Tributes are paid to Lady Winifred Tumim

Governance | Tania Mason | 10 Nov 2009

Senior figures in civil society have been paying tribute to Lady Winifred Tumim CBE, former chair of the NCVO from 1996 to 2001, who died suddenly last week.

Lady Tumin chaired the NCVO/Charity Commission working group that published the On Trust Report, sparking many initiatives for improving the governance of charities. At the NCVO she also chaired the working party on charity law that led to the Charities Act.

After she had stepped down as chair she became a member of NCVO’s Advisory Council.

Lady Tumim also had close ties to the RNID, having been its chair from 1985 to 1992 and a vice president ever since. Two of her three daughters were born deaf and she had great insight into the barriers and stigma that people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can face from childhood to adulthood.

She also chaired the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group and the Foyer Federation, and was a member and adjudicator of the General Medical Council for ten years.

An interest in special education led her to be part of the first Warnock Committee, the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children.

Lady Tumim was the widow of Judge Stephen Tumim and shared his compassion for the human rights of prisoners, especially those serving a double sentence because of their deafness.

Chair of RNID, Gerald Corbett, said Lady Tumim would be “hugely missed by all of us who have benefited from her wise counsel and active urging to strive harder to ensure that those with hearing loss or deafness had the best possible opportunities in life”.

“We have lost a real champion for the cause of deaf and hard-of-hearing people and the entire voluntary sector,” Corbett said.

Stuart Etherington, chief executive of NCVO, described Lady Tumim as a “friend and colleague” and said her passing was “a great loss to me both personally and professionally”.

“She made an outstanding contribution to our sector and a massive gap has been left by her passing,” he said.

Directory: Charity Commission | National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) | Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID)
Who's Who: Sir Stuart Etherington

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