English Chess Forum

Hi everyone

I have seen a number of different systems in leagues and wondered what people have encountered, what their current arrangements are, what they see as the pros and cons, what they see as fair, what their own preference is etc etc.

Votes at Meetings
My club plays in three leagues and each has a different voting structure at AGMs etc. In one each club has a single vote, in another a club may send two representatives each having a vote and the other allows each club to send a voting delegate for each team that it has. Another league that I know allows all registered players to have a vote.

Divisional Structures
There seem to be two main types, namely promotion / relegation or rating bounded (whether maximum, average, some combination of these etc). In some cases both exist within a single organisation.

Any thoughts ?

The disastrous system in our local league is that every club member has a vote at the league AGM - even though all of the clubs refuse to disclose their membership lists to the league officers! Explain that one to me…

Jon Hunt wrote: ↑

Thu May 28, 2026 4:23 pm

The disastrous system in our local league is that every club member has a vote at the league AGM - even though all of the clubs refuse to disclose their membership lists to the league officers! Explain that one to me…

Hilariously quaint!

David Fowler wrote: ↑

Wed May 27, 2026 12:28 pm

Hi everyone

I have seen a number of different systems in leagues and wondered what people have encountered, what their current arrangements are, what they see as the pros and cons, what they see as fair, what their own preference is etc etc.

Votes at Meetings
My club plays in three leagues and each has a different voting structure at AGMs etc. In one each club has a single vote, in another a club may send two representatives each having a vote and the other allows each club to send a voting delegate for each team that it has. Another league that I know allows all registered players to have a vote.

Divisional Structures
There seem to be two main types, namely promotion / relegation or rating bounded (whether maximum, average, some combination of these etc). In some cases both exist within a single organisation.

Any thoughts ?

I think the Birmingham League has got it pretty much spot on in these two criteria:
1. It has two types of meeting: AGM, which does constitutional things, elections and presentations of trophies; Management Commitee Meeting, which meets 4 times per year, and deals with rules, reports of officers, reports from delegates and so on. The voting is the same at both types of meeting: 1 delegate can cast one vote per team they enter into the league, plus a limited number of officers get one vote each (e.g. President, Secretary, Treasurer). In practice, anyone who wants to attend can attend, and they can probably speak if they want to. They just can't vote.
2. It has promotion/relegation, but the lowest division is rating limited. I think this is a good balance. I prefer promotion/relegation in principle, but at the bottom, you might have 13 players for a team of 6; not enough for two teams of 6, but too many for one team of 6. So this bottom division with a rating limit means that you can - hopefully! - enter a team in each and it doesn't matter about how often players playing for both teams, which might be a no-no in the top divisions of the league. So I think it is a solution that gets more chess played.

Alex Holowczak wrote: ↑

Fri May 29, 2026 2:53 pm

2. It has promotion/relegation, but the lowest division is rating limited. I think this is a good balance. I prefer promotion/relegation in principle, but at the bottom, you might have 13 players for a team of 6; not enough for two teams of 6, but too many for one team of 6.

Birmingham, London and perhaps a few other leagues have the advantage of having lots of teams.

If you have, for the sake of argument, 6 clubs that can put out competitive first teams, you can have a decent top division just of them. If however you relegate one or two of these, the following season will likely just have 4 or 5 competitive teams and 1 or 2 that just get kicked almost every match. Equally the relegated teams may not face much opposition of any strength

I think a reason why many leagues have moved towards rating limited divisions even if only in part is that it makes rules on team overlaps far easier to apply. You usually need some form of exemption rule where a club or team has a player or two well above the standard of the rest.

"I think a reason why many leagues have moved towards rating limited divisions even if only in part is that it makes rules on team overlaps far easier to apply. You usually need some form of exemption rule where a club or team has a player or two well above the standard of the rest."

Somerset League, which is not heavily populated, has an "Open" division 1, and division 2 allows one player over 1900 (on top board) and division 3 one player on top board can be 1650-1800, and everyone else lower than 1650. You can get scary games on board 1 of Division 2! I don't mind that, but as we play home and away, you can play the same opponent four times in a season (five if you meet in the KO Cup as well), and that can get boring no matter how nice the opposition is.

In terms of meeting structures each system has its flaws.

Open meetings where anybody can turn up and vote can give too much weight to larger clubs and also the risk that a certain faction could turn up in force to push through a specific agenda. In practice this is relatively rare and can, up to a point, be countered by competent chairing ensuring that nobody votes who is not constitutionally allowed to.

The problem with delegate systems is that they often lead to a silo where the same people attend year on year (often because they are an officer and need to go anyway) and acts as a barrier for new people to get involved.

Andrew Zigmond wrote: ↑

Sat May 30, 2026 8:43 pm

In terms of meeting structures each system has its flaws.

Open meetings where anybody can turn up and vote can give too much weight to larger clubs and also the risk that a certain faction could turn up in force to push through a specific agenda. In practice this is relatively rare and can, up to a point, be countered by competent chairing ensuring that nobody votes who is not constitutionally allowed to.

The problem with delegate systems is that they often lead to a silo where the same people attend year on year (often because they are an officer and need to go anyway) and acts as a barrier for new people to get involved.

Totally Agreed there and i don't think there a right answer. i look at the main league that i play in (the MCF and we tried and do things fairly etc) but i have been to other meetings and i felt why have i turn up as i won't be listened (i have a few examples but one of them was a lancashire AGM)