November EC Meeting 2019

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Illustrated History of the GFTU.

An illustrated history of the GFTU was commissioned and can be seen on the website.

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Finances.

Andrew Pearson FCCA and former Head of Finance at the Co Operative College, has been overseeing and improving hotel accounts and producing the budget and cash flow forecast. This is under close examination by the hotel directors and will all be further scrutinised at their next meeting on December 13th. Following Claire Smith’s departure I asked Andrew to maintain the Trust and GFTU Accounts. These are attached. The financial strategy agreed some years ago was to ask the Educational Trust to generate income so that it did not rely on the GFTU for 100% of its funding. The gift of £3m given by the GFTU to the Educational Trust on the sale of Central House was used to purchase Quorn Grange Hotel.

After an initial good start and some investment for refurbishment, the hotel incurred losses.

The Trust also invested in an onsite commercial nursery. After an initial good start government funding changed and nursery provision on site did not become viable and we closed the nursery.

The cash flow issues at the hotel necessitated the GFTU and the Trust providing significant loans.

The GFTU and Trust were persuaded that the hotel was just the wrong size to make a good profit.

Following extensive consultation and business planning it was agreed to invest most of the GFTU’s investments into the hotel. The financial planning required new housing on site to generate around £100,000 a year and the hotel £235,000 a year.

The latest draft budget for the hotel, subject to further revision is attached.

The estate agents are optimistic that the housing will be taken up quickly and achieve targets. These will open in early December.

Further costs would be saved to the GFTU by having its own offices and classrooms on site.

The £335,000 generated on site is insufficient to sustain the same level of education provision and other activities increasingly required by a growing GFTU membership.

Our other income generation activities are win win and direct provision of services.

Our aspiration is to generate some £60,000 from accountancy work

Our aspiration is to generate some £40,000 per annum from win win services.

Our aspiration is to generate some £30,000 from Education management.

The aspiration of the GFTU is to raise £190,000 per annum from affiliations. It should be noted that in effect the GFTU subsidises every affiliate, all get more out than they put in.

If this can all be achieved we have an annual income of £655,000.

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