GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

one of his aims was to see out the next BGCM at Quorn, having seen all the

developments and improvements to our conference room all completed. You

did not quite make it, John, but I am sure you are going to give us a run down

of your own activities over this excellent two years. I hand over to our

President, John Smith. (Applause)

PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Oshor. My dear friends, as I reach the end of my presidency of the GFTU in its 120 th year, it is an obvious time to reflect on my

long association with the federation and to look to the future. I have spent

around 15 years on the Executive Committee. The only person who has got a

longer association than me is, of course, the General Secretary, who was a

long serving EC member and, of course, a former President. Much has

changed during this time and the last few years have not only seen the

consolidation of our finances into our investment into the Quorn Grange Hotel,

but have also seen us embark on a massive development of the hotel site with

the aim of making the most of this fantastic asset to the benefit of all our

affiliates and to the rest of our movement. As Oshor said, the idea was that we

would have this conference to actually introduce the new development, but, of

course, they are running late and they will not be ready for a few weeks, so

time was against us, but next time round when Oshor has his BCGM we should

be there and I look forward to being there.

I will come on to the hotel and the current issues in a moment, but, first of all,

let me reflect upon my background in the trade union movement and the

changes I have witnessed, both at the GFTU and also in the labour movement

at large.

As most of you know, I was General Secretary of the Musicians’ Union for 15

years before retiring from that role in 2017. In total I was a fulltime official of

the MU for 23 years and before that a professional musician for 25 years. I

joined the union in 1969, so this year, in fact this month, I am celebrating 50

years of continuous membership, which I am quite pleased about. As you can

imagine, I am passionate about the value of the arts and creativity and the

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