GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

the Popular Plus meant, I think it meant you had a steering wheel and I was

pulling Steve’s leg, because I could not afford a Cortina. I worked for a

company called Sun Life for Canada and they gave me my first orphan client.

An orphan client was somebody that had a policy with the insurance company

but was not actually being serviced by anybody. So I went off in my red Ford

Escort Popular Plus to this address and got to this estate and this little lad

came up to me and he said, “Mate, give us 5 quid and I’ll look after your car”. I

said, “No, you’re all right, my dog’s in the back”, to which he said, “Uh, good at

putting out fires, is he?” (Laughter)

So what do we do and how can we help? The important thing that has already

been said is that everything that we do is partially to the benefit of the

Educational Trust and that is a key point really to take on board this morning.

Also, as has already been said by Ben, in terms of you yourselves, if you want

advice for any moneys you have as a union and it is really quite complicated,

the world that we live in today and, as I say, I have been doing this for 30 years

now, so you can actually get lost in the detail and the technicality of it all, so if

you need help and advice in relation to funds like that. As a business we are

doing an awful lot of advice to clients in relation to their mortgages. A few

years ago it used to be the case that you could only really go to your bank or

building society and mortgage brokers were just really not doing very well, but

that has really swung round, so you can get some particularly good deals

through brokers these days and we do an awful lot of business, so if your

members are looking for advice on mortgages and, let’s be honest, that is one

of the biggest financial commitments that any of us will ever take on, so that is

a key area that we can help you with.

Ben yesterday said about pensions. That is a really big area for us at the

moment, especially advising people in relation to schemes that potentially they

used to be in with an employer or they are looking to retire and they think,

“Should I leave it? Should I take it away?” Unfortunately, there are some very

unscrupulous firms around, you have probably seen it on Panorama,

persuading people to move their funds when they really should not do that. In

relation to people’s pension funds, what we are finding is what are called cash

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