2011 AGM: October 15th

[Roger de Coverly]

If support falls well short of 75% then the whole project may be a non starter.

The final proposals are written in a really cunning way. If as a county or league, you did not have local support for the membership proposal, you have three choices
(1) force most of your players into becoming members. If you can afford it, you make them members without their consent.
or
(2) pay the enhanced Game Fee costs at £ 2 per game per head
or
(3) walk away either wholly or partly from the ECF

Under version 1 and version 2 of the proposals, individuals appeared to have a choice. They could choose either to be ECF members with a published grade or just to play chess.

[Andrew Farthing]

On the 75%/simple majority issue: Sorry to disappoint, but there is no conspiracy here.

There might not be conspiracy, but there is credibility. You are making a major change in the relationship between club players and the ECF in that you are establishing an expectation, a compulsion even, that to play graded club chess you need to be an ECF member. Regardless of whether you can do this with a 50% majority, such a major change should be done with a 75% majority and the votes arranged in such a manner.

(edit) It's one of those issues which you probably need 90% or even nem con (emphasis added - AF). To the best of my recollection, the original Game Fee proposals had something like that level of support, even if the local leagues in Yorkshire and Lancashire subsequently dissented. (/edit)

You're just making up your own rules now, Roger. Are you seriously suggesting that it would be equitable for the Federation's members as a whole for there to a right of veto residing in a single individual?

The inclusion of the phrase "a compulsion even" is mischievous. Anyone who reads the proposed amendments will see clearly that there is no question of someone who wants to play graded club chess being compelled to be an ECF member. If he/she chooses not to be a member, there is a price per result. What's changing is the price.

[Alex Holowczak]

Re individual member voting rights:...individuals currently have more influence than they give themselves credit for, but they need to make their views known to the various delegates who represent them

Chance would be a fine thing. But I (& several hundred others) have no practical chance of even this limited franchise. Currently, I play or plan to play in four local leagues:

* MCA (Liverpool & District)
* CDL (Chester & District)
* WL (Wirral)
* WDCL (Warrington & District)

From the ECF Electoral Register that I read a few days back, it appears that MCA & WL are lapsed; WDCL has no status (neither member nor lapsed); and only CDCL is paid up. So a sizeable chunk of NW England has been disenfranchised, even within the attenuated 'democracy' of ECF. By whom have we been disenfranchised? Not by popular vote, that's for sure. But even when we have had delegates, they neither report back nor take instruction. It goes without saying that they never consult. Always happy to cast their sheaves of proxies though. Makes for a cosy life - and an unrepresentative, remote ECF.

Finally, let's assume my delegate agrees with me. Wherein lies that delegate's mandate? In meeting my wishes? In observing the wishes, if any, of the delegating body? Or in whatever prejudice the delegate himself possesses?

Um... what?

For Liverpool & District, see Merseyside. They have 4 votes.

Chester & District is on page 4, and has 1 vote.

Wirral is on page 4, and has 3 votes.

Warrington & District probably lapsed at a previous meeting due to non-payment of Game Fee. They don't have to pay anything other than Game Fee to get votes (or indeed, the MO). They just haven't filled the form in to reaffiliate it. Assuming that laborious hurdle was cleared, they'd get 2 votes.

[Roger de Coverly]

From the ECF Electoral Register that I read a few days back, it appears that MCA & WL are lapsed;

That's all a bit odd. I had thought that the Merseyside Chess Association had become an MO in its own right as a county association. There was several pages about it on the Atticus forum. Perhaps they went back to being Northern (NMS) members. Still the principle of the Game Fee regulations was that you had to pay money to the ECF to get votes on Council. If you exempt yourself from Game Fee by insisting on ECF membership for all players, you don't get a vote. But then there's an artificial contrivance called deemed Game Fee to give the vote back. Or is that Congresses only? Or is it that you have to pay something like £58? as a membership fee like the non playing bodies represented on Council.

Leagues sometimes run their ECF representation though a local county association. That could explain the absence of Warrington.

[David Robertson]

I'm quoting from the Electoral Register published by Roger to this thread on Sept 8th. I now see it was the Register for the April meeting, so possibly payments have been received over the Summer. But as an ordinary member, I don't know that. And even if payments have been made by now, no one was representing local members in April when the proposals were discussed

[David Robertson]

The voting register for the April meeting is here
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... ister1.doc

I think it's the same for the October meeting, but I might be wrong

Here it is

[Roger de Coverly]

You're just making up your own rules now, Roger. Are you seriously suggesting that it would be equitable for the Federation's members as a whole for there to a right of veto residing in a single individual?

