GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

and as one of the biggest customers at Quorn we get an absolutely fantastic

welcome from the people who work there, fantastic facilities to stay in, fantastic

rooms to be taught in or to have our meetings in, fantastic food from a great

chef and his team. Everything about Quorn is at the top of what we have ever

had in the trade union movement. We have got to protect that, but it is like

anything else. If you do not use it, you lose it, so all those trade unions who

are in here now who do not use Quorn, think about it. Even if it is only one

meeting a year you put on that site, it all benefits you, because it comes back

into what we deliver here and that programme. It is down to you to make sure

you invest in it.

So I have pleasure in seconding the motion from the Finance Committee and

from the General Secretary and hope that you will all support the actions that

we take for growing our organisation in the future. Thank you. (Applause)

BRO GLYN TRAVERS (POA): We are a new affiliate to this organisation and this is

my first time at this conference and what I would say is the fact that the unity

and comradeship from everybody here demonstrates what the trade union

movement is about. I was reading through some of the stuff which I found

very, very useful in the report that has been compiled by people who work for

the GFTU and I am sure that in 1899 Mr. Davis when he chaired the very first

meeting never thought that in 2017 we would be in a hotel like this talking

about the future of the organisation, taking us through to the year maybe 3000,

the next 83 years. Reading this proposal and listening to what delegates have

said today, I was really interested when Ian from NAPO turned round and said

40 years ago they thought about selling a building and after 40 years they

made a decision. The POA was established in 1939, although historically we

go back with the police to 1918 and we had a magazine called The Red One.

We changed it to The Gate Lodge and for the last 70 years it has been the

Gate Lodge, because unions are very, very reluctant to change.

The proposals here, for me, set out a future for the new generations of the

trade union movement. As I said in my opening, the majority of people in this

room, and there are exceptions, are coming towards their end. Some people,

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