GamesAid appoints Des Gayle as charity’s new vice chair

Video game charity GamesAid has appointed Des Gayle as its new vice-chair.

Gayle first joined GamesAid – which acts as an umbrella to support a number of smaller charities who help disadvantaged and disabled children and young people – in 2015. Since then, Gayle has raised “an enormous amount” of donations for the charity, including fundraising activities such as cycling from London to Paris, and cycling 60km around Berlin in two hours. As a video game producer, Gayle’s professional experience includes work with EA, Microsoft, Crytek, and Square Enix.

“I am honoured and humbled to have been able to volunteer among the many friends and great industry leaders that make and made GamesAid what it is today,” said outgoing vice-chair, Christian-Peter Heimbach. “I am happy to hand over to Des who is deeply subscribed to the success of GamesAid. He will help our Charities, Chair and Trustees to reach new heights with GamesAid. I would like to personally thank Matt, the Chair, all Trustees and of course all volunteers and charities for their truly remarkable work and the opportunity to have been so intimately involved.”

“My three-year tenure as trustee was due to end in 2018,” added Gayle. “However, I enjoyed my time with the charity so much that I requested another three-year term, which was successful. I’m honoured to be inheriting the vice chair position from Christian. I feel privileged to be able to continue his great work. I’m excited to help drive the charity forward in 2019 and beyond.”

GamesAid Chair Matt Spall announced in September 2018 that the charity had now raised over £3.5m since its launch over a decade ago. “GamesAid is drive by the passion and fundraising activity of its members and I’d like to take this chance to sincerely thank everyone, across the industry who has done something amazing to raise money for GamesAid,” Spall told MCV at the time. “We are looking at initiatives and ideas from up and down the country for 2019 and I’d like to invite everyone in the games industry to get involved. It’s free to join and you can help make a real difference to the lives of the young people we support”.

For more about GamesAid – “the only fully democratic charity in the games space” – head to gamesaid.org.