GFTU BGCM 2017

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GFTU Educational Trust | Page 45
13. We have a tradition of supporting university
students in their studies through bursaries. For the
next three years we are funding Edda Nicolson
to produce an up to date history of the GFTU at
the University of Wolverhampton, we have given
a bursary of £1,500 to the President of BECTU to
study trade unionism and free-lance work, and we
have donated small £100 prizes to students in the
Industrial Relations Department at De Montfort
University. In addition Dr Shirin Hirsch has been
appointed to a post doctorate at Wolverhampton
which enables her to contribute some time to our
education work.
14. We occasionally donate to worthwhile educational
and historic projects. This year we have donated
£1,500 to the Marx Memorial Library to restore
some Spanish Civil War Banners, £1,000 to the
Radical Book Fair as author prizes, £2,000 to Banner
Theatre to assist in the compilation of a book of
the songs of Dave Rogers with music transcription
and photographs. We have donated also to assist
in the production of a film about the London
Recruits, those brave young trade unionists who
went to South Africa to undertake clandestine work
against the Apartheid regime. We commissioned
a new performance piece Our History Our Future
which can be used at Union education events and
conferences.
15. We were pleased also to be able to support the
production of a play about an early leading woman
trade unionist who was on the GFTU Executive,
Mary Quaile, and to support the work to preserve
archives of the North West Women’s Union.
16. Our normal funding of a biennial study visit by the
Executive Committee of the GFTU did not take
place in quite the same way in 2016 due to funding
and time pressures on the committee. However, we
were able to fund a visit by younger EC members
to Greece. We have also been able to support two
educational exchanges to the GFTU by ESNA the
Latin American trade union education and research
organisation. Work with the Vietnamese embassy
should enable us to support a health and safety
exchange with Vietnamese trade unionists this
year. A Kurdish arts and culture festival is also
planned at Quorn on July 30th.
17. The Trust has supported two new
initiatives. Quarterly meeting opportunities
under the banner of Continuous
Professional Development for various
specialist trade union officers namely,
education officers, HR managers, Health
and Safety Officers, Finance and Admin
Officers. We also support two meetings
a year of General Secretaries. To
extend and deepen the debates on
education and union development
matters the Trust supported a
GFTU Summit in 2015 and a Union
Development Conference in 2016.
18. In actively seeking to diversity
our funding a number of external grant
applications have been made and a number of
bids supported. The most successful bid has been
with Wolverhampton University and £670,000 has
been secured for the university to do a study of
the history of the North Wales coalfields with two
new post-doctoral students, this will release some
capacity for closer partnership working with the
university. We were unsuccessful in our bid to the
Heritage Lottery Fund for a project over three years
to engage young people in studying the history
of young people’s engagement in the trade union
and community movements. However, the Heritage
Lottery Fund have requested a meeting about the
relevance of other funding streams to our work.
19. In order to begin to professionalise and regularise
our external fund raising interviews with fundraising
companies have been held and an initial contract to
make some applications has been agreed.
20. In addition, we met with two representatives of
FORMAC to consider joint funding on a number
of related projects. FORMAC is a trade union
related fund raising company established by the
Polish Union OPZZ. It has a successful track record
in obtaining significant funding for partnership
projects throughout Europe and indeed the
GFTU has been party to several of these over the
years. Two potential partnership bids are being
considered at the moment one to support our work
on health and safety with the Vietnamese General
Confederation of Labour and one to support work
on youth engagement in unions.
21. In 2015 significant expenditure was made on a new
integrated computer system to replace outdated
hardware throughout. This was struck by a near fatal
computer virus that seriously damaged all GFTU
related organisations. As an illustration all of the
Trusts Education Programmes were destroyed. We
would estimate the cost of this alone as £130,000.
The system was then struck by some other spam
attacks and has remained unstable since. A
comprehensive independent review of our situation
and future requirements is underway and an
interim report has been received. Tenders for a new
maintainer will be circulated and a new six month
post of ICT Officer will be created.
22. The Trust has also begun to support new initiatives
in using the arts and culture in education and these
are reported on more fully below.
23. We have established a good new platform and now
is the time to consolidate it and market our new
initiatives more fully.
24. The Trust is offering its biggest and most
comprehensive education programme in
2017/2018. This seeks to expand the subjects
delivered, improve the way they are taught,
generate business for the hotel through new public
events and operate more flexibly.
25. The Trust has been three full time staff down for the
year.
26. The Trust has established a small working group to
assist the viability assessment of the proposed new
build at Quorn.
BANNERS FOR SPAIN
FIGHTING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR IN LONDON
Islington Museum, 245 St John Street, London EC1V 4NB
In partnership with the Marx Memorial Library,
showcasing its Spanish Civil War collection
Invitation to our private view
Friday 5th May 6pm to 8pmov.uk
20 7527 2837