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ISAF announced that Fiona KIDD of Canada is the Chairman of the ISAF Women's Forum for 2009-2012 and women's representative on the ISAF Council.

The Women’s Forum is formed of all the women members of ISAF Committees, Sub-committees and Commissions and meets every year during the ISAF Annual Conference. The Forum was established by the Council, the final decision-making body of ISAF, with principal objective of promoting participation by women in all aspects of sailing and sailing administration.

Fiona KIDD occupies the role of Women’s Forum chairman for a second consecutive term after standing for election unopposed. The position is elected by the Forum members, who represent a diverse mixture of current athletes, including Olympic medal winners and round the world sailors, race officials and sailing administrators. In her role as Forum Chairman, Kidd also takes on the responsibility as the Women’s Representative on the ISAF Council.

KIDD said: “It’s a great honour to be elected as chairman of the Women’s Forum for another four years. Over the last 10 years ISAF has made major progress in encouraging women’s participation, particularly at the Olympic level, and our challenge now is to build upon those achievements. I am looking forward to working with the extremely talented and dedicated members of the Forum to ensure women’s sailing remains as one of the key issues on ISAF’s agenda.”

Fiona KIDD has been involved in sailing for over 30 years, first as a highly accomplished competitor in 420 and 470 dinghies, representing Canada at numerous international and World Championship events. Her involvement with sailing administration began in the 1980s at the International Laser Class Association. Through the 1990s she dedicated many years of service to the Canadian Yachting Association (CYA) and was the CYA President from 2000-2002. Since 2003 she has been the Director of the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) representing Sailing.

KIDD’s involvement with ISAF began in 1994 as a member of the Youth Committee and she has gone on to serve on the Women’s Sailing Committee, the Events Committee, the Council and as chairman of the Youth World Championship Sub-committee since 2001. Along with her work in sailing administration, KIDD has also worked for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation as Olympic Sport Analyst for the past three Olympic Games and was an accredited journalist at both the Sydney and Athens Games.

Teresa LARA (VEN), ISAF Vice-President, said: “We have to make our sport and organization more accessible to women of the whole world whether they are sailors, leaders, and/or administrators.

“We need to communicate amongst ourselves and with other women in our sport by providing constant feedback that will help Fiona to raise the voices and desires of women sailors to the ISAF Council.”

(Source: ISAF)