GFTU BGCM Report 2017

13. We have a tradition of supporting university students in their studies through bursaries. For the next three years we are funding Edda Nicolson to produce an up to date history of the GFTU at the University of Wolverhampton, we have given a bursary of £1,500 to the President of BECTU to study trade unionism and free-lance work, and we have donated small £100 prizes to students in the Industrial Relations Department at De Montfort University. In addition Dr Shirin Hirsch has been appointed to a post doctorate at Wolverhampton which enables her to contribute some time to our education work. 14. We occasionally donate to worthwhile educational and historic projects. This year we have donated £1,500 to the Marx Memorial Library to restore some Spanish Civil War Banners, £1,000 to the Radical Book Fair as author prizes, £2,000 to Banner Theatre to assist in the compilation of a book of the songs of Dave Rogers with music transcription and photographs. We have donated also to assist in the production of a film about the London Recruits, those brave young trade unionists who went to South Africa to undertake clandestine work against the Apartheid regime. We commissioned a new performance piece Our History Our Future which can be used at Union education events and conferences. 15. We were pleased also to be able to support the production of a play about an early leading woman trade unionist who was on the GFTU Executive, Mary Quaile, and to support the work to preserve archives of the North West Women’s Union. 16. Our normal funding of a biennial study visit by the Executive Committee of the GFTU did not take place in quite the same way in 2016 due to funding and time pressures on the committee. However, we were able to fund a visit by younger EC members to Greece. We have also been able to support two educational exchanges to the GFTU by ESNA the Latin American trade union education and research organisation. Work with the Vietnamese embassy should enable us to support a health and safety exchange with Vietnamese trade unionists this year. A Kurdish arts and culture festival is also planned at Quorn on July 30th. 17. The Trust has supported two new initiatives. Quarterly meeting opportunities under the banner of Continuous

bids supported. The most successful bid has been with Wolverhampton University and £670,000 has been secured for the university to do a study of the history of the North Wales coalfields with two new post-doctoral students, this will release some capacity for closer partnership working with the university. We were unsuccessful in our bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a project over three years to engage young people in studying the history of young people’s engagement in the trade union and community movements. However, the Heritage Lottery Fund have requested a meeting about the relevance of other funding streams to our work. 19. In order to begin to professionalise and regularise our external fund raising interviews with fundraising companies have been held and an initial contract to make some applications has been agreed. 20. In addition, we met with two representatives of FORMAC to consider joint funding on a number of related projects. FORMAC is a trade union related fund raising company established by the Polish Union OPZZ. It has a successful track record in obtaining significant funding for partnership projects throughout Europe and indeed the GFTU has been party to several of these over the years. Two potential partnership bids are being considered at the moment one to support our work on health and safety with the Vietnamese General Confederation of Labour and one to support work on youth engagement in unions. 21. In 2015 significant expenditure was made on a new integrated computer system to replace outdated hardware throughout. This was struck by a near fatal computer virus that seriously damaged all GFTU related organisations. As an illustration all of the Trusts Education Programmes were destroyed. We would estimate the cost of this alone as £130,000. The system was then struck by some other spam attacks and has remained unstable since. A comprehensive independent review of our situation and future requirements is underway and an interim report has been received. Tenders for a new maintainer will be circulated and a new six month post of ICT Officer will be created. 22. The Trust has also begun to support new initiatives in using the arts and culture in education and these are reported on more fully below. 23. We have established a good new platform and now is the time to consolidate it and market our new initiatives more fully. 24. The Trust is offering its biggest and most comprehensive education programme in 2017/2018. This seeks to expand the subjects delivered, improve the way they are taught, generate business for the hotel through new public events and operate more flexibly. 25. The Trust has been three full time staff down for the year. 26. The Trust has established a small working group to assist the viability assessment of the proposed new build at Quorn.

BANNERS FOR SPAIN FIGHTING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR IN LONDON

Professional Development for various specialist trade union officers namely, education officers, HR managers, Health and Safety Officers, Finance and Admin Officers. We also support two meetings a year of General Secretaries. To extend and deepen the debates on education and union development matters the Trust supported a GFTU Summit in 2015 and a Union Development Conference in 2016. 18. In actively seeking to diversity our funding a number of external grant

Invitation to our private view Friday 5th May 6pm to 8pm Please RSVP to islington.museum@islington.gov.uk 020 7527 2837

Islington Museum, 245 St John Street, London EC1V 4NB In partnership with the Marx Memorial Library, showcasing its Spanish Civil War collection

applications have been made and a number of

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