English Chess Forum

How many women are ECF Board Members?

How many women have actually put themselves forward to be elected is the more important question

Carol Williams wrote:How many women are ECF Board Members?

None at the moment, although Jovanka and Sabrina are manager's of women's chess which used to be a directorship. Claire Summerscale has been Junior Director in recent years and Susan Richards was (I think) Chief Executive maybe ten years ago. I can't recall any who have stood but not been elected.

Carol Williams wrote:How many women are ECF Board Members?

If you're interested to know the full composition of the Board, then the members are as follows:

President - CJ de Mooi
Chairman - Mike Gunn
Chief Executive Officer - Andrew Farthing
Home Chess - Adam Raoof
Junior Chess - Peter Purland
International Chess - Lawrence Cooper
Finance - Gareth Caller
Marketing - Stewart Reuben
Non-Executive - John Wickham
Non-Executive - Jack Rudd

People who are also on the Board mailing list, but not on the Board:
Alternate Home Chess - Alex Holowczak
Alternate Junior Chess - Dave Welch
Chairman of the Governance Committee - John Philpott
FIDE Delegate - Nigel Short

I think the Chairman of the Finance Committee might also be entitled to be on the mailing list, but at the moment, there isn't a Chairman of the Finance Committee.

All of the other Managers (such as Sabrina and Jovanka) report to Directors. E.g. The Manager(s) for Women's Chess report to the Director of Home Chess. The Managers were on the Board until 2004 - they too were called Directors at the time - when the ECF was formed. The pre-2004 Board had about 20 members on it (the constituent units + two biggest leagues were on the Board too), and it was decided that trimming it down to 9 would be beneficial. This was increased to 10 last year when we gained a Chairman. In so doing, the Board had fewer territorial interests to defend. I don't know what it was like pre-2004, but Board Meetings are quite pleasurable now. I can't imagine them being so before the changes!

The other female Manager who springs to mind is Sarah Mirawolski, the Manager of Chess in Prisons.

LozCooper wrote: None at the moment, although Jovanka and Sabrina are manager's of women's chess which used to be a directorship.

Generally speaking, the manager/director of women's chess has usually been female from when the post was first created. The name Lady Thelma Milner-Barry springs to mind as one of the earlier holders.

LozCooper wrote: I can't recall any [women] who have stood but not been elected.

In 2004 Pauline Foster was one of three candidates for Director of Junior Chess. The other two were Scott Kenyon and Alan Ruffle, and the last-named won.


A former Director not so far mentioned is Evelyn Latimer, Director of Finance in the early 1990s.

Roger de Coverly wrote:Generally speaking, the manager/director of women's chess has usually been female from when the post was first created. The name Lady Thelma Milner-Barry springs to mind as one of the earlier holders.

Lady Milner-Barry was the first Director of Women's Chess. The post of Director / Manager has always been held by a woman to the best of my knowledge (except that it's shared between two women now).

There was an element of tokenism when there was one Board position out of twenty or so which was de facto reserved for a woman. In this instance, having the post at Manager level actually works better in my view; the incumbents are free to get on with their important job.

David Sedgwick wrote:
There was an element of tokenism when there was one Board position out of twenty or so which was de facto reserved for a woman. In this instance, having the post at Manager level actually works better in my view; the incumbents are free to get on with their important job.

That is true, although it means they have to apply for funding as opposed to having their own budget

LozCooper wrote:

David Sedgwick wrote:
There was an element of tokenism when there was one Board position out of twenty or so which was de facto reserved for a woman. In this instance, having the post at Manager level actually works better in my view; the incumbents are free to get on with their important job.

That is true, although it means they have to apply for funding as opposed to having their own budget

Yes, this has been a slightly annoying part of things. It has been very difficult to organise events due to the fact that we don't have any money to do it! We then have to apply for funding from the correct director, of which they do not have much. However, we are grateful there is some at all!

But this is why we are hoping our events are well supported so we can run stuff in the future!

Next will be a requirement to be more ethnically diverse. Not many women have put themselves forward.