Mermaids have appointed a new CEO

[Birdsweepsin]

mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/mermaids-appoints-interim-ceo/

Lauren Stoner - this is from her 'hello team' letter:

Key areas for me to focus on are ensuring that we understand our future direction and have the right people, right culture, right systems and processes to enable us to achieve that.

These are all big challenges and change can’t happen overnight, but I’m positive that as a team, and with support of our board, we can achieve our goals. We’ll share our progress and the lessons that we’ve learned openly.

I’m not going to promise to resolve all of those challenges between now and the end of March. Instead, in 100 days’ time, I want to know that we’ve identified the root causes of our challenges, have a clear plan in place and are starting to address them in a prioritised way.

It’s ridiculous to think they could appoint someone to a CEO position so rapidly. Most bizarre.

It's an understatement to say she doesn't look very approachable on that photo or on her CV😂

I wonder what she has against smiling?

I do wonder what calibre of a CEO level person would be available to start at such short notice…it’s, what, two or three weeks since Susie was defenestrated? (or self defenestrated)

Seems…quick.

I know nothing about this sort of stuff, so am prepared to be corrected, but this is an interim appointment. Is it not likely they looked for someone coming to the end of a current temporary assignment? As I think I posted elsewhere, I used to be slightly acquainted with a chap who seemed to change senior jobs within the NHS at bewildering speed, but eventually I grasped that he was a turnaround specialist. He took jobs for a year, two years at most, and then moved on. Very lucrative in his case, I think. Could this be the equivalent in the charity sector? LS does seem to have moved jobs several times.

That's not good. I was out leafletting and banner-waving a year or two ago and the only threats and real nastiness we experienced was from a small group of women involved in roller derby. I'd spoken to one woman about single-sex spaces and she told me to piss off, then phoned her friends and they came and shouted in our faces. Roller derby is very violent. Having men shoving women about is going to be dangerous.

That roller history link is something.

That statement is impressive in being totally devoid of content.

Roller Derby is full contact
Playing against men is as dangerous if not more dangerous than rugby. I think MM is going to just be more of the same

The purity helter-skelter is going to be a rough ride for LS...

twitter.com/TransActivismUK/status/1602273040225955840?t=i9rmXBMjFdmrv0UDVi-mWw&s=19

She's already not trans enough, nor focussed on the needs of the staff enough...

Interim CEO is a definite job. It's someone who is brought in for just this kind of situation where everything has gone badly wrong, and when she has done what she can to fix mess she finds, they will appoint a more PR-friendly CEO. That's why she has had several similar posts. I imagine she is being paid a LOT.

I’m passionate about co-production, equity and culture and want to build organisations shaped by the people we support, where people can bring their whole selves to work.

🤔

I would have thought we’d seen more than enough of some of the staff ‘selves’!

Yup, Stoner clearly missed those photos of MM's Digital Engagement Officer!

"We hope to see a trans CEO appointed in due course, but in the meantime we wish Lauren the best of luck and love, and we hope that she is able to sufficiently tackle Mermaids' recent and historic treatment of their staff."

Woah. So nothing at all about the padeophile adjacent trustee, Discord servers, posting binders to teenage girls, or the chat rooms?! Or the dodgy AF fundraisers??

I don’t know what else she should done.

Her role is to get her head down, and start turning Mermaids into a proper organisation with policies and procedures and that sort of thing. She needs to be the listening adult that the CC will want to speak to, she needs to find a response to judgement in the LGBA court case, she needs to deliver some sensible input into current NHS consultations, she needs users, staff and funders on side, and to only fight battles which she needs to fight and knows she can win.

The point is she appears to be a professional rather than a campaigner. That’s what Mermaids need. Inevitably there would need to be some track record of “trans awareness” but the idea is that she is there to sort out the structure.

I am not sure Mermaids can be rescued. It will be interesting seeing someone try.

My idea of hell. And people wonder why such massive numbers of people have dropped out of the labour market...

Her role is to get her head down, and start turning Mermaids into a proper organisation with policies and procedures and that sort of thing. She needs to be the listening adult that the CC will want to speak to, she needs to find a response to judgement in the LGBA court case, she needs to deliver some sensible input into current NHS consultations, she needs users, staff and funders on side, and to only fight battles which she needs to fight and knows she can win.

What an enormous mess SG has left behind.

No mention of safeguarding?

I’ve name changed for this but I do know Lauren and knew she’d been appointed a week or so ago.
We had a quick text conversation about the job and when she said about going in to find out what went wrong, I replied with “SG changing the whole ethos of the charity to make her feel better about her choices was where it went wrong”. She did sort of agree with me so there might be hope. If Lauren reads this then hi, she’ll know who I am.
I’m hoping she brings some reason to the job, it is a big step but made possible by it being an interim appointment and it’s a bit of a poison chalice.

I am also involved with roller derby and I agree that at an adult level it is a bit of a hot mess, there is the open to all division that is mixed sex. Women choosing to play in this division know that. What I hate is transwomen playing in the women’s division, I think teams should be based on sex.
I just ignore all the pronoun nonsense and try to subvert it where possible.

😂😂😂

Eee good god mermaidsthrowaway it doesn't sound like she's got a clue what she's going into 😬

And you did well to sit on that for a week...!

Ergh roller Derby people are the worst. A step down from ultimate Frisbee people

I thought "bring your whole self to work" had been largely discredited now by HR types?

James Esses is spot on: twitter.com/JamesEsses/status/1602299432648712193