GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

lovely to chat with as many of you as possible to talk through it. Thank you.

(Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Next up is Lynn Ambler and then we will have a break. It is

brilliant timing actually, given Edda was saying, because Lynn is going to talk to

us about an aspect of the GFTU’s work that many of you probably did not

realise we were involved in.

SIS LYNN AMBLER (Executive Committee): Thank you and thanks, Ben. I am Lynn

Ambler. I am speaking today as a director of the Quorn Grange Nursery. I

have been at the GFTU conference before. Some of you may have heard me

speak last time on the importance of play, so I suppose I am moving on on the

same sort of themes. I am a lifelong educator. I have been a teacher. I

represented the Association of Educational Psychologists at the GFTU. I am a

lifelong trade unionist and proudest of all to be associated with the GFTU.

It gives me great pleasure to bring all those things together and talk about

Quorn Grange Nursery. When we purchased the hotel a few years ago the

purchase included a 30 place nursery which, as those of you who have been,

will see it as a separate building adjacent to the hotel. It is actually a 30 place

nursery in a house, quite an unsuitable building in many respects for people

who have to be coping with babies, toddlers and under-fives, the different

rooms etc., going up and down stairs. One aspect is the somewhat

unsuitability of the building for a modern nursery. From that very early

involvement people like Ben and John and Doug will recall me saying

somewhat quietly, but nevertheless at most meetings, “We should separate it

from the hotel, separate it from the hotel” and for a long time I thought nobody

is really listening, but actually Ben and Doug and John and the GFTU Exec do

listen, dripping away every now and again, just saying, “We really should

separate it from the hotel”.

The clientele and the agendas are very, very different. It is important to have

meetings about the nursery which exclusively focus on educational practice,

childcare, safeguarding and pedagogy, but, on the other hand, having the

nursery gives the GFTU an opportunity to put into practice our movement’s

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