GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

do with the BGCM, because the trust is a separate organisation. It is a

charitable trust with its own trustees. Nevertheless, it is a central aspect of the

GFTU’s activities, so we are going to spend a little bit of time introducing some

of the work that we are doing in the educational area and introducing some of

the really quite impressive new partnerships that the GFTU has been forging

over the last couple of years. We are going to start with two of the trustees of

the Educational Trust introducing, in effect, their report. First, Steve Orchard.

By the way, biographies of all of the speakers are in your pack. I am not going

to use up time by reading out their biographies, but have a look at them. They

are very interesting people, none less interesting than Steve.

THE EDUCATIONAL TRUST AND THE GFTU’S WORK ON EDUCATION

BRO STEVE ORCHARD: I cannot possibly follow that. I did get a bit of a shock. I

took a wrong turning and ended up in the caravanning conference and there

are some heated debates going on in there, let me tell you. (Laughter) I was a

radio DJ in the 1980s in Bristol and there is a road that goes into Bristol called

Kingswood Hill and if anything went wrong on Kingswood Hill it would cause

hours of traffic disruption. A wheel came off a caravan one morning on

Kingswood Hill and a lorry driver rang me up and said, “Here, Steve, you

should play that song then for them”. I said, “What’s that then?” He said, “You

know, Kenny Rogers”. I said, “Go on”. He said, “You picked a fine time to

leave me, loose wheel!” (Laughter)

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to come and talk to you and

to join you for the gala dinner this evening. I actually run a number of

businesses and Doug asked me to become a trustee of the GFTU Educational

Trust at the time of the acquisition of Quorn Grange Hotel when it was being

considered and I try, amongst other things, to give business and financial

insight in my work as a trustee. I am also a trustee of the Prison Radio

Association which tries to reduce reoffending by doing radio projects inside

prisons.

33