CFC Executive Member Insight
This is another situation (see FIDE Rep.) that I think the existing Board could have made a decision on. There was no consensus on this, so the President decided to combine this with the FIDE Rep election. Back at the time of the 2010 AGM, I was in favour of expanding the Board by adding two more Directors at Large. I felt this would have been a good move because, it was obvious that it was difficult for "new blood" to come on as a Director. I had no one else on the Board support this idea.
One of the reasons I wouldn't endorse the appointment of Patricia Gamliel at the time it was proposed to us by the President, was that I strongly felt that the appointment of a new FIDE Rep should come first, which to me was going to be Aris Marghetis - there seemed to be no objections. I was not the only one. So here we are, as VM's, now deciding simultaneously.
I do agree with Vlad's attempt to bring our Board to proper gender standards as set by other important organizations. If we are going to expand the board (and again this would be in effect only until the AGM, I think), there are all sorts of worthy individuals, however in this case I think Patricia brings a diverse skill set that we don't have on the Board. At the AGM we can decide to revert back to a 7 person board, and she can run for one of 7 existing positions, stick with 8 people, or my preference would be to expand to 9. I would also be in favour of having Director-at-Large position(s) only serve for 2 consecutive years and other executive positions serve for 3-5 consecutive years (not sure what the right number is).
I will support the appointment of Patricia Gamliel as a Director at Large for the remainder of the year.
Fred