Educational Trustees Meeting

4

Third Age Challenge Trust

4.1 We have deregistered this company.

5 ET Trading Company

5.1 The draft accounts of our Trading Company, which primarily manages the hotel, are attached. 5.2 It should be noted that there have been cash flow problems at the hotel over the last two years and an accumulated debt of some £194k to the GFTU has accumulated. A strict repayment schedule has been agreed over the next eighteen months and the first repayment amount has been paid. 5.3 There was a serious case of fraud against the company by an energy broker. The Head of Finance has had a serious amount of work to do to report this to all relevant authorities. Fortunately nearly all of the money that was removed due a fraudulent signature has been repaid. Ofgem, the police, fraud team and so on have all been reported. 5.4 The Hotel General Manager and Events Organiser have held meetings with all wedding couples. A condition with the contractor for the new build was of course to minimise any disruption to business. This will be the main focus of the weekly site meetings and the Hotel Manager’s role over the year.

6

Staffing

6.1

Ros Hartshorn has joined the team as Education Administrator.

7

Accounts and Finances

7.1 The ET has been audited and the final accounts await the completion of the Nursery audit and accounts as they are fully consolidated accounts and take longer than all others. The draft accounts will be circulated to Trustees shortly by email and approved at our next meeting. In the mean time the latest management accounts are attached. 7.2 Some £228k reduction on the GFTU portfolio was recorded in the last quarter with the dip in the markets. This again proves the difficulty of relying on money market investments.

8

Potential New Partnership

8.1 I attached notes of some proposals that Dr Andy Hodder of Birmingham University and I were discussing recently. This is a welcome new development. See attached.

9

Federation News/Viewpoint

9.1 The Trust formerly funded along with the Institute for Employment Rights, the publication Federation News a successful balance of academically rigorous and popular articles. I then changed this to Federation Viewpoint but became unconvinced of its impact. However several academics and trade unionists have indicated that there is a need for a resurrection of such a publication perhaps as a digital version. 9.2 As you will see Dr Hodder is prepared to resurrect this and I think we should welcome this development and publish in our 120 th year next year.