Code of Conduct

[Alex McFarlane]

There is no pleasing some people, is there? Having taken the trouble to draft the protest, solicit the support of no less than 5 other federations and complain in person at the FIDE offices, the unpaid officers at the ECF are berated for failing to have first informed Alex McFarlane's partner. No, Mr. McFarlane, the world does not revolve around you or your intimate associates: the matter concerns all ECF members.

Elsewhere on this forum Nigel Short posted the above. Andrew Farthing acknowledges that in my communication raising the matter with the Board I represented myself as the Chief Arbiter of the CAA.

Would this fall foul of the proposed ECF Code of Conduct Section 2.1 if it were now in operation?
2.1 All officials of the ECF are representatives of the organisation and must ensure that their actions do not:
• cause gratuitous offence;
• injure the ECF, its officials or its events, directly or indirectly;
• bring the game of chess or the ECF into disrepute.

It is interesting to gauge the opinion of forum users.

[Roger de Coverly]

It is interesting to gauge the opinion of forum users.

I can see the point of having a means of resolving disputes without having to invoke lawyers. The BCF might have found such a body useful when the GMan v Lancs affair kicked off all those years ago.

I would fear though that a document entitled "Code of Conduct" would just be used for point scoring, as indeed was FIDE's version when a Georgian objected to some of the terms used by an English GM.

[Louise Sinclair]

Gratuitous offence is in the eye of the beholder.

[Ernie Lazenby]

Codes of conduct in many walks of life don't work very well unless there are enforceable penalties. Codes without penalties are meaningless and a waste of time introducing. getting people to follow rules are hard enough let alone codes of conduct.

BTW Alex I support you as you know but on this occasion I feel Mr shorts comments are just stupid not offensive. His comment relating to your relationship with Lara says more about him than you. He ought to stick to playing chess and continue to command our respect as our best player rather than causing our Federation problems through chess politics. I think Mr Short, and others forget that without people like you and Lara there would not be organised chess.

[Carl Hibbard]

I find this thread has perhaps too close a focus on Nigel in particular, his comment whilst a little too direct I do not find offensive

I will be locking this thread off this evening