Dear all, I am responding to Maryanne Kehoe's message about my role with the EDXC, that she posted here on 8 June. I apologise if my reply is rather long winded but want to reply to her comments.
Yes, I stood down as EDXC Secretary-General last year, as did Assistant Secretary-General Christian Ghibaudo. We were in position from 2019 and the term runs for 3 years, when people either stand for re-election or someone else takes over. Christian and I are still helping, such as updating the website and communicating with members, and hopefully new people will step up at the EDXC conference in September. In 2022, my life partner suddenly contracted a brain tumour and passed away a few months later. Me, our adult children and others are still in shock and dealing with grief and all the other inevitable consequences. I made the decision during all of that to step down from a few of my voluntary and community activities (including some non radio ones) and to prioritise my wellbeing and to support close family. EDXC was one of the things I decided to step down from. Because of the family emergency, I could not attend the 2022 conference in Bucharest that was planned that spring, as it was taking place during my partner's illness. However, numbers who were planning to attend were low, and it was probably neither financially viable nor had enough programme content to go ahead. So, after consultation with former EDXC lead Kari, Christian and I postponed the conference. I think the after effects of Covid had put some people off attending in 2022, and the war breaking out in neighbouring Ukraine around the same time also may have impacted enthusiasm for people wanting to go. However, an EDXC conference went ahead in 2023, in Metz, France, run by Christian, to whom I shall always be extremely grateful. It was successful and 19 people attended. As always, a good write up can be found at the BDXC website, written by Alan Pennington, see the EDXC conference reports at http://bdxc.org.uk/articles.html I did not attend as I was travelling in the US and had told EDXC I was stepping down. This year's conference is being arranged by Risto, in September in Estonia, details at https://sdxl.fi/tartu2024 and https://edxcnews.wordpress.com Finally, I'd like to respond to Maryanne's statement that she "wasn't real confident when she [Chrissy] was appointed to the position and some of her actions during her tenure were questionable IMO at the best." I'd not previously heard negative things about my work at EDXC nor my stepping down but, of course, rumours can go around and people are also entitled to their opinions. I felt happy with what I achieved at EDXC, and don't know what the "questionable actions" are that Maryanne refers to. With Christian, we organised a successful conference in 2019 in Andorra. When Covid hit in 2020, I arranged Zoom meet ups that year and in 2021 which went OK and saw attendance from a few dozen people in several continents. EDXC has had many different people running it since 1967 and I see no reasons as to why it would not continue. Its main focus in recent decades has been mostly about holding an annual conference, which I will always wish it well with. Best wishes, Chrissy Brand
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