Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

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Ernie Lazenby
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by Ernie Lazenby » Sun Jul 09, 2017 4:06 pm

I was at Clevelands AGM recently. The members decided not to bother with the NCCU for now and wont be paying the annual membership. This position may change in the future.

David Robertson

Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by David Robertson » Sun Jul 09, 2017 4:51 pm

Ernie!!

Welcome back! Oh, how we have missed you! I've put your welcome in bright red because I hear you've become a Corbynista in your absence :wink:

Neil Graham
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by Neil Graham » Sun Jul 09, 2017 9:57 pm

Steve Emmerton wrote:As a member of a club in Staffordshire I have no particular gripe about the NCCU. All I would say is that you could replace the name NCCU with MCCU and your comments would pretty much reflect how we feel a bit further South !!! Be interesting to hear what people have to say about the other Unions.
Welcome Steve and thanks for your first post. In respect of chess organisation I regularly comment on the lack of volunteers/apathy at every level of chess. The MCCU organise a substantial programme of county chess amongst other things. Your own county, Staffordshire, ought to be contesting at every level but instead can only find captains for Under 100 and Under 120 graded teams.* Last year Staffordshire were supposed to have an Under 140 team but it withdrew without a match being played. Perhaps you would like to organise a team for the forthcoming season?

* The Staffordshire Open team were supposed to play in Season 2015/2016 but they defaulted their Counties Championship semi-final at two days notice.

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Steve Emmerton
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by Steve Emmerton » Sun Jul 09, 2017 11:08 pm

Unfortunately apathy also prevails at County level, not just Union level. Staffordshire find it impossible to get volunteers to run County teams as, I'm sure, do other Counties. Clubs, Leagues and Counties are reliant on volunteers and, unfortunately, it is the same small handful of people who do everything, whilst everybody else sits back and just expect things to happen. Personally, I am a Club Secretary, Team Captain and Webmaster, a League Results Secretary and Webmaster and a County Tournament Secretary and Webmaster. Running a County team would be one job too many I'm afraid !! I'm of the opinion that County chess is in a serious state of decline due to the number of competing Congresses and the 4NCL. It seems to me that these are the competitions that people want to play in these days. I have no doubt that all sports organisations suffer from the same problems in respect of volunteers who make sure that they actually function.

Neil Graham
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by Neil Graham » Sun Jul 09, 2017 11:45 pm

Steve Emmerton wrote:Unfortunately apathy also prevails at County level, not just Union level. Staffordshire find it impossible to get volunteers to run County teams as, I'm sure, do other Counties. Clubs, Leagues and Counties are reliant on volunteers and, unfortunately, it is the same small handful of people who do everything, whilst everybody else sits back and just expect things to happen. Personally, I am a Club Secretary, Team Captain and Webmaster, a League Results Secretary and Webmaster and a County Tournament Secretary and Webmaster. Running a County team would be one job too many I'm afraid !! I'm of the opinion that County chess is in a serious state of decline due to the number of competing Congresses and the 4NCL. It seems to me that these are the competitions that people want to play in these days. I have no doubt that all sports organisations suffer from the same problems in respect of volunteers who make sure that they actually function.
There you have it! Dozens of chessplayers but no-one who is willing to captain a county team. Don't think I am picking on Staffordshire; there are plenty of other counties that it could apply equally to. In the MCCU there were 36 county matches played in the Union stages - in the NCCU there were four matches (possibly). Congresses and the 4NCL have little impact IMHO on county chess - I speak as someone who is/has been involved in the organisation of both.

John Reyes
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by John Reyes » Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:52 pm

Gareth T Ellis wrote:Merseyside is staying in the NCCU for now, having a volunteer to captain a county team.
in which section?

we wish that the MCF would love to play against Merseyside and in the good sprirt of the leagues, I know the Manchester league will be playing the Liverpool League in September
Any postings on here represent my personal views only and also Dyslexia as well

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Mon Jul 10, 2017 6:18 pm

The SCCU has certainly had its moments. I'm not sure "apathy" is the word to describe lack of enthusiasm for running county teams. Even with modern communications, it is a pretty horrible job. It is true that the same volunteers end up being expected to do everything. Then if they make a mistake, they get people screaming at them. Anybody can make a mistake. What I cannot tolerate is people lying and cheating.

A fine example from the Surrey League. An opponent stops recording the game even though he has lots of time. Our player complains and stops the clock. I wander over (as our captain is busy outside having a smoke). The opposing captain refuses to do anything. We complain to the league. The league says that the opposing captain used to be the League Secretary for many years and that he refuses to accept his player did anything wrong, therefore our complaint fails.

One league actually introduced a rule that each club could only supply one member to the League Committee. So a couple of enthusiastic people were not on the committee as another club member was, and a couple of people were on the committee when they didn't want to be. I assume they didn't turn up to any meetings.

David Williams
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by David Williams » Tue Jul 11, 2017 10:20 am

Suppose that clubs, leagues and congresses all existed, but county associations and county matches did not. Would anyone feel there was a pressing need to start them? From my totally uninterested perspective they seem like an awful lot of work for not a lot of return.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Jul 11, 2017 10:46 am

David Williams wrote: Would anyone feel there was a pressing need to start them?
It could come down to whether there was a demand for a weekend team based competition. There are points in its favour as compared to evening league chess, that longer distances are possible, adding to variety of opposition, games of a longer duration at a slower pace as well. Also those like school children unable to play weekday evenings can take part. But all that applies to district based competitions such as Yorkshire's Woodhouse Cup as much as it does to inter-county matches.

LawrenceCooper
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by LawrenceCooper » Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:34 am

Neil Graham wrote:* The Staffordshire Open team were supposed to play in Season 2015/2016 but they defaulted their Counties Championship semi-final at two days notice.
If notice was only given two days beforehand then I'm shocked as Staffs players were made aware well before then.

Graham Borrowdale
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by Graham Borrowdale » Tue Jul 11, 2017 8:56 pm

LawrenceCooper wrote:
Neil Graham wrote:* The Staffordshire Open team were supposed to play in Season 2015/2016 but they defaulted their Counties Championship semi-final at two days notice.
If notice was only given two days beforehand then I'm shocked as Staffs players were made aware well before then.
I imagine Neil was making a general point, but as representative of the host venue I heard 4 days beforehand - c'est la vie.

What I think is more unfortunate is that teams that might have been willing to take their place were denied the opportunity to.

To answer the original question 'would you start county chess if it did not exist?', the answer is probably no, because of the organisational effort, but it is the only opportunity most players get to compete in large matches, which are unique in many ways, and there is still a certain 'honour' in representing your county, which is not there when you choose a team to play for.

Neil Graham
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Re: Is Merseyside leaving the NCCU?

Post by Neil Graham » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:50 pm

LawrenceCooper wrote:
Neil Graham wrote:* The Staffordshire Open team were supposed to play in Season 2015/2016 but they defaulted their Counties Championship semi-final at two days notice.
If notice was only given two days beforehand then I'm shocked as Staffs players were made aware well before then.
In respect of this I was going from memory. Persual of this board indicates it was Wednesday with the match due on the Saturday so three days. Probably the Staffordshire players and the venue knew the day before. Whether it was two, three or four days matters little now.