ECF Reporting of Board meetings

[Angus French]

With a new board, comes a new style.

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... ersion.pdf

Minutes Secretary is now a "paid for" position.

How much, do we know?

Good question. The minutes refer to a "new, not inconsiderable" charge. Also, was the appointment and cost agreed by the Board in advance of the meeting?

[Angus French]

... as a justification for the appointment of a paid-for Minutes Secretary, the minutes say "AP said that the aim would be to distribute full and objective minutes within a week of each meeting... addressing the concern of Council on the timely distribution of minutes".

However, the 1 November minutes were not made public until well after the subsequent Board Meeting (held on 22 November) and this denied ECF members a chance to provide input before further decisions were made.

Thus, for example, it wasn't possible to discuss the statement (first bullet point of minute 1): "The Board agreed that AP should chair this meeting, agreed by PE in view of Regulation 2" - a decision which looks incorrect to me. My understanding is that the Chief Executive (not the President) should chair Board Meetings. The currently-available (August 2013) version of Regulation 2 has nothing that I can see on this (despite the reference in the minutes). Further, I believe the description (within Regulation 2) of the role of the Chief Executive should have been updated to include the text "Chairs meetings of the Board and manages the agenda and documentation for those meetings" (this comes from the motion which did away with the post of Non-executive Chairman). Further still, Article 63 of the ECF's Articles of Association states: "The Chief Executive shall preside as chairman of the Board but if at any meeting he is not present within five minutes after the time appointed for holding the same, the Directors present may choose one of their number to be chairman of the meeting"... This is important as I believe it should be the Chief Executive and not the President who leads the Board.

[Stewart Reuben]

I attended the 22 November Board meeting for part of the time. There was no separate minutes secretary present. So Phil Ehr, Chief Executive took the minutes. So Andrew Paulson chaired the meeting.
The mistake was having Phil take the minutes. Obviously having agreed that, he no longer had time also to chair the meeting. David Eustace used to be Minutes Secretary. He is now Finance Director. but surely it would have been better had he taken the minutes.

Paying a competent and long-serving minutes secretary would be well worthwhile.

[JustinHorton]

How much would it cost, do you think?

[Greg Breed]

How much would it cost, do you think?

How much, do we know?

One pound per minute.

[Stewart Reuben]

In the 35 years existence of the BCF/ECF Board. there has been a paid minutes secretary about half the time.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

In the 35 years existence of the BCF/ECF Board. there has been a paid minutes secretary about half the time.

What existed before there was a Board? Was it just a Council and President and Executive in the early 20th century?

[Angus French]

Ideally you'd want someone with knowledge of the ECF and its workings. Why not advertise on the ECF website (or in Chess Moves or by email to members) for a volunteer? The question remains about the cost - the minutes say this was "not inconsiderable".

[Stewart Reuben]

Christopher >What existed before there was a Board? Was it just a Council and President and Executive in the early 20th century?<
Before 1978 there was a committee, the name of which I have forgotten. It had 48 members. There were sub-committees. Ideas bounced from one to another, returning eventually to the big one.
I had nothing to do with this monstrosity.
John Poole initiated the idea of a Board of about 20 people. Sandy Corden was President. David Anderton succeeded him in 1979 and it was then I joined the Board.
2004 it became the ECF with a Board of about 10.

Of course the post of minutes secretary has been advertised from to time. Why not pay? Whenever I ran the British and it was sponsored, I was paid - perhaps about half what it was worth commercially. Why not?

[Roger de Coverly]

Before 1978 there was a committee, the name of which I have forgotten. It had 48 members. There were sub-committees. Ideas bounced from one to another, returning eventually to the big one.

The practicality was that there was a paid employee as General Secretary and arguably CEO. So it was George Simmonds (if I have the spelling right), followed by Ann Hopton and then Paul Buswell.

They were able to facilitate the seventies boom by not getting in the way, notwithstanding the scheduling of the 1973 Counties final to clash with the Bath European Team Championships.

[Stewart Reuben]

True about paid GS. But George Simmons and Ann Hopton were before there was a Board. Paul Buswell did not regard himself as CEO and quit in 1985(?) Graham Lee took over in 1986(?)

[Paul Buswell]

I was there July 1975 replacing Ann Hopton and went on 31 December 1986, Graham Lee came in early in 1987. I could have acted like a CEO I suppose if I had had the necessary qualities, but I didn't. I probably should have gone sooner, because in my view the ECF needed a CEO person by then.

When I came in there was an unwieldy Executive Committee of 40-50 people with extensive sub-committees micro-managing particular technical areas. Many of the worst aspects of a Committee structure: delay and indecision and some people in post for no good purpose. The move to a Board and directorate structure was late 70s, early 80s, thenabouts, driven by a realisation that the existing structure on the whole didn't work.

PB

[Angus French]

The minutes of ECF Board Meetings used to be published here: http://www.englishchess.org.uk/about-2/minutes/. The last published set of minutes are for the meeting of 1 November.

So far as I can gather, published minutes are missing for the meetings of:
- 22 November (date notified in the minutes of the 1 Nov meeting);
- 8 December (meeting with Garry Kasparov - date notified here: https://twitter.com/nigelshortchess/sta ... 5133812737); and
- 16 December (date notified in the minutes of the 1 Nov meeting).

[Roger de Coverly]

So far as I can gather, published minutes are missing for the meetings of:

I think you may be able to add 19th January 2014 as disclosed by Paul Buswell
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 23#p131223

That one might not be expected to be disclosed if the method is to wait for the next meeting to publish the earlier one.

[Mick Norris]

There was a paid Minutes Secretary at the meeting of 1 November, followed by an uproar about paying someone, followed by no minutes (yet) of subsequent meetings

One of the points I made yesterday to Andrew Paulson was that the ECF needs to improve communications