English Chess Forum

On the Saturday morning of the upcoming 4ncl weekend there will be an ECF Board Meeting, during which a large number of the Directors and Officers will be attending. Although the meeting will be for Directors only they will be present throughout the day, and happy to answer questions related to the ECF.

As there is an ECF Board meeting on Saturday the 16th of January to coincide with the 4NCL weekend, is there any topic that Forum readers would like raised? Apart from the obvious one, of course - that's high on my list

PS if anyone is driving up on the Friday night and has space for two passengers, do let me know!

Adam Raoof wrote:is there any topic that Forum readers would like raised?

Making adjourned or adjudicated games ineligible for grading.

I've sent this email out to all of the 4ncl captains in Div 1, 2, and as soon as possible I'll be sending it to the Div 3 captains as well:

Dear all,

The ECF is considering holding an open forum at the next 4NCL weekend, whereby people will be able to ask questions/ express views directly to ECF board members. The next 4NCL weekend seems ideal, as all of the divisions will be at the same venue. Would there be sufficient interest, and would it be possible time-wise, for something like this to go ahead?

Yours sincerely,
Ben Edgell. ECF Publicity Officer.

Few rotten tomatoes and eggs ordered?

I've ordered a copy of 'Building a Set of Stocks for Dummies' from Amazon as Ben P is providng the fruit!

Seriously though, I doubt if many players will care enough to take time out from prep / the bar to attend.

I think it would be a good thing to have a representative of the ECF at the 4NCL Captain's meeting on Sunday mornings where they have been invited (unless already there by virtue of their position in the 4NCL) and where the ECF has a Board meeting the previous day (to avoid any expenses).

I have already said elsewhere that I think the ECF could learn a lot from the example of the 4NCL and other chess success stories. I think that we all need to look outside our own four walls and see what is being done in other Federations too - Chess Scotland for instance. Stewart Reuben spent time in the States and imported the concept of the weekend tournament with huge success. I play in events in Belgium and the Netherlands, and I am learning a great deal from them, and by looking at their organisational structure. Applying what I have learned in England is a gradual process!

Were Mike Truran able to accommodate us for future meetings, it could only be positive. If he could provide protective headgear, even better

benedgell wrote:The ECF is considering holding an open forum at the next 4NCL weekend, whereby people will be able to ask questions/express views directly to ECF board members.

Will people be allowed to ask about Chess for Schools as the silence on that one is still deafening?

Carl Hibbard wrote: Will people be allowed to ask about Chess for Schools as the silence on that one is still deafening?

A meeting took place today between ECF persons and representatives from Holloid Plastics. I believe that searching questions were to be asked.

I am not yet aware of the outcomes. Hopefully, welcome answers were the result.

John Upham wrote:

Carl Hibbard wrote: Will people be allowed to ask about Chess for Schools as the silence on that one is still deafening?

A meeting took place today between ECF persons and representatives from Holloid Plastics. I believe that searching questions were to be asked.

I am not yet aware of the outcomes. Hopefully, welcome answers were the result.

Who can we ask questions of do you know?

My understanding of this is that Stewart Reuben was the person responsible for liasing with Holloid of late, and now it's Chris Majer's responsibility. So [email protected] or [email protected] would be the 2 emails to try. Bear in mind that they may well have to abide by confidentiality for a lot of details.

No news on this one (even from John...) so do we consider the CFS project has been abandoned?

There was a significant meeting between the ECF and Holloid Plastics on Friday, January 22nd.

Caroline Morris is no longer the PR person on behalf of Holloid Plastics.

This role has been taken over by Kirstie Lapworth from the ECF Office. This is very positive stop (IMHO) as Kirstie is one of the few (maybe the only?) ECF person who is attempting to drive this project forward. CEM appears to gone totally AWOL since he "took over" from SR at the start of the end. Three more LEAs are scheduled to receive their sets in the near future (I am not at liberty to reveal who these LEAs are ahead of the official announcement).

We are consolidating the Phase 1 & Phase 2 CfS schools data and Kirstie and I are working on a table structure that works for both CfS and CoM and we will then use a common back-end to service both of these projects.

I did suggest that this was the way forward more than 18 months but had to deal with expert opinions from those who clearly know enough to be dangerous about IT : I am used to this so my approach is to empower those making decisions so that they believe they have been useful in the decision making : it keeps them happy!

Meanwhile, enormous quantities of rubbish have been thrown out / skipped at the ECF Office and the office is less of a huge pile of useless box files waiting to go up in smoke. However, there are many other useless items that desperately need throwing out.

Andrew Walker is doing a great job in getting the new web site ready for testing and hopefully we can switch off the Hey Joes hosting emporium soon and run from Zen Internet.

As further progress is made I will keep you informed.