I may have missed this, so apologies if it has been posted here before, but I don't recall reading this in magazine, press release, internet or any other media. It was only when I received the Spring 2012 copy of English Dance & Song in the post this morning that I was able to read this in the accompanying A4 sheet Board Matters:-

* Alan James formerly Head Of Contemporary Music at Arts Council England and now Executive Chairman of the Welsh Music Foundation is the new Chair of the EFDSS

* Lucy Neal - great-great neice of Mary Neal is the new Vice Chair of the EFDSS

I have only had a few personal contacts with Alan in his days at ACE but they were enough to convince me that he is a man with a clear incisive brain and a mighty figure, very highly regarded in the Arts world. For the EFDSS to have the guidance of such a major figure is a great coup for the Society.
To have Lucy working alongside him is to have another very impressive creative mind for she has instigated many important projects in the arts world and is a person with decades of successful actvism behind her. She is also an important link with the past with one of the important movers in the early days of the Folk Song and Folk Dance societies. Mary Neal has had the importance of her role recognised more fully in recent years, but it is still doubtful that she is given the full credit that she deserves.