I'm just using my experience of county AGMs. If you have a potentially contentious issue such as the abolition of adjudication, getting zero objections at the meeting is a powerful way of demonstrating support to those not at the meeting. You wouldn't disagree that if Council approved the membership proposals without a dissenting voice, we wouldn't be having this debate.

The inclusion of the phrase "a compulsion even" is mischievous. Anyone who reads the proposed amendments will see clearly that there is no question of someone who wants to play graded club chess being compelled to be an ECF member. If he/she chooses not to be a member, there is a price per result. What's changing is the price.

Is it, or is it not, the ECF's intention that everyone playing club chess should become an ECF member, not because they want to, but because the ECF wants them to be members? Pragmatically if you gave players a choice, membership or no grade, an unknown percentage would choose the no grade option. As you have identified, that represents a financial risk to the ECF.

The problem for leagues is that you need the correct number of players for every match. So if a match captain is a player short and the only available player is not an ECF member, the club has the financial dilemma of whether to default or incur an extra expenditure. So whilst the ECF itself is not, yet, demanding compulsion, it's writing the rules in such a way that leagues and clubs would enforce compulsion on its behalf. If you expect a Game Fee option to remain a permanent part of the ECF's funding in the medium term, then please say so, so that clubs and leagues can plan their finances and restructuring accordingly.

The ECF is keen on compulsion, you need only look at the rules for being on the International Rating list. On the restructured membership categories, whilst there will be a £ 6 option for non-members to play in domestic tournaments like Spectrum, no similar option exists for internationally rated events like e2e4.

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm quoting from the Electoral Register published by Roger to this thread on Sept 8th. I now see it was the Register for the April meeting, so possibly payments have been received over the Summer. But as an ordinary member, I don't know that. And even if payments have been made by now, no one was representing local members in April when the proposals were discussed

There's something of a traditional process whereby the ECF catches up with late payments by listing the late payers as not having voting rights at the April meeting. In practice, they mostly pay up before the meeting so no proxies are harmed.

The current list for reasons of its own still shows in italics those who were deemed late payers at the April meeting. Presumably they've now all paid and any non-payers, possibly because they are defunct, have been removed.

[Alex Holowczak]

I'm quoting from the Electoral Register published by Roger to this thread on Sept 8th. I now see it was the Register for the April meeting, so possibly payments have been received over the Summer. But as an ordinary member, I don't know that. And even if payments have been made by now, no one was representing local members in April when the proposals were discussed

They were lapsed because they hadn't filled in the form to tell the Office which events they were organising, and thus the number of halfresults that would count towards their total. So the conclusion was that they had 0 votes, because they'd organised no chess as far as they'd told us. They ended up getting votes at Council in the end because I noticed it, and they were added to the voting register at the meeting.

Surprisingly, as far as I'm aware, in some cases the lapsed members themselves didn't notice it.

[David Robertson]

So the 'lapsed' delegates showed up in April; received votes even though they were 'lapsed'; didn't know they were lapsed; and are now not lapsed? Right?

And you believe this kind of arrangement lends confidence to ECF members who henceforth need not protest their lack of say in ECF affairs? Right? All just a technical glitch? Right?

One day these foolish arrangements, unless radically modified, will lead to secessions from ECF. They are quite incompatible with a universal membership scheme. New financial arrangements are being grafted onto a demonstrably rotten political structure. It cannot be sustained

[Alex Holowczak]

One day these foolish arrangements, unless radically modified, will lead to secessions from ECF. They are quite incompatible with a universal membership scheme. New financial arrangements are being grafted onto a demonstrably rotten political structure. It cannot be sustained

There are several problems, in my opinion, with the voting as it happens now. These are things that I want changed:
(1) Organisations should be given halfresults based on the last 12 months that have happened, rather than an estimate of the next 12 months, as happens now. The reason for this is tied to Game Fee. It's the same problem in another form. A league could pay for 6,002 halfresults, actually have 5,998 halfresults, and get an extra vote as a result. It then claims back the excess Game Fee it paid the following year, so it doesn't even pay for its extra vote. There were organisations that did that this year, which I brought to the attention of the Voting Register compiler.
(2) Club Internal results shouldn't count towards County, League and Congress total results. At the moment, 4NCL could get a few dozen clubs to send in their internal games, get them graded, and they'd count towards 4NCL's halfresult total, which can get them an extra vote. As long as 4NCL tell ECF this, that's fine. I think that's wrong. Club Internal games should count towards a new phenomenon: Member Clubs. (This is just an example, and not intended to suggest 4NCL do this.)

If you do those things, I think we have a system that can work. I'm unsatisfied with it at the moment. I don't think OMOV is the answer.

