Gallu Executive Group Meeting Minutes
Aberglasney Coach House
26 October 2004 – 11.00am
Attendance:
Chris Osborne - W W Hospitality Panel
Gary Davies - RTP
Diana James - TTFW
Lisa Johnston - HRD Co-ordinator
Vikki King - TTFW Finance and Systems Manager
1. Apologies – None, all present.
2. Minutes of last meeting were read and agreed as accurate. GD and CO suggested that minutes of the Gallu Executive Steering Group meetings go onto the Gallu website. LJ checked that all were happy with the procedure for checking minutes of the meeting for accuracy prior to then being sent out to a wider audience, all were.
3. Matters arising:
CO, GD congratulated the Gallu team on their professional, well attended launch saying that it caused quite a buzz and people thoroughly enjoyed it. Identification of Statutory Training was again raised with LJ reporting that she had found some on www.openquals.co.uk however LJ needed further clarification and was going to seek this from ACCAC. CO suggested that a list was not going to be found and that if a form of training or skills development was recognised and was felt to be statutory if should emailed to the Exec Group for answers DJ would check directly with WEFO and LJ would check with Lyn Jones from Elwa if it was still questionable.
GD highlighted that fact the WTB Roadshows now had a date and location 3rd Feb at the Dylan Thomas Centre Swansea and that one of the workshops was to be based on HRD at Grass Roots Level. LJ acknowledged this and in co-ordination with the TTFW will put a workshop together.
LJ pointed out that she had not put progress on the agenda at this meeting as the agenda was already full of urgent matters and felt that a full progress report would take too much time however LJ brought the exec group up to date with the TNA progress. In the last 12 working days Gallu has completed in excess of 50 Training Needs Analysis. CO requested that progress be on the agenda for all meetings as it was the exec groups remit to ensure that the project did in fact progress.
GD requested that action points be made easily identifiable from the minutes.
4.Matching Training to the HRD Strategy
DJ said that businesses have quite comprehensive wish lists and Gallu needs to have a clear rationale for why it has or has not carried out certain types of training. DJ suggested that the wish lists that came out of the TNAs be analysed, compared to the HRD actions in the SW Wales Tourism Strategy, and prioritised according to the priorities of the Strategy.
All agreed.
5. Budget
LJ felt that she needed to highlight to the steering group the issues that had arisen with regard to the travel and subsistence allowance in the budget being under funded, and that whilst this issue had been dealt with for now they may become an issue in the future. CO asked VK if the steering group could have a financial report prior to every steering group meeting. LJ said she would email VK the list of meeting dates and if VK emailed the report to LJ a week before the meeting LJ would email the financial report out with the agenda. GD asked VK if it would be OK to ask for specifics
6. AOB
The situation with regarding to who is eligible to complete beneficiary forms and timesheets arose GD said that every person that a Gallu Team member speaks to benefits from the project therefore they should all complete beneficiary forms i.e. Open Forums, TNA, General Meetings, Open days. CO said there may be an issue with double claiming at Pembs tourism open day, LJ suggested that on the time sheet Gallu put the beneficiary down for 1 hour as Lowri will be doing a presentation and the Pembs tourism puts the beneficiary down for 1 hour as they arranged the day, GD said that we should not get too tied up with worries about this. VK said that so long as Pembs weren’t claiming them for 9 hours of the day and Gallu an extra 2 it was quite reasonable to assume that each participant benefited from ESF money in one day.
GD suggested that LJ meet with Liz Matthews from the WTB to discuss how various things work ie. Capital grants and training by WTB.
DJ highlighted that best practise exemplars can be utilized and that not all skills or training need be done through providers, LJ said that she was already working with the exemplars for the retention workshops starting in November.
LJ asked the steering group about legal issues that the trade are asking for help with DJ reminded LJ that whodoiask.com was the right tool for this and that if the business could not find the answer to the question they needed to post it via the email link and that way the site would become of real value to the trade.
CO raised the issue that Gallu needs to be seen as being delivered by the TA, LJ asked if there was a specific issue that needed to brought to her attention as far as she was aware all Gallu team members were going out of their way to work with and through the TA . It was noted however that this is a new venture and that it might take time for all parties concerned to adjust.
CO also raised the issue of Gallu Team Members wording when giving timescales to the trade for the duration of courses, it was suggested that timing be given in hours not days or afternoons, any offer of training courses could be made so as to fit in with the trade operators' availability.