GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

I hope they are the broad brush issues that we have been dealing with very

carefully over the last two years and they have all ended up as those sets of

accounts which have been approved. Thanks. (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Doug. I just want to add my thanks and

congratulations to Doug for the way he has handled this period. It was always

going to be risk when we started to deplete our reserves in order to invest in

the Quorn Grange site. I think the goal for us all is really good and I think it is

the right thing that we should have done, but nobody expected this to come out

of the blue, this fraud. It is great to get three quarters of it back and that was

very nice. I think the outstanding £100,000 we have been, or Doug has been,

corresponding with Lloyds Bank and they have been unhelpful, to say the least

and it is very disappointing, their attitude towards it. It is like, “It is a piffling

amount, go away”, that kind of letter that we recently received. So there we

are, colleagues. We will see if we have to bear that or not, but if we go to the

ombudsman, that is going to be a long drawn out process to see if we can get

any satisfaction. Probably it is going to be an expensive one too, so we are not

going to be able to win with that. Any questions on the finances, please? Can

you give the name and the union that you are from, please.

BRO DEWI HUGHES (AEP): Dewi Hughes from the Association of Educational

Psychologists. I would be interested to know what is the reserves policy of the

GFTU.

THE PRESIDENT: I think, as Doug said in his speech, it was quite difficult to hit

upon a figure, because you are plucking it out of the air really. We decided that

we needed an amount that we could sustain our activities for for at least a year,

or maybe 18 months at the time we were talking about it, and that was £1

million. That is the figure that we were targeting to keep in reserve so that

whatever happened, teething problems with the changes until we got the

income from the rents on the site, that we could actually sustain ourselves. We

are not going to hit that target because of this fraud, but I think the latest figures

are that we are not very far from it. I do not know if Doug has got any figures

on that. About £800,000 he tells me. So that is the policy, if you like, to

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