WRFC has been an important part of my fitness and social life since I joined in 2014. I’m a silver-league squash player, occasional gym user and regularly in the saddle at the Pedal Studio suite. After studying law, my career diverted to charity fundraising, mainly from high net wealth individuals. I am now Chief Executive of The Scar Free Foundation, a national charity funding medical research into burn scars, cleft lip and palate and traumatic wounds encountered in military and terrorist conflicts. I also lead the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgeons, the world’s largest surgical member association for heart and lung surgeons. As well as fundraising, I hope I can bring my experience in charity and company governance, financial management and human resources to support the club and our members over the next few important years of development.
Brendan.Eley@wimbledonclub.co.uk
I have been a member of the Club for more than 50 years, mostly as a badminton player, although I also played squash for several years. I represented the Club’s teams in the Surrey County Badminton Association leagues for many years, as well as playing for the County, often taking on the role of team captain. I was elected to the Badminton Committee in 1981 (37 years in all), serving as Chairman for the last 14 years of my tenure. I was very involved in setting up the Club’s Disability Badminton sessions in 2011 – and continue to be very involved with these. I am a member of Surrey County BA Council, and several of the county’s committees – Masters, Patrons, and Strategy, Finance & General Purposes. My working life has been in hospital and medical practice management, largely in the private sector. The Club has been a very significant part of my life in terms of sporting participation as well as socially. I was elected to the Board in October 2020 at a challenging time for most businesses and wish to do all I can to help the Club to improve and move forward and secure its future.
Some years back I received a life saving Organ Transplant, which I have been fortunate enough to be selected to represent Great Britain for Badminton in the World Transplant Games and WRFC have been the backbone of support through that journey. I wanted to give something back to the club as a way to say thank you, so what better way I thought, to give my time to promote it in TV interviews, press conferences and magazines. My background is Dentistry and now working with leading digital 3D Dentistry Techniques it’s given me firm creative skills, I am also a Member of The Magic Circle, helping to create and perform theatre shows and a member of many charitable organisations putting on events to raise money. With that in mind I use my creative skills in the marketing and funding sector for the club.
I joined the badminton club over 25 years ago as a junior, playing at club and county level and was previously a member of the social committee. I was born and raised in Wimbledon and now live near Epsom with my husband and baby daughter Charlotte who keeps me on my toes.
I have worked in the financial sector for almost twenty years at banks including HSBC and Barclays and for the last seven years been at Metro Bank. I am the Local Director at the Metro Bank Wimbledon store, leading a team of twenty colleagues and business developing in the local area to onboard new individual and corporate clients for the bank. I relationship manage a portfolio of business and corporate customers and mentor several individuals across the bank. For the last three years I have been a member of Merton Chamber of Commerce and am a well-known member of several Wimbledon networking communities.
I joined the board in October 2020 and bring both financial and business development expertise to the board.
Documents published to members by the board, including board and AGM minutes and annual accounts, are available through this link: