Episode 14: Spotlight on Brant Duncan, AFT-MA
As United Teachers of Lowell 495, we are affiliated with American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts or AFT-MA. There are so many accomplished people supporting members and the work of our union through their advocacy across the Commonwealth at AFT-MA. One of those talented people is, AFT-MA Secretary-Treasurer Brant Duncan.
Brant began his career as a Math Teacher in Lynn, Massachusetts. He served his local, Lynn Teachers Union 1037 as its President and he also organized LTU’s first two First Book Books on Wheels event. Currently Brant serves AFT-MA as Secretary-Treasurer and is a phenomenal resource for locals, such as United Teachers of Lowell in financial management and as a communications resource.
Today, we chatted with Brant about some new avenues for reaching out to our members in an effort to keep everyone informed about local, state, and national issues. And we’re delighted to give members a preview of coming attractions as we look for new ways to stay in touch.
For United Teachers of Lowell members, your Building Reps will check in with you shortly to confirm that both your non-work email address and mobile phone number that we have on file is accurate and up-to-date. Again, we want to reiterate the importance of sharing a non-work email address as your work email address should only be used for school business. By sharing a non-work email address, you will receive our bi-monthly “Friday Five” email which will begin publishing in November. Sharing a mobile/cell phone number allows us to be in contact when an emergency situation arises (like the example Brant cites of the Lawrence-North Andover-Andover gas emergency). We promise to be extremely judicious about using text messaging only in emergency or time-critical situations. We also want to stress to members that your email address and cell phone number are not shared with third parties and remain privately held by United Teachers of Lowell.
United Teachers of Lowell 495 is also on social media: request membership in our closed Facebook Group, follow us on Twitter at @utl495 and look for our Instagram account coming soon!
For More Information
If you are a UTL member and do not (yet) receive GetActive email messages, please contact the UTL office with a non-work email address. We have discovered that some email servers direct GetActive email messages to a mail program’s “junk” folder; so be sure to check to see if your messages are landing in that folder.
The United Teachers of Lowell’s web address is http://utl495.org.
The UTL Facebook page is a closed group. UTL members are welcome to request an add to the group. Follow us on Twitter at @utl495. And of course our weekly podcast “UTL495 Straight Talk” is available on this webpage each Wednesday. You can also subscribe to the podcast in the ApplePodcast Store.
For more information about American Federation of Teachers and American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, click the links. Members of AFT and AFT-MA can access member-only pages by logging in with their union membership identification. Members can access news on the state and national level as well as union benefits that Brant spoke about through both of these web sites.
Thanks Brant for stopping by this week. As always, we thank you for listening to this week's podcast. We welcome your comments and feedback. If you have suggestions for future podcasts, send us an email at UTLStraightTalk@gmail.com. And if you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to spread the word - or share with a friend (or two).
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