GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

because I took 32 members to Quorn and we had a week of branch official

training where we were welcomed by professional new employees who were

being paid the right wage for doing the right job. We had food that was

absolutely second to note and, as I say, we have been in the Marriott Hotels,

Cedar Court, so we have stayed in good hotels, we do not go to skimpy hotels.

The actual saving, as I was saying to Doug last night, our affiliation fees, we

will save this year by doing three trade union events at Quorn. We will save

£20,000. This morning, Red Meet Event, £98 per night. We normally take

about 11 people to conference, so we will already be in profit there. I am

learning so much by being here, but what I wanted to say really is the fact that

trade unions are very insular, we all think we know best and nobody is more

guilty of that than me, because I believe that the POA is the best trade union,

as I would, I have been a member for 32 years, and I believe that we do

everything right and actually when we open our doors and see that we are a

broad church we can learn so much from everybody, whether it is Morrish,

Thomsons. Whichever firm of solicitors we use we will learn, we will pick bits

up, but the one thing that I have learned is the fact that if we are going to have

a pathway to education for all of our delegates, our new members, young, old,

irrespective of where they are, what we need to have is a centre of excellence

and I believed that Quorn, GFTU, the history behind that is something that we

as trade unionists need to open up and spread out to everybody within the

trade union movement to try and get more people to affiliate so that more

people can use the facilities, more people can expand those facilities and in

doing so I think we can provide a better service for the future for the people

who, no disrespect to everybody looking round here, we are all getting on, we

are all probably looking towards how many years have we got before we start

drawing our state pension----

A DELEGATE: A long time!

BRO GLYN TRAVERS (POA): That is only because the Government are making it

68, 69, 70, not where we really want it to be. We have an active campaign to

say that we want everybody as a frontline prison officer to retire at 60. That

does not meet you will have to stop at 60, it means that you can retire from the

90