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About CAFE

Meet the Operational Advisory Group (Honorary)

The Board of Trustees will be supported by CAFE's Technical Director, James Froggatt, author of the UK Accessible Stadia Guide and a full CAFE Advisory Group of representatives and advisors from across Europe including disabled football fans and disability groups (to be announced).

Rosie Perkins, Bookkeeper  

Rosie has thirteen years banking experience and is currently the Head of Credit for M&S Money, UK. She has a degree in Mathematics and Statistics from Exeter University, and has previously worked as a statistician within the Health Service. Rosie is a keen football fan, travelling extensively across the world. Rosie acts as CAFE’s Bookkeeper.

James (Jim) Froggatt, Technical Director

Jim is an architect by profession and has recently retired after serving for more than 20 years as an Inspector at the Football Licensing Authority. He is the author of the Accessible Stadia Guide and editor of the Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds (Green Guide). He has considerable experience in the provision of access requirements for new and existing stadia both within the UK and overseas.

Jim continues to sit on a number of sports stadia guidance working parties both in Europe and the UK and he has most recently advanced the CEN 315 technical report which will be published in 2009. Jim, a NADS Vice President, will provide ongoing technical advice on stadia design and access on behalf of CAFE.

Christopher Bray, Event Director - Fundraising and Events Honorary Officer

Christopher Bray, Event Director at MS Life joined the MS Society in 2004 having previously worked for Help the Aged and the Princess Royal Trust for Carers. He has considerable experience in fundraising for large events and created and produced the inaugural MS Life Convention in 2006, the largest European event for people affected by multiple sclerosis (MS).

Chris has spent the past three years developing the MS Life format, the largest event in Manchester attracted more than 3,500 visitors, including over 800 people with a disability. Christopher is also a member of the Community Outreach Team for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and is a judge for the annual Visit London Awards.

Gary Deards – Access and Stadia Development Advisor

Gary is a Chartered Tax Advisor by trade and has been involved with the issues facing disabled football supporters since 1999 with the National Association of Disabled Supporters (NADS) in the UK. Through NADS, he has worked closely with other disability organisations and bodies and has a pan-disability understanding of the many challenges faced by disabled people who follow football. Gary has also been a member of The Football Association’s Disability Advisory Group where he provided user-led advice on the issues faced by disabled football supporters into their disability football strategy and Football For All programme.

He has a good understanding of the UK Accessible Stadia Guide and Disability Discrimination Act and has provided detailed responses to consultations on such documents as British Standards 8300:2009 (Design of buildings and their approaches to meet the needs of disabled people), various Football Licensing Authorities (FLA) guidance documents including the Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds (the “Green Guide”), Accessible Toilets and Safety Management. He works closely with a number of the FLA’s Inspectors, architects and stadium managers as the project leader for the NADS Stadia Development sub-committee, a consultative group for all new stadia and stadia improvements. He has carried out user-led consultations to over 50 football clubs and their stadia requirements which included preparing an access appraisal template for use by others and a disability policy for clubs.

He joins the Advisory Board to offer his technical understanding and user-led knowledge of stadium accessibility having worked alongside disabled supporters and providing support to these organisations.

Meet Ambassadors (Honorary)
 

Danny Mills, Ambassador 

Former England International, Danny Mills enjoyed a successful career playing for a number of English Premier League and Championship clubs including Manchester City, Leeds United and Middlesbrough. A long-standing knee injury eventually led to his early retirement from the game in the summer of 2009 at 32.

Danny became a Patron of the UK based charity ASBAH - Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus in 2002 after losing his son Archie to the condition. Whilst still playing he dedicated his spare time to fundraising and raising awareness. Since retiring Danny has been able to dedicate more time to his charity works and has decided to support both NADS (The National Association of Disabled Supporters) and CAFE at a European wide level. He will be completing the Brighton marathon in a wheelchair in April 2010 to further raise awareness and funds for ASBAH and NADS.

 
Danny believes in equal access for everybody and it is with this belief and his strong influence in the world of football that he joins CAFE as an Ambassador to raise disability awareness and ensure that all disabled people can follow football in Europe by achieving equality of access to the game.
 

