end of the year.
Tough Tires & Co. has been dedicated to manufacturing and distributing the highest quality tires at a competitive low price for 45 years. Their goal is to create tires compatible with increasing automobile technology and provide their customers with the safest, most satisfying ride possible.
For further information please contact:
George Smith- Managing Director
(603)567-8968
gsmith@ttires.com
Chelsea Escher- Human Resources Department
(603)567-3245
cescher@ttires.com
First of all, any homesickness that comes my way is always distracted by something wonderful. This consists of bangers and mash and a pint with the girls, the most beautiful fireworks display I have ever seen, stunning dance performances, successful rehearsals, and of course, having a great group of people surrounding me every single day.
The feelings of being homesick will, naturally, always be present, as there is so much about home and the people there that I wish I could see/share this experience with. Hopefully this and my massive amounts of pictures will help in some way…
Today was our last rehearsal with Jean, which lasted 8 hours. Piece of cake…not. Amazing how such an extensive process has not finally be tamed into a beautiful and challenging piece. I am so excited to now take it into our own hands and really fine tune it, we have a while before it will be performed so we are looking forward to the actual final piece. And the rest of our lovely roger people came to support us in our performance today. I loved catching glimpses of their faces during our performance, wondering what they were thinking. Thankfully, what we were trying to portray with the piece came across that way; everyone seemed to respond with what we hoped they would! Won’t give away too much more…videos to come!
Only about 5 weeks left on this trip…so strange how fast it goes by. Going to Bath next weekend, have a free weekend, and then so many friends come to visit! There’s still so many things that I want to do. If only it was all free though….
I really can’t even talk about what I have been doing lately, because I am just so enveloped in how much I love this place. What I don’t love, is the amount of critiques, site responses, and dance journals I have to do still. Yay.
Can’t always have good days, then they wouldn’t seem so good.
-Elizabeth Kelly
Her smile comes close to capturing the happiness we are all experiencing, but words and pictures could never do it justice.
Haven’t really had one yet. Since Paris last weekend, I have not slept in my bed for any number of consecutive days. Returning home last Monday on a 6:43 train from Paris, we then spent the rest of our day in class, seeing the National Gallery museum (because I am in Museums now, not acting, thank goodness), and going to yet another show. Of course then we had no time to relax, or even unpack, because we then had to get ready to go to Stratford for the next three days.
HOWEVER, that was such a treat. Those who know me well know that The Holiday is my most favorite movie ever, and I felt like I was thrown into that town. It was the most adorable little place, and the streets even had Christmas decorations up, just not lit yet. We stayed at a cozy bed and breakfast, which of course we didn’t want to leave because it put Pickwick to shame. We spent our days seeing so much Shakespeare, shopping, exploring the town finding the best places to get tea, and my favorite, visiting the castles. We had a nice little dance photog session at Kennilworth Castle, and I have decided that I need to go back there. Pictures of the ruins of the castle really do not give its real beauty any justice.
So although Stratford was a nice miniature holiday, as soon as we got home it was back to real life. We haven’t been able to dance for a little over a week, until Friday when we took part in Jean Abreau’s workshop. Unfortunately we couldn’t do the residency all week since we weren’t around, but Friday’s class was amazing. OH and good news, we got the approval from everyone and we have begun rehearsing and working with Jean on a piece for the three of us!! Already the experience is amazing, we don’t quite know what the piece is going to turn out to be yet, but just this opportunity to work with a professional choreographer from here is so, great. I don’t know, words cannot even describe it. Already we have had a full 6 hour rehearsal yesterday and have another one today from 1-8. I will never ever complain about another guest artist rehearsal again, Jean’s got them beat by about 4 hours. But of course, we are so glad to be dancing again. It is just taking us a little while to get back into the swing of things, and back into shape. It’s amazing how just one week off from dance can really set you back.
GARY SHORE HAS ARRIVED IN LONDON!!!! So happy to see a familiar face from home, and we have plenty of wonderful things to do the next two weeks while Gary and his son are visiting. We’re planning on showing the Shore men a wonderful time here in London.
Maybe I will find time tonight to catch up on work, do laundry, CALL MY FAMILY, eat, go food shopping, book all our trips, and put up my pictures, but that might be a little ambitious to do all of the above. As I am sitting here with my stack of buttered toast and coffee (what else is new) all I want to do is just enjoy the view out of my 4th floor Pickwick window. I am guessing it is going to be a very long time until I can lay in bed all day. I AM NOT complaining at all, this is what I asked for and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My boot is in sad,sad condition. Thanks London
Oh, but wait it is.
So much has happened over the past week now that we are here living at Pickwick, and everything has been better than a dream. Considering the fact that I was having nightmares of the most random things the first couple of days, this may quite possibly be the happiest I have ever been in my life.
By the way, people feed the squirrels here like they are pets, it is absolutely repulsive. I am literally concerned that at any point these abnormally large squirrels are going to run up my leg or something. We posted up in Russel Square yesterday to do some work, and so many got way too close for comfort. SO not into it.
Internet here at our “glorified hostel”, Kristen dubbed it as such, has not been existent for the past few days. It was so strange being cut off from the states and everything, but at the same time it gave me an opportunity to really focus on everything that has been going on around me. My camera is on its death bed, so I am waiting for a new one to arrive any day now, THANK GOD.
Since we have been here we literally have gone to see a show every single night. You would be surprised at how exaughsting it is to sit and watch performances every night. I have been to the Globe, and have definitely had my fix of Shakespeare, but we have one more show to see there tomorrow night before it closes for the season. Gotta soak it all up I guess.
The dance performances have definitely been so wonderful and inspiring. Wednesday we saw the Jean Abreu dance company, called Inside, and it was literally stunning. I feel like even mentioning it doesn’t give it enough credit because it was just.that.good. Ashleyanne and I would be hitting each other like every 30 seconds being like, did you see that?!? Like I said, i feel like I can’t even talk about it because it was so wonderful. And then my life became even more of a dream when went out with Donna, Jean Abreu, and his entire company along with some of their friends. We went to Ronny Scott’s, one of the most famous jazz clubs in London which you must be a member of, and then went to G.A.Y and danced into all hours of the morning. Not lieing, hands down one of my top 5 best nights of my life thus far.
We have been to the Museum of London and Greenwich (the market there is wonderful) for our class so far. Educational of course, but I would much rather go visit there on my own. I need to keep reminding myself that this is an academic trip, because I could just take dance classes and explore on my own for the next three months and be okay with that. I also took a hip hop class at PIneapple last week, and that was a blast. Tonight Kristen and I checked out a lyrical contemporary and jazz class at Danceworks, which was also an adventure, especially when we did a combination to Nsync in contemporary….confusing. We have yet to find a staple, modern technique class yet. So the search continues…
Our dear friends from Finchley came to Pickwick this past weekend, where we were much too loud before we went out and when we came back. BUT we went to the Playboy Club of London, and it was absolutely amazing. So much fun, however we have yet to see many people actually dance when we go out. So naturally, we are those three american girls who just get stared at the whole time…whoops.Sorry.
I need to find time to go food shopping, do laundry, write more papers, and actually send things home to everyone. I will get around to it eventually, but I really am just too distracted by everything going on here to get around to all of this..I will before we go to Paris this weekend….!
These adventures are just passing by me so quickly. I really wish I could share everything, but seriously words cannot describe it at all.
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me.
I have said so many times tonight “my camera is doing that thing again”….I tend to break things all the time, lose things, or thing that my things are broken and lost. It is true that right now my London cell phone is acting up, I guess that’s what happen when you get a cheap Nokia phone for 30 pounds, yay. Does the job though I guess.
We have no moved into our lovely Pickwick Hall. To our first horror, we never thought in a million years that we would be comfortable in this place. But after two bottles of wine and about 4 hours, we have somewhat made this place look like home. Blossom Hill bottles will be the first holders of some lovely flowers on our adorable little mantle (pictures soon to come).
Leaving the adorable Finchley was so sad today, the Warners and all of their friends have been more than perfect to us. On our last day of our homestay, we ventured into Greenich with Sara to take an African dance class at GDA. Fortunately, the train was cancelled that would get us to the class on time. Whoops, unfortunately….but hey, we woke ourselves up early for 3 dance classes this week, so we thought it would be ok to not make it to one. Instead, we explored a little bit of Greenich market and then got coffee and sat in the park for the perfect amount of time, talking about experiences here so far and at Roger Williams. After that, us girls continued our exploring to London Bridge and Tower Bridge, and then to the most adorable little pub where we enjoyed an afternoon drink. Camden Market then tuckered us out even more, and we spent the last few afternoon hours snoozing on the couch. My kind of day.
Our last night in Finchley consisted of a delicious dinner with the family, and then great, funny conversation with all the people we have met over the past week. Can’t wait to visit Holly at Uni and then meet up with everyone else over the next few months! It was definitely sad saying goodbye to the precious Avendale Avenue household today, especially after we had to awkwardly ask the construction workers across the street to take a picture of us in front of the house. The things us Americans do…
We had our opening banquet tonight with the rest of the Roger Williams crew that flew in today plus three other students from different universities. We thought it was going to be an opportunity to meet all the other students, however, we ended up sitting with Donna, another alumni of the Roger Williams dance program who filled us in on all of the exciting things that we will be doing this coming semester. Something the MOST exciting though, already I am feeling so inspired here and would love to see this London Theatre program become more rounded to the dancers as well, and we may have found an opportunity for that. Fingers crossed, we would like to work with a choreographer here, with the help of Donna, who could give us a trio that we could perform here or when we go back to Roger Williams. It is not set in stone yet, but if it could work out that way, we would literally be the three happiest girls in the world and would hopefully encourage future dancers to do this program.
After this wonderful news, and a delicios three course meal that we needed after hardly eating all day, the most adorable man Ivan, a legend with this program from Translyvania (he literally speaks like a vampire), took us to the Waterloo Bridge and showed us the best view of London. Of course, my melodramatic self thought that my camera was broken and of course did not get to snap any picures, but I do plan to another time. My mental pictures consist of the Thames River lit up by the London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament, and so many other buildings. I cannot wait to go back here.
Tomorrow is a touristy day, but I am excited since we haven’t really done anything like that yet. We will be taking a tour of London on a double decker bus, and then are going to see a show tomorrow night. Another chapter of this adventure is about to begin, and I am literally crawling out of my skin.
I will now be entertaining myself with a very very ancient German dictionary I found in the Pickwick library and another book of short stories. Oh also, I am chopping my hair off again.
What I have been enjoying the last few days are the differences in the English language just across the Atlantic. My two favorite so far, slut is slag. So instead of slutty, slutface, etc, one might say slaggy, slag face, or our new favorite, slag bag.
Also, as those close to me know, french fries are a favorite of mine. Chips, like the snack, not my cup of tea. BUT, here, chips are french fries, and crisps are chips.
There’s your afternoon lesson.
