Contact Us

Gordon Mason

Gordon joined Post Office Telephones on 21 August 1972, and joined the union on that day. He is a B2 on BT Operate, and has been a branch officer for around 15 years, becoming Branch Chairperson in May 2011. He is also a qualified cricket umpire, and is secretary of the Four Counties Cricket League.

Eamonn McLaughlin

Eamonn became Vice-Chairperson in 2011, and has been a USR since 2000 during what can only be described as an outbreak of Asbestos contaminations in BT buildings due to poor and dangerous work by contractors. This gave him his first experience of successfully dealing with BT, Monteray and Telereal. He then took over the duties of Health, Safety and Environmental Coordinator in late 2003.

Eamonn has completed all three stages of the health and safety courses provided by the CWU and the Occupational Health and Safety Diploma affiliated with IOSH. He is presently continuing his education with a NEBOSH National Certificate in health and safety. Eamonn says that If we did not have the important work of Union Safety Reps and the CWU safety organisation the members and non-members we represent would work in much less healthy and safe environments.

Tim Bond

Tim has worked for BT since 1972. After serving a three year apprenticeship he moved on to exchange maintenance, having made the transition through strowger, legacy systems, Systems X and Y and on to 21CN maintenance. Tim joined the branch committee during the strike of 1986, became Minute Secretary in the early 1990’s and Financial Secretary a couple of years ago. He has also been a Union Safety Rep for around 15 years.

Tim's outside interests include all aspects of computing and he is a weary allotment owner.

Helen Mead

Helen is currently working as a Modern Apprentice, in the role of a Customer Service Technician, based in High Wycombe. Helen attends Yarnfield Park for the second year BTEC in Telecommunications, so she meets other apprentices from all over the country. She hopes to use the experiences she has shared with other apprentices to help deal with issues that young people may have at work.

Mark French

Mark has worked for BT for twenty years starting as a one man installer, moving onto business system fitting and maintenance, and then being placed onto Skillbank a redeployment group. These positions have enabled Mark to retrain and enhance his skills and gain promotion by joining what was then job management, which later became the Provision of Service Unit.

Mark believes that his engineering background gives him the knowledge and understanding that enables him to assist and deal with the issues that our members face in today’s working environment. He has enjoyed his first year working with members from our branch; every day is different and holds many challenges.

Chic McGlynn

In June 2010, Chic was elected on to the CWU Telecoms & Financial Services (Engineering) Executive.

Chic's background is in external engineering. He has worked in most aspects of BT's external network including cabling, cable jointing, plant protection, EPMC controller and ultimately in control on job allocation duties. He has been on full time union release since 1995 serving the members of the Oxford, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, the Central Counties Combined and of course now the Central Counties & Thames Valley Branch.

His past union responsibilities have involved being Branch Secretary, Union Safety Representative, Union Learning Representative, London and Home Counties Single Point of Contact for Openreach, Eastern Region Telecoms and Financial Services Engineering committee Financial Secretary and Delegate to the Northern Home Counties Health Safety and Environment committee.

Richard Abbiss

Richard joined the Post Office in 1980 as an apprentice in the Bedford Telephone Area. He has been employed on transmission and radio duties during his career. He is also a local trainer for 21CN.

Richard is a long standing committee member serving originally on the old Luton Branch. He became a Union Safety Representative in 2006.

Leigh Graham

Leigh worked for BT from 1979 to 2005. He was on the branch committee from January 1999 to Feb 2004 and has attended many union training courses. He was branch Equal Opportunities Rep from July 2000 to Feb 2004 and was Vice Chairperson in 2002/3.

In addition to the branch web site and the branch magazine Leigh is also Webmaster for the CWU Eastern Region and the North Anglia branch web sites.