GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for that, Sarah. A seconder for that motion, please.

The motion was formally seconded

THE PRESIDENT: Would anybody like to speak on it? (No response) We will move

to the vote then.

Motion 10 was CARRIED unanimously

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. This was when we were supposed to

have a great friend of the GFTU, Dr Michael Sanders, to talk about his

activities. Doug has got a brief written report and I think you will be able to say

something from Mike, Doug.

DR MICHAEL SANDERS, GFTU EDUCATIONAL TRUST

THE GENERAL SECRETARY: Mike is a very valued member of the Educational

Trust, he is one of the trustees. He is a UCU member and he is a great expert

in the chartists and their songs and their poems and their contribution to the

struggle for democracy and he has done a very good written report, because

he went to the opticians yesterday and they discovered a bad problem which

meant that he had got to have some emergency treatment. He has sent his

report. A lot of it has covered the ground that we covered yesterday, so I will

just highlight two aspects of it that we have not yet covered.

Mike organised the programme of films called Women Organise at the HOME

Cinema in Manchester. He says that we sponsored that and we were involved

with the Women Organise Film Festival at the HOME Art Centre in Manchester.

It was a season of nine films, all celebrating the role of women in trade unions

from across the globe. One of the films screened, Ken Loach’s Bread and

Roses, was introduced by Mike on behalf of the GFTU, while another, North

Country, was introduced by Sarah Woolley from the Bakers Union. As part of

the season HOME produced a zine which inclined a brief history of the GFTU

as well as a timeline of trade union history, thereby bringing our history to a

wider audience. Our seventh and most important highlight is Education for

Action, the title of the GFTU’s current educational programme organised

around the core values of equality, democracy, empowerment, social justice,

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