Most experts reckon that moving house, along with losing a job or a partner, is one of the most traumatic events that anyone can face.
So spare a thought for the union's staff this summer, as they begin the task of loading decades' worth of paperwork into removal vans and head off to our new office in Clapham.
It's so long since the relocation project began that not one, but two, annual conferences have had a chance to chew over the plans.
For some active members, after ten years of BECTU being based in Wardour Street, the move is going to be a wrench. Instead of strolling round to union head office from a multitude of workplaces in Central London, we'll have to face the challenge of the Northern Line which, for the benefit of non-Londoners, has the reputation of being the worst tube line in the city.
Out-of-towners also need to appreciate the tribal differences between Londoners living north and south of the Thames. We don't quite have passport control on the river's bridges yet, but it has been a bit of a shock to us northerners to realise that for the first time in years we would would be "goin' Sarf" in Clapham-speak.
Of course, for members who don't come to head office meetings, or work near to Wardour Street, the move means little more than a change to our notepaper heading. It should also, for all of us, mean a more secure financial base for the union in the longer-term.
Members who study our accounts every year will realise that when the big property companies go headhunting, BECTU isn't their first port of call. While we haven't actually lost lorry loads of money in our various transactions over the years, we have shown a collective tendency to buy high and sell low. We're a union, not a property company, so perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise.
This time though, we hope we're doing something different. The move to Clapham is based on us keeping the Wardour Street building, refurbishing it to a decent standard, and using the rent income we'll be able to earn from it to pay the mortgage that we are taking out on the new office. We can't sell low this time, because we're not selling anything at all.
Anyone who has visited Wardour Street will know how desperately the building needs a makeover, and our advisers tell us that a six-figure refurbishment will add seven figures to its value. By moving to Clapham, we avoid moving the union twice within six months - once to let the builders in, and again when they have finished if we were to move back into Wardour Street. One lot of disruption is better than two.
In the new building, staff will find more space, more light, and a shorter walk to the tube station than from Wardour Street. Members will find better meeting rooms, and a fully-equipped resource centre with computers and research material just for them.
BECTU as an organisation will be sitting on an enhanced asset in Central London, and a second building in Clapham that we think was bought at a bargain price. (We can say that openly now we've got the keys.) Additionally, there is spare land attached to the site which, some time in the future, might have development potential - not that we're a property company of course, but you can't ignore these opportunities.
What exactly happens next will be interesting as well. The project depends entirely on allowing a tenant to occupy our high-value Wardour Street office for the forseable future, paying off the refurbishment costs of the builing, as well as the Clapham mortgage.
There's risk involved here of course, but the union's business plan takes a very conservative view of the income that we can rely on.
It's possible that in the future a combination of rising rents and falling debt might reverse the economics and allow the union to move back to Wardour Street and sell or rent Clapham, but that's a long way off - ten years at least.
Until then, we'll all have to get used to staying on the tube for a few extra stops when we're visiting the office. Some of our staff will face that burden every working day, but they have accepted the move with remarkably good grace.
Some meetings will remain in Central London, thanks to our relationship with the General Federation of Trades Unions who are letting us use their space near Euston, and there's a slight possibility of us doing a deal with a Wardour Street tenant to use space there as well, although we mustn't build up hopes too much.
Meanwhile, there is a sound of tea-chests being bumped down the corridor. See you in Clapham.
Tony Lennon
July 2002
