Participating in a UK ELT event?

If you want good gender balance in the UK ELT events you attend, here are a few suggestions:

• When you hear about an upcoming event that you wish to attend, check the programme. If there are very few women presenters named on it, get in touch with the organisers saying you are interested in attending, and encouraging them to do something about the speaker gender balance. By all means give them the address of this web site.
• When you check the programme, if you find that the few women on it are all programmed at the same time as each other, in parallel slots, ask the organisers if they can, instead, ‘sprinkle’ them so that, at most times of the day, there is a chance of attending a woman’s talk. 
• If you are a woman participant, make comments and ask questions. Be active!
• If you get there and discover there is only one woman on, for example, a speaker panel, ask the organisers if they can provide a woman chair or suggest that some women participants be invited to give their views as ‘consumers’ on the questions put. 
• Comment on gender balance of speakers, fair or unfair, when asked for feedback at the end of, or after, the event.