solved it - you put me on the right track. many many thanks
i figured out how to create a group called foundry, and specified a gid of 421, and added myself to it. if anyone else suffers the same probelem, i used:
groupadd -g -421 foundry
usermod -a -G foundry <myusername>
I don't think i'll ever become a linux admin at this rate!
Thanks again
Nox