Danny Wallace, Ambassador

Danny is an ex-footballer, having played professionally for England, Southampton, Manchester United and Birmingham City before retiring early with the onset of unexplained injuries. He was later diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and is now ambulant disabled. Danny has written an autobiographical book about his experiences and has also set up the Danny Wallace Foundation to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis research. He is also an Ambassador for NADS and 'Kick it Out - anti-racism' charities in the UK.

Teresa Silva - Ambassador, Founder and Managing Director of Fundación También (Spain)

Teresa always practiced sports in general and air sports in particular, until she had a paragliding accident in 1989 when preparing for the Austrian World Championship. This episode would change her life, leaving her paraplegic.

As a wheelchair user, Teresa became more aware of the difficulties that disabled people face when practicing sports. In April 1998, Teresa started to practice adapted alpine skiing and got involved with several disability related organisations. In January 2000, she initiated the Santiveri Team to compete professionally in adapted ski. And through the success of this team a more ambitious project started: the Fundación También which was launched in December 2000.

Since then, the Tambien Foundation has been working continuously and actively towards the inclusivity for disabled people in the world of adapted sports, such as cycling, canoeing, sailing, paddle, diving, hiking, and other open air sports that promote contact with nature and enable its participants to share these experiences with family and friends, guaranteeing the development of disabled people’s free time and hobbies. Nowadays, Teresa practices several sports and competes professionally in sailing and alpine skiing.
 

Teresa joins CAFE with her thorough knowledge of disability and the challenges in Spain and her vast experience of accessibility issues in sports.

Marcin Kornak - Ambassador, Chairman of Never Again Organisation (Poland)

Born 1968 Marcin Kornak became disabled after an accident at the age of 15. He’s a nationally famous poet and lyrics writer for independent rock bands and also promotes alternative culture.

Marcin is the founder of Anti-Nazi Group (GAN, Grupa Anty-Nazistowska), which was founded in Bydgoszcz in 1992. Since 1996 he’s been Chairman of “Nigdy Więcej” (Never Again) association, chief editor of both the Never Again magazine (dealing with problems of racism, neo-fascism and xenophobia) and  “Stadion” – a magazine for anti-racist football fans. He’s the lead coordinator of campaigns such as “Music Against Racism” and “Let’s Kick Racism out of Stadiums”.

Marcin has received numerous awards and prizes for his works including the Culture Foundation prize in 1996 the “Colors of volunteering” competition in 2003, and  Jerzy Boniecki-Polcul’s Independent Foundation of Promoting Polish Culture award in 2005 for his “activity for tolerance and overcoming discrimination and xenophobia”. Marcin Kornak is the author of “Brown Book” (2009), a book which is the effect of years of monitoring incidents of racism and xenophobia in Poland.

Piotr Pawłowski - Ambassador, Founder and Chairman of Integracja (Poland) 

Piotr Pawłowski has always been keen on sports and played basketball and athletics before breaking his back in a diving accident at the age of 16. This left him paralysed from the neck down. Piotr, a graduate of the Institute of Family Studies and a post-graduate in Ethics and Philosophy from Warsaw University also has a PhD from the International School of Social Sciences at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of Polish Academy of Sciences.

Piotr’s life mission is to ensure the integration and full functioning of disabled people within society. To achieve this, he unites people around the idea of integration of disabled people as a social normality based on coexistence, cooperation and partnership in all the aspects of civil life. To effectively implement the mission, he founded a magazine named "Integration" in 1994, and a year later, the Friends of Integration Association (Stowarzyszenie Przyjaciół Integracji).

Everything Piotr does is innovative. He was the first in Poland to create a platform for understanding between the world of disabled and non-disabled people, as well as a building an information platform for disabled people, their families and friends and raising awareness for the issues related to disabled people.

According to Piotr disability ceases to be a problem only when the two worlds: non-disabled and disabled people come to together through coexistence, cooperation and co-living throughout the world.

Piotr has been honoured, with the Award of the Government Plenipotentiary for Disabled People (1999), Prize of the Polish Committee for Social Welfare, a Bączkowski’s prize for his work in social service, especially for the stubbornness and determination in solving social problems (2000), Knight's Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Polish (in 2001), Catholic TOTUS Award (2003), National Education Committee Medal granted by the Ministry of National Education, Wacław Schubert’s medal granted by the National Academy of Sciences. He is also an Honorary Citizen of the City of Gdynia.