GMWRAG holds meetings four or five times a year around the Greater Manchester area on the third Friday of the month. Given the pressures on the public sector none of this is written in stone. Five local authorities take the lead on this. Other organisations are welcome to offer to host at any time. GMWRAG will be approaching Rochdale, Wigan and Bury to look at whether they can host future meetings as they have in the past.
Prior to the creation of this web site, details of the next GMWRAG meeting were available for members of our email and postal mailing list but GMWRAG members who were able to attend meetings tended to rely almost exclusively upon the memory of one John Ball; his diary and his uncanny recall of who was hosting next.
The mailing list is no more (in any format) and members can now stay completely up to date by either checking in periodically to this page or, easier still, subscribing to the site and receiving an email detailing all new posts.
As we continue to receive occasional queries on this subject please note that there is no GMWRAG postal or email distribution list. If you wish to know what we’re doing you will need to subscribe to the site.
UPDATE
Obviously the pandemic has inhibited our ability to keep this page up to date but now… we’re back in full flow and have tentatively penciled in dates for 2022 meetings as follows:
8th of April 2022
17th of June 2022
2nd of September 2022
2nd of December 2022
At this time assume these meetings will remain virtual but obviously that may change as the weeks progress and we’ll keep you informed on that as obviously non-virtual meetings will have to be hosted by an actual venue in an actual place.
Please also note that the 4th of March currently clashes with a NAWRA meeting. We are aware how problematic this will be for GMWRAG members but we may have to stick with that regardless subject to speaker availability. We’ll just remind you nearer the time how much more important GMWRAG is and do a post with a fake NAWRA date to put you off the trail :).
Alternatively we’ll change the date so you can still do NAWRA yoga and claim Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit.
There is a separate discussion to be had about working GMWRAG GM UC Forums into the above timetable but we’ll come back on that as soon as that discussion has taken place.
We have not forgotten that there was a rota for actual meetings so we’re keeping that as per the below for the moment all concerned feel comfortable with a return to actual meetings.
Bolton.
Manchester.
Trafford.
Oldham
Tameside
Stockport
Salford
Meetings have usually taken place over a full day (consisting of a morning and afternoon meeting) with speakers on the agenda wherever practicable. However, from April 2019 GMWRAG meetings became a half day meeting with 1 or 2 speakers and ran on the same day as the GMWRAG GM UC forum hosted by the same authority/area. Please subscribe to the site in order to receive posts with the precise details of each meeting and much more.
Also in this section you will hopefully find everything you need to know about GMWRAG meetings including
- Materials to enable you to host a meeting – please note that some of these are password protected for obvious reasons. Please Contact GMWRAG if you need the password.
- Minutes of our meetings back to 2002.
The single most important thing you will of course need at a GMWRAG meeting is… biscuits (although after the January 2019 meeting it’s arguably curry).
Whilst biscuit discussions are always dangerous territory, please understand, this is much more important than having a room; a good speaker or even coffee and tea. The great biscuit wars, and discussions of which geographical area is the meanest or most generous or most chocolatey, have resonated down the years and entered GMWRAG folklore. Beware also the terrible error of only having enough biscuits for the morning meeting! Years of Siberian cold-shouldering await any host committing this most basic of errors. Salix Homes provided a fine example of how to handle this delicate issue recently when they appeared willing to provide one packet of biscuits per person 🙂
Rumours that GMWRAG members will have to be lathered in butter to get through the doors at future meetings are strenuously denied. Anyway…
If you can think of anything that ought to be added to this section please let us know. If you have copies of any of the small number of minutes that we are currently missing please let us know and we will arrange to add them.
G.M.W.R.A.G. 