GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

locked out in various industrial disputes in those bad old days. Our

predecessors decided to invest that wealth by 1930 in Central House, the huge

building opposite Euston Station which we occupied until 2007 and that was a

hive of activity for the trade union movement, but then as many of the unions

disappeared with industrial reorganisation it was effectively let out, most of it,

for rent and as rental income reduced, so the GFTU all those years ago had to

have a decision about what to do with the building and we sold it. We sold it

after a lot of consideration when the market prices for property in that part of

London were sky high, so we got a good wad of money from that and we

decided, as many unions have done in recent history, not in previous times, but

in recent history we decided to invest it on the money markets and then along

came 2008, so a big, big chunk of it disappeared with wherever all the other

moneys and the billions disappeared during the financial crash. That meant

that in order to sustain the level of activities that we had at that point we were in

effect living beyond our means and we were eating into our remaining capital

which was still subject to the volatility of all of the markets, so we asked the

Education Trust (which the GFTU had historically since 1971 100% subsidised

so that all students on our courses got completely free education – free travel

to it, free subsistence, free overnight, free materials etc etc.) to start looking

longer term to generate income through other sources, so we lent the trust

some money to buy the hotel and the grounds at Quorn. We then asked for the

organisation as a whole to start thinking about developing services to affiliates

which would not just be good for the affiliates and cost effective for them and

save them money, but would make a bit of commission for the trust and Ian will

introduce a discussion about the considerable progress we have made on that

tomorrow.

We then were continually hit by the uncertainties of the money markets and we

took a decision (some say it took us far too long, it has probably taken us three

or four years of deliberation and business plans and all the rest of it) that we

would invest our hard earnt money with its important origin in the unions of the

olden times, as it were, in the real economy instead of the uncertainties of the

markets. We would invest, in other words, in the Quorn Grange site – houses

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