item 15 on the agenda

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Marcus Misson
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item 15 on the agenda

Post by Marcus Misson » Wed Mar 20, 2013 6:04 pm

I was intrigued to see this on the AGM agenda.

15. Policy on International teams
Council is asked to consider and express its support for the following policy proposed by the Board.
“Council believes that the Federation should aim to have the strongest possible England teams competing in the European Team Championships (Open and Women’s), the Olympiads (Open and Women’s) and the World Youth under 16 Chess Olympiad (Open and, when established, Girls). We believe this is in the long term interest of English chess.”

Is there a reason for this?
Obviously you want as strong a team as possible BUT that is going to be qualified by finance, availability, prima donnaism (I think I've just invented that),etc.
Given the time constraints of the meeting is this item necessary?
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Mar 20, 2013 6:13 pm

Marcus Misson wrote: Is there a reason for this?
There are those voting on Council who resent the money spent on International teams, so it might be a pre-emptive measure to silence them. It's been the de-facto policy for some while for the adult teams, but I suspect a new development for the under-16 team.

The European adult teams haven't always been the strongest possible. This is often the more expensive event as in the Olympiad, the host pays some or all of the accommodation bill.

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Peter D Williams
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Peter D Williams » Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:03 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Marcus Misson wrote: Is there a reason for this?
There are those voting on Council who resent the money spent on International teams, so it might be a pre-emptive measure to silence them. It's been the de-facto policy for some while for the adult teams, but I suspect a new development for the under-16 team.

The European adult teams haven't always been the strongest possible. This is often the more expensive event as in the Olympiad, the host pays some or all of the accommodation bill.
The parents pay for the cost of any trip in which child represents England in World and Europeans i know we paid the full cost when Peter played for England so why are some on council resenting this?
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LawrenceCooper
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by LawrenceCooper » Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:09 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
The European adult teams haven't always been the strongest possible. This is often the more expensive event as in the Olympiad, the host pays some or all of the accommodation bill.
That's correct, at the Olympiads teams tend to be offered twin/double rooms that are paid for by the hosts and the teams only pay for converting a room to two singles. Sometimes a limited number of singles are offered, in 2010 two free singles were initially offered and then the offer was withdrawn, in 2012 the FIDE Delegate and the head of delegation were offered a free single room.

At the European Team all accommodation has to be paid for by each federation.

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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:27 am

Peter D Williams wrote: The parents pay for the cost of any trip in which child represents England in World and Europeans i know we paid the full cost when Peter played for England so why are some on council resenting this?
The parents of the England adult teams don't pay, not that you would expect them to.

Not wishing to spend money on adult International teams is an attitude expressed by voting members in the past. For example see the unofficial report on the 2011 meeting at http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/1011/bcf.htm in which
Someone said we could remove the deficit at a stroke by cutting out our International activity for one year. That is, by sending no team to the European Championship. Council did not adopt this suggestion. By 17 votes to 3 it left the budget provision as it was but ruled that no fees should be paid to players out of the budget unless sponsorship could be found enabling us to send the strongest team possible
I think there are two issues which have been combined:-

(1) the general principle that the adult teams should be the strongest possible. This implies treating paying for them as a budget priority.

(2) establishing a principle that the U-16 Olympiad was an event to which the strongest team should be sent. Without checking the details of the Junior selection process, it had been my impression that this was an event which ranked alongside or even below the individual world and European age group championships, rather than above them.
Last edited by Roger de Coverly on Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

Andrew Zigmond
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:45 am

Peter D Williams wrote: The parents pay for the cost of any trip in which child represents England in World and Europeans i know we paid the full cost when Peter played for England so why are some on council resenting this?
Which in effect does limit our chances of sending the best team possible; not all parents would have the financial means to support their children in this way. Chess should be an inclusive activity and not limited to those who can afford it.

If our national federation were to stop sending players to international events in order to cut costs then it would be a sad indictment of chess in this country - thankfully that hasn't happened yet. That said, the ECF could do a lot worse than adopt a policy of always seeking sponsorship for national teams in order to free up funds for other activities.
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Peter D Williams » Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:07 pm

Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Which in effect does limit our chances of sending the best team possible; not all parents would have the financial means to support their children in this way. Chess should be an inclusive activity and not limited to those who can afford it.

If our national federation were to stop sending players to international events in order to cut costs then it would be a sad indictment of chess in this country - thankfully that hasn't happened yet. That said, the ECF could do a lot worse than adopt a policy of always seeking sponsorship for national teams in order to free up funds for other activities.
Parents can apply to the John Robinson Trust for help towards a cost of a trip for representing England at chess? I very much doubt it could always be an inclusive activity as the cost of these trips is quite high and ECF funds could not cover every junior chess player. Help should be given of course where possible.Would members of ECF want the money spent funding all juniors who could play for England at junior chess but the parents could not afford the trip?
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:46 pm

Peter D Williams wrote:Would members of ECF want the money spent funding all juniors who could play for England at junior chess but the parents could not afford the trip?
Personally, yes, if it helps us develop new talent and field the best team possible.

Of course it's not the case that it has to be the parents and/ or the ECF who pay. I'd like to think that if my club had a junior of enough calibre to represent the country abroad we would provide a small bursary if need be. And, again, this is where sponsorship could be very helpful.

The downside of such an approach is that people do expect returns for their money and there will be a lot more pressure on players to perform. This is reasonable enough for adult teams but there are limits to the expectations I'd want young players exposed to - for example if a sixteen year old lad plays (say) board three for the team and a combination of stiff opposition and failure of nerve leads to him playing badly. Obviously learning to deal with failure is part of life but a sponsor would expect better and I'm reminded of the extremely unpleasant comments made by a titled player on the Mureck thread.
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Peter D Williams » Thu Mar 21, 2013 3:17 pm

Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Personally, yes, if it helps us develop new talent and field the best team possible.

