LEARNING PAGE

RMTnews :: october 2005 18 Normally for use of Wilts and Dorset RMT members, the Learning Bus got out for the weekend in the summer and attended the Tolpuddle martyrs festival. The Learning Bus was at the labour movement festival for people to come aboard, have a look around and speak to project workers and RMT Union Learning Reps, as well as to have go on the computers and take assessments with tutors. Visitors came in for a variety of reasons, some followed their kids in and walking out some time later armed with information about local learning opportunities. Curious members of other trade unions also came to see what could be achieved. The outcome of all this activity was that many went away feeling inspired to take a course or start up learning initiatives in their own workplaces, others went back to their own trade unions to find out what learning opportunities were available. The Learning Bus is a project with eight other organisations and RMT was instrumental in setting it up. The bus provides a relaxed and well-equipped learning environment for RMT members at Wilts and Dorset to take up learning opportunities. More than 50 people took the opportunity to come and visit the learning centre on 8 September and talk to tutors, try their hand at a sign language taster, and sign up for courses. The sign language taster was provided by Ivor Riddell (pictured), a conductor for SET. Ivor learned sign language because he has a deaf daughter and he now enjoys teaching sign language to his colleagues. Ivor showed the class how to communicate with hard of hearing customers on the railways and demonstrated a few basic signs for common words like “ticket”, “platform”, “train” and – the most useful word on the railways! – “sorry”. As well as sign language, the Brighton Learning Centre will be offering courses in IT (only open to union members), Spanish, French, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), Maths and English. All courses are free. If you live or work in the Brighton area and you are interested in enrolling for any of these courses or if you have friends or family who may be interested, please contact Emily King on 01273 723066 or emilyking@rul.org.uk. If you are interested in the learning centre project in general and would like to find out more, please contact Scarlet Harris on 020 7529 8820 or s.harris@rmt.org.uk RAIL WORKERS SIGN UP FOR NEW COURSES IN BRIGHTON The RMT backed Brighton Learning Centre, which offers free courses to all rail workers and their friends and families, has been enrolling learners onto a range of new courses starting this autumn The Learning Bus goes to Tolpuddle