Annual General Meeting 2013

[John Cox]

WTF does it have to do with anything what John Littlewood was or wasn’t paid for playing in the Hastings Premier in 1963?

Maybe it would be a good idea if the next ECF Council debated a motion along the lines of ‘this House deplores professional chess and mandates the Board to attempt to stamp it out in this country’. At least then we’d know where we stood.

[John Upham]

Maybe it would be a good idea if the next ECF Council debated a motion along the lines of ‘this House deplores professional chess and mandates the Board to attempt to stamp it out in this country’. At least then we’d know where we stood.

John,
I must admit I had taken this as the default position for many posters to this place and assumed it had been decided many years ago.

Refreshingly, however, there are many exceptions which keeps my faith in human nature alive (just).

Is there an appetite to form an English PCA and rid these troublesome matters from debate?

[E Michael White]

So why not include an under 18 in the women's team and ask the Trust for the £4k? Maybe twisting the rules but not sending a team just doesn't seem right to me, especially for as little as £4k, when I guess the Open team has appearance fees.

Not that I necessarily agree your point but the relevant age for JRT is 21 not 18.

[Mick Norris]

The first of the reports from attendees has now appeared from the Bristol and South West delegate.

http://www.chessit.co.uk/phpforum/viewt ... ?f=6&t=275

MCCU Report here
http://www.raycollett.net/worcs/about/2 ... cf_rpt.pdf

[John Philpott]

...............and EACU report here http://www.suffolkchess.org.uk/2013/10/ ... f-agm.html.

Get a move on Richard Haddrell!

[David Sedgwick]

Get a move on Richard Haddrell!

When are the full results of all the elections, with the voting figures, going to be published on the ECF website?

Get a move on, John Philpott.

[John Philpott]

David Sedgwick wrote

When are the full results of all the elections, with the voting figures, going to be published on the ECF website?

Get a move on, John Philpott.

The results of the elections were published on the ECF website within one minute of the Chairman announcing these at the meeting. The voting figures in the contested elections were published on this Forum within a further minute

The full voting figures will be published in the minutes in due course.

[David Sedgwick]

The full voting figures will be published in the minutes in due course.

Procedural Bye Law 5.2:

"A draft set of Minutes, approved by the Chairman of the Meeting, shall be considered by the Board within 10 weeks and published on the ECF Web Site within 13 weeks of the closure of the Meeting."


Is there any other organisation, anywhere in the world, which thinks it appropriate not to publish its full election results for up to three months?

[John Upham]

Is there any other organisation, anywhere in the world, which thinks it appropriate not to publish its full election results for up to three months?

The Freemasons, the Cosa Nostra and the Tufty Club (allegedly!)

[Richard Haddrell]

Get a move on Richard Haddrell!

http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/bcf.htm

[David Pardoe]

One point re the AGM discussions.
County Champs rule changes. Alex convened a skype meeting to discuss county rule changes. The NCCU representative did not attend this, which seemed strange, although I`d had an email exchange with the SCCU rep and he was definitely not up for the NCCU proposals on statistical grounds, it seemed. Did anyone ask the NCCU president, William Metcalfe, why the NCCU failed to attend Alex`s skype meeting...and why they did not send a substitute, as the SCCU had done.
I thought Alex`s idea of holding a skype meeting to discuss possible ideas for change was a good one, although I think it might have included a few more representatives from around the counties., including perhaps, some additional county captains.
There are those who say the counties events are slowly sinking, yet attempts to improve things seem to get nowhere fast.
This is just one of the problems of our current modus operandii, with ECF AGMs that just go round in circles.
Have the NCCU produced a report on the ECF AGM..?
Have those delegates with large numbers of delegate and proxy votes produced any reports.
There are serious concerns about the whole delegate/voting/consultation process relating to the ECF AGM, with concerns raised that it can & does produce totally bogus results.
Even the esteemed Malcolm Pein got the NED wrong, it seems. His preferred candidate, Jack Rudd, came last, with Julian, rejected by him out of hand as a misfit, came roaring home.
And what of that NED vote? Whom did those delegates with large directed/proxy vote holdings nominate? And who precisely was doing the directing?

[IM Jack Rudd]

I believe I came last mostly because I neither conducted an election campaign nor put up a decent performance in the hustings. I don't have any complaint about my not being elected as a result.

What concerns me slightly more is that I may as a result have caused the order of the other candidates to change - I am told that a number of people changed their vote from Rudd/French to Clissold/French as a direct result of my public speaking failures, and this effect may have been enough to get Clissold in at French's expense. Whatever the respective merits of those two candidates - and we won't know anything about this until some way into Clissold's term in office - should the finishing order of those two candidates really be decided by how well a different candidate does?

*considers proposing to the April meeting a change from Plurality-At-Large to Approval-At-Large for election to Board posts*

[Ian Thompson]

I believe I came last mostly because I neither conducted an election campaign nor put up a decent performance in the hustings.

This statement may also have had something to do with it:

Corporate governance is not really my area of expertise, though.

although whether the other candidates would have been able to truthfully answer any differently is unknown to me.

[William Metcalfe]

I had to do something at very short notice and i could not find anybody else to take my place at short notice

[David Pardoe]

Jack....
Your candidature is not in doubt in terms of what you bring to the table. You bring real chess to the table, and chess at the top levels, and a breadth of experience. In that sense I think Malcolm had a point.
But, if you`d put out a candidate statement, brief background, a mention of last years challenges and contributions, it would possibly have helped. I`m sure your experience would be valuable to the board, and maybe we need more such representation from NEDs.
Also, the very structure of this voting/election process is quite false. Many good candidates are totally flummoxed by the whole circus that you go through? Trial by misplaced characterisation being one of the falsehoods. Trial by this very forum, where the most ridiculous falsehoods/misleading statements are uttered, some quite bogus campaigns are fronted out, with one candidate clearly playing to the gallery, seducing them with `promise`, (gifts from Santa perhaps), and on top of this, a seriously flawed voting process is ritually performed.
Note, it was Julian who asked...what is the ECF for?
Yes, a `not for profit`, cultural body, seeking charitable status....and a key theme was commercial acumen & FIDE??
And 99% of our chess players get an excellent chess offering, thanks to the dedication of some very commited people throughout our chess community, working mostly on a voluntary basis, giving freely of their personal time.
No wonder the electorate was baffled, and William Metcalfe said that, after consulting long and hard amongst eminent and knowledgable contacts and chess bodies within the NCCU, he could not decide what to do with his various proxy/delegate votes...
And the circus is concluded with the silent assassins claiming there prize, in the ritual execution of our `Papal leader`, and loyal servant, Roger Edwards . A Cardinal sin, if ever there was....
You too, might have been a victim of this flawed voting process Jack, to some degree...

Picking up on another point from the SCCU report. It mentioned the Charitable status issue, saying that it might be subcontracted out to paid experts?
I hope not. Did I not see that Mr Moore, the other candidate for the CEO position, had some knowledge/experience of working in the charitable sector? Maybe he could be co-opted. See his candidate statements.
But, most importantly, I believe the ECF needs to consider very carefully whether this is the right route to go down. Start firstly by quantifying the hard cash benefits., assuming all the hurdles can be jumped.
Then consider the impact of fragmenting our chess body into even smaller parts. Is the professional part going to have professional officers. Will anyone want to preside over the remainder, probably seen as an almost meaningless entity? We really need to consider what we might end up with? A relatively small professional wing, that takes the cream jam and the scone, leaving the rump `pleb` body dead in the water, some might perceive? A rapid decent to oblivion. Who might benefit from such a fiasco...??