[Steve Rooney]

One day these foolish arrangements, unless radically modified, will lead to secessions from ECF. They are quite incompatible with a universal membership scheme. New financial arrangements are being grafted onto a demonstrably rotten political structure. It cannot be sustained

There are several problems, in my opinion, with the voting as it happens now. These are things that I want changed:
(1) Organisations should be given halfresults based on the last 12 months that have happened, rather than an estimate of the next 12 months, as happens now. The reason for this is tied to Game Fee. It's the same problem in another form. A league could pay for 6,002 halfresults, actually have 5,998 halfresults, and get an extra vote as a result. It then claims back the excess Game Fee it paid the following year, so it doesn't even pay for its extra vote. There were organisations that did that this year, which I brought to the attention of the Voting Register compiler.
(2) Club Internal results shouldn't count towards County, League and Congress total results. At the moment, 4NCL could get a few dozen clubs to send in their internal games, get them graded, and they'd count towards 4NCL's halfresult total, which can get them an extra vote. As long as 4NCL tell ECF this, that's fine. I think that's wrong. Club Internal games should count towards a new phenomenon: Member Clubs. (This is just an example, and not intended to suggest 4NCL do this.)

If you do those things, I think we have a system that can work. I'm unsatisfied with it at the moment. I don't think OMOV is the answer.

Tinkering with the a rotten system doesn't make it any more democratic. Surely the point is that individual membership should mean something - ie membership equals having a vote. Suggesting that membership changes can be dealt with next spring before the new funding regime comes into place is simply not good enough - and would such changes require 75%, whereas switching to individual membership doesn't.

The explanations given today on the re-interpretation of voting requirements are both farcical and untenable. I second the prof's earlier suggestion of remitting the proposals until there is a sensible reform of the voting structure in concert with funding changes. And before someone quips that the ECF would run out of money before any of this is agreed; getting half-baked proposals through without overwhelming voting support is unlikely to raise £160K anyway, as was acknowledged in Andrew F's earlier belief in a "broad consensus".

[Roger de Coverly]

- and would such changes require 75%, whereas switching to individual membership doesn't.

According to the Agenda

13.2 To consider and if thought fit approve a special resolution to make the following changes to the Articles of Association (a special resolution requires a 75% majority).
(a) In Article 1.1, to insert after the definition of “Direct Members” as “means the Direct Members as defined in Article 5(13)” the words “who shall not be required to be members of the company” and in Article 5(14) to add at the end of the description of the Direct Members Division of Members the words “provided that Direct Members are not required to be members of the company”.
(b) In Article 30(1), to add at the end of the paragraph specifying Multiple voting entitlements the words “Provided That with effect from 1st September 2012 Rapidplay graded results, will be calculated at one half of the rate for Standard graded results for the purpose of multiple voting entitlements.

”

The implication is that changes to voting entitlements requires a change to the Articles of Association on a 75% vote. How convenient then, that changes to voting rights are not on the table as part of the ECF restructuring.

[Roger de Coverly]

If you do those things, I think we have a system that can work. I'm unsatisfied with it at the moment. I don't think OMOV is the answer.

If the ECF insist on changing its collection from "per event" to "per head", then it should base voting rights on head count. You might ask each individual to nominate an organisation (or representative) to exercise a Council microvote on their behalf. Perhaps you might do one vote per organisation (as at present) and one vote for every hundred nominations. Maybe you give Bronze members one nomination, Silver two (so the second is a Congress), Gold three (the third is an International Congress or the 4NCL) and Platinum four (maybe the extra vote is for an individual with voting rights to match leagues and counties)

I'll have to take a closer look, but a scrutiny of the 1993 Year Book suggests that the Game Fee/Direct member schemes as initially designed imply that the number of Direct Member reps would increase with the headcount of Direct Members.

[Alex Holowczak]

Tinkering with the a rotten system doesn't make it any more democratic. Surely the point is that individual membership should mean something - ie membership equals having a vote. Suggesting that membership changes can be dealt with next spring before the new funding regime comes into place is simply not good enough - and would such changes require 75%, whereas switching to individual membership doesn't.

It has been said elsewhere that out of 10,000 members (for argument's sake), you'd probably get a maximum of 500 of those members who vote. Does a turnout of 5% really make the system any more democratic than what we have now? I don't think it does.

Given the range of attendance, where do we book to hold the AGM? The Euston Square Hotel, or the Royal Albert Hall?

How do we get these papers out to everyone? Post to 10,000 members?

Currently, direct members get 8 votes. I can't remember them ever being filled.

I'm all for a federal structure. I strive to make sure the delegate does his job in the places I represent. I send e-mails, and I sometimes make phone calls. If your delegate doesn't do that, then stand against him and do the job yourself. That's far better than moaning from the outside about how rubbish everything is.