eAA Announcement

Changes to the Chair and Vice Chair roles, and the creation of a new Executive Team

If the last 12 months has taught us anything it is that we need to change and adapt to circumstances to ensure that we remain able to deliver on commitments in the longer term.

This is something that the eAA Board has been very much aware of, particularly given that most of the association’s activities are driven forward by people who give their time voluntarily, which will always hinder our ambitions to grow. To this end, the Board has been exploring ways to restructure the management of the association so as to provide a more solid foundation on which to continue to develop and grow the services that we provide to our members, sponsors, and the wider educational assessment community.

At its last meeting, the eAA Board approved two key changes to the way that the eAA is structured. These changes, which come into immediate effect, can be summarised as follows:

Structural changes:

• The eAA Executive Board has been dissolved – this was a voluntarily staffed subset of the main eAA Board with a remit to drive and manage day to day eAA activity.
• The main eAA Board remains unchanged:
  • Remit – Continued overall responsibility for the governance of the association, as well as shaping the overall strategy and trajectory of the association;
  • Staffing – 15-16 volunteer members elected from the eAA’s individual membership and sponsors, each standing for a term of three years
• A new Executive Team has been established:
  • Remit – working to the direction of the main eAA Board to deliver the day to day activities of the association and to generate increasing revenue streams to be ploughed back into eAA services;
  • Staffing – initially by three paid employees of eAssessment Services Ltd, the eAA’s trading entity, supported by specialist contractors and volunteer members of the Main Board as necessary. The three part-time roles within this team are as follows:
    • Chief Executive (working an average of a half-day per week);
    • Marketing and Events Manager (working an average of 2 days per week);
    • Marketing and Administration Coordinator (working an average of 1 day per week).
• People changes – to ensure clear separation from the main board and the accountability of the Executive Team the following staff changes come into effect immediately:
  • Chair of the eAA Board:
    • Matt Wingfield has resigned from this role after a period of 10 years’ service;
    • Tim Burnett, formerly Vice Chair, has been elected by the board into the Chair’s role;
  • Vice Chair of the eAA Board:
    • Sarah Rogerson, an existing member of the board, has been elected by the board into the Vice Chair’s role.
  • Chief Executive of the eAA, a new role that will lead the Executive Team:
    • Matt Wingfield has been asked by the eAA Board to take on this new role to ensure continuity around on-going activity and relationships.

The above appointments are being considered as interim positions to run until the association’s next Annual General Meeting in the autumn.

The eAA Board believe that these changes are vital to the continued successful growth of the association and will enable us to better respond to the rapidly changing sector that we support and we hope that you, our members, are as excited as we are to see the association take the next steps in its evolution.

If you do have any questions about any of these changes, then please feel free to contact Tim on: +44 (0)7976 874 680/ [email protected]; Sarah at [email protected], or Matt on: 44 (0)7850 488 502/[email protected]