November EC Meeting 2019

We have been approached by an employment law service to consider buying their company. We are at the early stages of due diligence. Leicestershire Promotions who rent office space from us, are interested in us providing the full suite of services for them from ICT to accounts. They are also providing quality training for the hotel staff. A new Head of Finance, Heather Bundock, and a new Senior Finance Officer, Surjeet Dhillon commence employment with us at the beginning of December. Part of their contracts are attributed to the Educational Trust. It should be noted that some five days of interview and recruitment time were spent and that we were ably assisted by the Operations Manager and Angela SInclair the Office Manager of POA and Paula Larwell the Finance Officer. With thanks to them.

Payroll work is undertaken for three unions.

Financial accountancy work is undertaken for two unions.

Education management work is undertaken for two unions. In one case this is subsidised by us.

Administrative back up is undertaken for two unions.

A copy of the latest Win Win summary is attached.

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Wider educational work.

The Trust supports the development of lifelong learning opportunities for learning in the widest sense. One priority has been to try and re-establish the Youth Service. I am Chair of the campaign group Chooseyouth, the largest in the field representing all of the main organisations in Youth Work. Campaigning has led to, the government consulting on the adequacy of existing youth service legislation, various parliamentary debates and the most significant policy document ever, now produced by the Labour Party, Only Young Once, which you can see on their website. I have argued that this should be a central campaigning priority for the Labour Party as I believe it will be an election winner. As Chair of Ruskin College I have been keen to work to ensure that this institution survives as an independent college. This has been a time consuming role over the last period. Our sponsorship of Shout Out proved very useful and our position this year was not to directly sponsor but to promote and encourage others to do so. This strategy appears to be working with several unions interested in their work and sponsoring them. The outgoing marketing manager at New Internationalist expressed the desire to end the imprint. We are taking this up with his successor as we believe this imprint occupies a unique space. Sales of recent publications are slower than expected – Heroes in the Evening Mist and For the Many Not the Few. These would make ideal Christmas presents. A book stall will be arranged on November 29 th . 22 Workable Books.

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New website

A new website has been constructed and has a better system of advertising courses and our sense of history.

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