Queen's Park CC to allow women members

The Queen's Park Cricket Club (QPCC) in Trinidad has finally voted to allow female membership after a seven-year campaign spearheaded by Vaneisa Baksh, a freelance journalist. At a special general meeting on Thursday, the QPCC put the resolution to its 3000-plus all-male membership that women would be eligible for admission to all classes of membership, and that girls could apply for Colt membership.

The club, which is 108 years old, had its all-male convention challenged when Baksh applied for membership in 1997. The application was rejected at the end of 1999, but the campaign for female membership continued until the QPCC had to recognise that it was an issue which needed to be addressed.

The club's president, Willie Rodriguez, wrote to members prior to the special meeting, saying that "in the current social environment, it is imperative and in the best interest of the club to admit women and girls to membership."

Some members who did not hold this view hurriedly presented a resolution asking the club to defer the issue until June 2007, after the Cricket World Cup, and that, if then there was still a negative vote, the matter should not be eligible for discussion before another three years had passed. However, the importance of hosting ICC matches which will be held in the West Indies in 2007 went a long way towards determining the club's direction.

The club's vice president, Bruce Anansen, said: "On the question of continued International cricket being played at the Oval, we need to take note of the fact that the Prime Minister has publicly indicated that he has a problem in providing funding to the club pre-cricket World Cup 2007 because of its policy on gender discrimination.

"In furtherance of this position, the Prime Minister has commissioned the construction of a new cricket facility in San Fernando which will be completed by 2006. His intention is to have World Cup games at this facility and not at the Oval."

Caricom Governments and the West Indies Cricket Board had already made it clear that they would not support discriminatory practices of any kind, but it seems it was the threat of corporate sponsors backing away from the club, which receives no government assistance, that tilted the scales in favour of female membership.

Still, fewer than two thirds of the votes went towards female membership, with 346 voting in favour and 194 against. And, in a move to placate those who still do not want females inside, the club's president has indicated that women would still have to join the long waiting list before getting in, and that it would still be a further three years before the club's infrastructure is ready to receive them.