Tuesday May 18th was the official opening day for
this learning centre; the date was specifically chosen to fall in
line with National Adult Learning week. This project has been
on-going for a while, the first meeting took place Wednesday
26th November 2008 around the table with the then
Managing Director of Blackpool Airport – Dave
Kershaw and Jackie Wild
from Human Resources. Unite had Union recognition at this
time but no active members or committee. Following on from
this meeting we met with some of the Unite members and we recruited
three new Union Learner Reps (ULRs) Peter Bailey, Carol
Haydon-Thomas and Melanie Fielden. These three
new ULRs went on a five day ULR training course at our Preston
Unite office in February 2009, I delivered this course.
Following their training Peter, Carol and
Melanie conducted a number of Learning Needs Analyses (LNAs) at the
airport to gauge the interest and to get a feeling of what
employees would like to see delivered through the Learning
Centre. Feedback suggested that there was a lot of interest
at the airport and courses that employees showed an interest in
were: English, maths, Computer training, more NVQ’s, Language
courses and Sign Language.
LNAs were only carried out with around 40
employees at the airport at this time, because the ULRs wanted to
wait until things had moved on more with both a Learning Agreement
and the Learning Centre. Education Steering Group Meetings
were put on the agenda following the training of the ULRs and both
a room was agreed for the Learning Centre and a learning Agreement
was drafted up by the end of June 2009. The learning
Agreement was officially signed off November 2009. We gained
a fourth ULR in Noel Hudson and he attended a ULR Training course
at the Salford office November 2009.
The Unite full time/servicing officer for
Blackpool Airport is Eddie Irvine and he
was kept up to date with activities at the airport. We had a
visit to Blackpool and Fylde College in May 2009 along with the
ULRs from Blackpool Transport, to look around the College and
familiarise the new ULRs with the college. Blackpool Transport was
at the stage of opening their Learning Centre later that month and
the ULRs from the Airport were invited to attend this
event.
Sadly both Dave
Kershaw and Jackie Wild
left the airport in late 2009; however Glynn
Wright – Finance Manager - attended the steering
group meetings and was fully behind the Learning Centre. The
equipment for the Learning Centre (ten computers, a colour printer,
a black & white printer and a projector) was supplied by Unite,
whilst the Airport kitted out the room with Internet access and
furniture. The room was all set up around late January 2010
and the next stage was to launch this facility in a fitting
way. Adult Learners Week felt appropriate and it was agreed
this would be the best date to work around.
We met with Susan
Kendrick – Communications Manager at Blackpool
Airport to agree a strategy and agenda for publicising the
event.
A number of airport employees had completed
their NVQ’s and we wanted this to be acknowledged along with the
official opening event. The ULRs at the airport were the main
organisers around setting up the opening day activities. They
were given £500 funding from Unionlearn (Skills for All – LAW) our
goal was to raise awareness of Life-long Learning and the location
of the Learning Centre – available to all staff.
We invited Clive
Colman - Balfour Beatie - and John
Jones – Blackpool Labour Councillor – to cut the
ribbon/officially open the new Learning Centre.Wendy
Hirst – Curriculum Manager, Skills for Life and
Kevin Beadon – Numeracy (Maths) Tutor
from Blackpool and the Fylde College happily attended this event
and gladly gave information to employees regarding the resources at
the college. Keith Pemberton –
Project Worker from the TUC, John Lea –
Union Learning Coordinator North-west and Eddie Irvine Regional
Industrial Officer from Unite also attended this event.
Employees whom attended on the day took the
opportunity to meet with their ULRs, College representatives and
other guests. Some employees completed LNAs, took part in
on-line assessments around Literacy and Numeracy and paper based
assessments.
We hope to start delivering courses from this
facility very soon, with Blackpool and the Fylde College happily
onboard to look at the Literacy and Numeracy courses with us.
I may start with delivering short computer courses to help both
motivate and bridge a skills gap around I.T. The ULRs will carry on
conducting LNAs and we will meet with providers to obtain the best
provision we can.
We now have the foundations of a Branch
structure in place, with four ULRs, two Work-place Reps (WPRs), two
Health & Safety Reps and a Branch Secretary in place.