Of course it's not the case that it has to be the parents and/ or the ECF who pay. I'd like to think that if my club had a junior of enough calibre to represent the country abroad we would provide a small bursary if need be. And, again, this is where sponsorship could be very helpful.

The downside of such an approach is that people do expect returns for their money and there will be a lot more pressure on players to perform. This is reasonable enough for adult teams but there are limits to the expectations I'd want young players exposed to - for example if a sixteen year old lad plays (say) board three for the team and a combination of stiff opposition and failure of nerve leads to him playing badly. Obviously learning to deal with failure is part of life but a sponsor would expect better and I'm reminded of the extremely unpleasant comments made by a titled player on the Mureck thread.
I can not see the majority of members of the ECF wanting to fund every junior who is picked to represent England at chess who parents can not afford to send the child. The Worlds or Europeans are very expensive and now that the ECF send larger groups of children the expensive could run into many thousands of pounds.Some limited help is really all that the ECF can do.The parents can also ask the John Robinson Trust for help.A small bursary from a club would not be enough to cover the cost of these trips.
I doubt very much your get sponsorship to pay for these trips in this economic climate Our top chess players struggle to get any form of sponsorship maybe because chess is not categorized as a sport? if it was a sport it could get lottery funding to. :wink:
I like to see the ECF help Junior chess more with funding for these trips but i can not see the majority of adult members of the ECF supporting this.
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Peter D Williams » Fri Mar 22, 2013 10:08 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
The parents of the England adult teams don't pay, not that you would expect them to.
.
I was talking about juniors under the age of 18 where the parents would have to pay the full cost of any trip for the child representing England at chess.
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Mar 22, 2013 10:23 am

Peter D Williams wrote: I was talking about juniors under the age of 18 where the parents would have to pay the full cost of any trip for the child representing England at chess.
The motion to my mind is directed at the adult teams, to establish and maintain the principle that financing them is a first charge on the ECF's finances.

I'd suspect the under 16 reference is something different, being related to the priorities in Junior selection rather than finance.

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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by LawrenceCooper » Fri Mar 22, 2013 10:44 am

Marcus Misson wrote:I was intrigued to see this on the AGM agenda.

15. Policy on International teams
Council is asked to consider and express its support for the following policy proposed by the Board.
“Council believes that the Federation should aim to have the strongest possible England teams competing in the European Team Championships (Open and Women’s), the Olympiads (Open and Women’s) and the World Youth under 16 Chess Olympiad (Open and, when established, Girls). We believe this is in the long term interest of English chess.”

Is there a reason for this?
Obviously you want as strong a team as possible BUT that is going to be qualified by finance, availability, prima donnaism (I think I've just invented that),etc.
Given the time constraints of the meeting is this item necessary?
Is this really anything new other than trying to pre-empt another Council motion calling for the international budget to be zero? It was always part of the business plan and it was top of the objectives I was given when I took over as International Director. With the help of outside funding I achieved it three years in a row with the exception of Luke McShane who declined in 2011 and 2012 because of work commitments. One of my many failings though was to have insufficient funding to have a mens captain in 2010 and 2011 that could contribute to the team in terms of preparation. I think it's no coincidence that the best results in recent times for the men came in 2008 and 2012 when we had Peter Wells as captain.

The only part of the policy that is new is to send the strongest team to the U16 Olympiad which I think is a welcome development. Given that you can send more than one team then the federation is still able to send additional teams of promising players and hopefully a girls team as well.

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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Peter D Williams » Fri Mar 22, 2013 11:00 am

LawrenceCooper wrote:
The only part of the policy that is new is to send the strongest team to the U16 Olympiad which I think is a welcome development. Given that you can send more than one team then the federation is still able to send additional teams of promising players and hopefully a girls team as well.
So long as it not being used to stop juniors from getting experience of World/European chess? I have always believed more than one junior should go to these events in each section long before it was policy! Of course where possible you want the strongest juniors to go but a number 5 or 6 in the ranking is not that far behind number 1 or 2 and may bring them on to be much stronger. I was very pleased to see Phil Ehr invite more juniors and do not want to see that policy changed.
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Fri Mar 22, 2013 11:55 am

If memory serves I think the ECF managed to get sponsorship for the Olympiad team relatively recently - it was reported in the context that the discredited board of the time made no mention of it on the website but were still chuntering on about Chess for Schools.
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Re: item 15 on the agenda

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Fri Mar 22, 2013 12:02 pm

Peter D Williams wrote:
LawrenceCooper wrote:
The only part of the policy that is new is to send the strongest team to the U16 Olympiad which I think is a welcome development. Given that you can send more than one team then the federation is still able to send additional teams of promising players and hopefully a girls team as well.
So long as it not being used to stop juniors from getting experience of World/European chess? I have always believed more than one junior should go to these events in each section long before it was policy! Of course where possible you want the strongest juniors to go but a number 5 or 6 in the ranking is not that far behind number 1 or 2 and may bring them on to be much stronger. I was very pleased to see Phil Ehr invite more juniors and do not want to see that policy changed.
I may be labouring this one but do we want a situation where a place is available in an international junior event and is offered to the highest rated eligible player who has to decline for financial reasons - more likely the financial reasons of the parent - so the place is offered down the line until you come to position 5/6 where the parent is willing to pay. Granted, the ECF doesn't have a bottomless pit of reserves and somebody has to pay, but I just think that when opportunities in chess depend on the affluence of the parents and/ or the fact that there may not be other siblings to be considered something is wrong. The only thing that should matter is ability.
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