English Chess Forum

Hi
I am not totally clear on how the ECF board works and is paid. I get the impression that many of the board roles are unpaid (apart from expenses perhaps?) and members have other jobs. If this was the case then would it not be better for there to be a fulltime paid management structure in place? I might be completely off the track here and the downside to my point is "the money to pay people to do the job where does it come from" statement.

If this was the case then would it not be better for there to be a fulltime paid management structure in place?

There's a paid office of 4 in Battle, none of whom are serious chess players.

The board are only paid by expenses (if at all).

The idea of one of the paid staff being a serious player (and in effect the CEO) was tried and abandoned more than 15 years ago. I don't know why it was abandoned - lack of candidates with both the office skills and chess skills perhaps.

When Graham Lee was General Secretary and worked from the Hastings Office it did not work out well.
A professional CEO would not of course have to be located in Battle.
The problem is funding a good person for the job and then finding a suitable individual. Let us postulate £50,000 a year plus back up expenses. His/her first job would be to generate enough income per year to pay his own salary. This would not be easy. The time to do that was in the 1980s when we had sponsorship money rolling in. It was thought of when we bought BCM, but that part of the project did not work out because there was enough to pay for a good editor/manager, but not for the CEO work.
The directors are uniformly unpaid. They need to have time available at short notice. Thus most must be retired from full time employment, self employed or be the managing director of their company. These tend naturally to be wrinklies.
Stewart Reuben

Stewart Reuben wrote:When Graham Lee was General Secretary and worked from the Hastings Office it did not work out well.

Are the reasons for this known and able to be divulged here? Could lessons be learnt from this episode to reattempt it at a future date?

John

It is all a very long time ago. Basically there was a misunderstanding about the nature of the job as I understand it.
Stewart

Stewart Reuben wrote:These tend naturally to be wrinklies.
Stewart Reuben

Like yourself then Stewart?