EC Meeting Papers July 2018

GENERAL FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS EDUCATIONAL TRUST

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2017

Wolverhampton University. Our partnered bid for £670,000 with the university to study the North Wales Coalfields and appoint two post doc students to work with the GFTU has been successful. Dr Shirin Hirsch the current post doc student working with the GFTU has commenced her work. We were able to make a successful appointment for a Ph D student to write a history of the GFTU. We are delighted to report that Edda Nicholson has been offered the position. DeMontfort University. We have offered two small prizes for students at DeMontfort successfully completing IR related courses and I will present these at the end of January. Exeter University. The University is keen to sign a partnership with us particularly to support our cultural work, promote degree apprenticeships, consider work on climate change and developmental issues internationally.

Marjohn College. The College is keen to sign a partnership with us particularly to support our education agenda.

International

China. A group of eight leading Chinese trade Unionists from Guandong province, the most industrious in China responsible for 10% of China’s GDP, visited Quorn on 16th January at short notice. They presented us with a wonderful silk embroidery of the Silk Road which will make a beautiful picture at the hotel. As the Chinese delegations always do they invited us to visit them. There is 90% trade union membership in their region and they have 30 million members. They have 3,000 full time lawyers in their region working for the trade unions. A big part of their work is looking after migrant workers into their region from other parts of China.

Vietnam. A very useful meeting was held before Xmas with the Vietnamese Ambassador who is kindly prepared to ensure that air fares for

our health and safety project are waived. The GMB is very keen on this project also.

A Kurdish festival is being held at Quorn on July 30 th 2017.

New funding streams. Mindful of its commitment to opening new funding streams for the charity the Trustees have supported initiatives to develop an ethical trading shop in 2016 and a new international publishing venture in 2017. Our task financially has been to try and supplement previously exclusive GFTU subsidies to our education programme with alternative funding streams, our purchase of Quorn Grange Hotel and Nursery and current development plans there have been central to this. We have also developed an ethical shop with New Internationalist, and we are also launching a new international publishing house with them this year called Workable Books.

In order to begin to professionalise and regularise our external fund raising interviews with fundraising companies have been held.

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. The Trust has been keen to support the development of new services that could generate small additional income for its work. Among these have been: New GFTU Legal services for affiliates, new venue booking arrangements, a print and design facility, a credit union, new financial services offers to members, financial and education administration for affiliates and a new beer and wine.

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