Candidates for office

[Ian Thompson]

Your reference to the treatment of Malcolm Pein when he was a sole candidate highlights the stupidity of including a spoiler or non-candidate called None of the Above.

What mechanism would you propose for preventing the election of candidates thought unsuitable by Council then?

I thought that the idea of being nominated was to rule out fringe or unsuitable candidates.

It definitely doesn't do that. An existing office holder who has done a poor job can nominate himself for re-election. Someone seeking election for the first time only needs a maximum of 5 people to support him, or only one or two people if he can get the support of the right ones. I think it would be pretty easy for someone with minority views to get themselves on the ballot paper, and, if they managed to get themselves elected, to then get their supporters on the ballot paper for other jobs in a year's time.

[Michael Flatt]

Given that the ECF is a Company limited by Guarantee, I believe that Company Law obliges it to put the appointment of directors to the vote of those members entitled.

It's like proxies, it's a specific requirement of the legislation under which the ECF chose to operate. You could report the result in a different way. So in the case of a rejected candidate
"Those supporting the motion that X be appointed as a director 44%
Those against 56%".

The net effect is the same.

I am not convinced that it works like that, especially if you have more than one candidate. They could all be rejected if sufficient people vote for NOTA. What purpose does that serve? Why hold elections if the net result is that the post remains vacant?

Also, if a sole candidate is beaten by NOTA the Board can make their own appointment by co-opting whomever they see fit. At the next AGM the appointee retires and faces a vote to continue.

It would be healthier if elections are contested but if there is only one candidate why shouldn't he be elected as the only person willing to do the job?

I think that voting in an election is different to voting on a resolution when votes for and against are counted to establish whether the resolution is carried or not.

Is the ECF election procedure actually fit for purpose?

[IM Jack Rudd]

It would be healthier if elections are contested but if there is only one candidate why shouldn't he be elected as the only person willing to do the job?

In the specific case of Lawson, he wasn't. I attempted to get enough nominations to stand, but didn't manage to do so - and at least one person whose nomination I sought declined to nominate me because Lawson had already been nominated for the post.

Is the ECF election procedure actually fit for purpose?

Well, there are certainly better methods available. I would personally prefer Approval-at-Large. (Each voter votes YES, NO or ABSTAIN on each candidate; the candidate with the greatest total of YES-NO, provided this is a positive number, is elected.)

[Roger de Coverly]

It would be healthier if elections are contested but if there is only one candidate why shouldn't he be elected as the only person willing to do the job?

It would be helpful if an expert on Company Law as applied to Companies limited by guarantee could say whether that is legal. I suspect not, but based on the example of public companies limited by share.

There are various Governance Review committees being set up. If they ever dare ask for public comment, perhaps this point should be put to them.

[Stewart Reuben]

In the 1970s I had an interview for a job in teaching. There were 5 candidates for the post. The officers decided not to select any of us, preferring to re-advertise. We were told we could re-apply, but who would do that? It was very disheartening.
Is that so different from NOTA, apart from the fact that in the ECF we are referring to voluntary positions?

[Michael Flatt]

In the 1970s I had an interview for a job in teaching. There were 5 candidates for the post. The officers decided not to select any of us, preferring to re-advertise. We were told we could re-apply, but who would do that? It was very disheartening.
Is that so different from NOTA, apart from the fact that in the ECF we are referring to voluntary positions?

That is an interesting argument but I don't think that being interviewed as a prospective employee by a Headmaster and Board of Governors is truly analagous nor democratic. It is normal for teaching posts and other employed positions to be re-advertised if insufficient people apply or none of the candidates meet the specific requirements demanded by the employer. Once taken on by the employer effectively you are in post until retirement or you apply for a different post (either internally or externally) or the post becomes redundant.

There is a large pool of people who might want to take on a new job and the employer takes advantage of this to find their ideal employee. Sometimes the preferred candidate declines the job offer and so it might be offered to the next best. Some employers are overly demanding or unreasonable in their demands and the post can remain vacant for years, or they may be sampling the market with no intention of employing anyone.

A closer analogy might be parish council elections, county council elections or Parliamentary General Elections. If you secure sufficient nominations to stand and you are the only candidate you are automatically appointed. In General Elections candidates that do not receive a sufficient proportion of the vote lose their deposit.

Surely it is better that posts on the ECF Board do not go unfilled or filled by the Board co-opting an unelected individual. Should the elected person prove unsuitable he or she can be replaced at the next annual election, provided another candidate contests the position. Sometimes individuals initially thought unsuitable actually perform rather well. They ought to be given a chance!

Trustees of Charities are often appointed for a term of three or four years and retire in rotation with a proportion being reelected each year. In this system there is emphasis on continuity since it avoids the disruption that might occur should all Trustees need to be reelected each year.

[Simon Brown]

It would be healthier if elections are contested but if there is only one candidate why shouldn't he be elected as the only person willing to do the job?

It would be helpful if an expert on Company Law as applied to Companies limited by guarantee could say whether that is legal. I suspect not, but based on the example of public companies limited by share.

There are various Governance Review committees being set up. If they ever dare ask for public comment, perhaps this point should be put to them.

Roger, there are several differences between companies limited by guarantee and "normal" companies, but this isn't one of them. Unless the Articles say otherwise, the usual position is for every new director to be approved by the members at a General Meeting. If there is only one candidate, the members vote whether to accept him or not. That is perfectly legal.

What the board cannot do is appoint a director and not ratify the appointment at a later meeting,

[Mike Truran]

Confirmed that's how 4NCL Limited (a company limited by guarantee) works.

[Roger de Coverly]

Unless the Articles say otherwise, the usual position is for every new director to be approved by the members at a General Meeting. If there is only one candidate, the members vote whether to accept him or not. That is perfectly legal.

What the board cannot do is appoint a director and not ratify the appointment at a later meeting,

Unlike a local council where if unopposed you are deemed elected, in the ECF and similar bodies, a majority of the voters at a suitable meeting have to be in favour. The ECF usually structures this approval as a vote between <candidate> and <anybody but the candidate>. Perhaps that's the simplest way to do it as there's usually at least one contested election.

Various methods have been used as noted by Richard Haddrell in his SCCU reports

http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/1112/bcf.htm

To start with the incumbents: all were unopposed but Council, rightly we think, did not re-elect them en bloc as last year. Nor did it go to the opposite extreme and hold card votes on everyone, as it had the year before. The middle way - a show of hands for each candidate individually - was more than good enough. The President attracted 1 vote against, as did one member of a standing committee, and everyone got re-elected by a landslide.

That was the year when the voting membership were not happy with the sole nominee for marketing director.

There were two other elections. One was contested, and both were close. Marketing Director was uncontested. Tim Woolgar addressed the meeting and answered questions, and the voting was: Tim Woolgar 95, None of the Above 89, Abstentions 6. (It's first past the post, of course. Absolute majority not required.)

[benedgell]

Any news on Angus French as of late and his AGM statement?

An email I received from the ECF today:

Dear ECF Council member....

(1) Sean Hewitt, who resigned as a Non-Executive Director on 3 April 2014, will be presenting a report to the meeting.

[Carl Hibbard]

Any news on Angus French as of late and his AGM statement?

An email I received from the ECF today:

Dear ECF Council member....

(1) Sean Hewitt, who resigned as a Non-Executive Director on 3 April 2014, will be presenting a report to the meeting.

Interesting

[John Philpott]

Carl Hibbard wrote, on 27 September

Any news on Angus French as of late and his AGM statement?

This has appeared today at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... report.pdf, and makes reference inter alia to this Forum.

[Roger de Coverly]

This has appeared today at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... report.pdf, and makes reference inter alia to this Forum.

Angus uncovers a few bodies. For example

On appointment I was asked not to post on the EC Forum and told that all Directors had agreed not to do so.

If anyone wants to ask difficult questions of the three candidates for Non-Exec, it's an obvious one to ask whether they accept such a constraint on their role.

That's been suspected to be the case for some time. Lawrence Cooper, who is standing down, regularly "breaks" this, but his postings are almost always just news and promotion of international junior events.

There's also this nugget about the English Seniors

The English Seniors Championship – payment of prizes;whether the ECF got value for money for its £1,000 investment

It had not been previous public knowledge that this tournament had ECF financial support.

There's a name mentioned, I think for the first time, regarding the legal fight the ECF seems to have got itself into regarding international junior selection. It's been raised here as well, so it's not something new.

[John McKenna]

Direct reporting from Angus that makes it worth the wait.

Perhaps he will also say, in his own time and way, what might make the Non-exec Director role easier and more effective. For example, should they be subject to what amounts to an imposed collective vow of silence (Omertá?), even on their own forum, for their term in office or exempt to a large extent?

Exceeding capacity and lack of transparency continue to be major obstacles to progress -

All Board members are volunteers, living in different parts of the country. These are constraints on the operation of the Board and, in my view, the biggest problem the Board has is that it attempts to achieve more than it has capacity for. Consequently it makes decisions which are not properly thought out and this can cause further work and disharmony. The Board should be less ambitious and prune its workload. It should focus first on fundamentals – for example, approving and publishing the minutes of its meetings. It should try to avoid making decisions which are divisive or risk being so...

I've no objection to the ECF Board holding confidential negotiations, but when the deals are cut and dried I think the ECF should go public and inform the paying members what has been agreed and, if possible, with whom. That way there would be less need to store up potential skeletons.

[Carl Hibbard]

Nice to see Angus comments with at least confirmation that this forum is prohibited.