AGM : 15 October 2011

[Mick Norris]

Fair enough, Paul, if this is how you saw and judged it.

I saw a lot of nodding, the rest is speculation. I don't want to pretend I'm Mike Navarro.

Have Council members no pride, no sense of history, no belief in the merits of chess over chessboxing? In my opinion, any association with chessboxing creates grounds for a lifetime ban on further association with chess

The ECF had two vacancies, and two candidates that impressed me. Unfortunately they both applied for the same vacancy.

I can agree with this to a limited extent - as Phil acknowledged after the meeting when he spoke to me his presentation was not as good as Sabrina's and if I had judged them yesterday, I would have voted for Sabrina

As I explained in advance to Sabrina (for the avoidance of doubt, not by email, and not abusive), the MCF view was that Phil was the better of 2 good candidates

I think if Sabrina had stood yesterday for Marketing Director, she would have won and would be a very welcome presence on the board (not because she is young or female, that would be an added benefit) - of the 3 candidates who spoke, she marketed herself the best IMO

I imagine that some Council members thought that a vacancy was undesirable and voted for Tim, others did so because he was nominated by Andrew Farthing (even though Andrew expressed no support for Tim) and others because he was nominated by Stewart Reuben

Do we not have any chess players experienced in PR or Marketing who we could get to stand next year?

[David Robertson]

Do we not have any chess players experienced in PR or Marketing who we could get to stand next year?

I imagine there are several among the 12,000 graded chess community. I personally know someone highly qualified in the field. But anyone with a professional reputation to lose, in PR or in other relevant fields, would hesitate before putting it at risk in the service of ECF under current arrangements. It's one thing to occupy the post; quite another, to do anything worthwhile

[Michele Clack]

John Upham said: The ECF already has excellent web hosting for

The main site: paid for by ECF (WordPress / MySQL)
CoM: paid for by ECF (PHP / MySQL)
ECF Coaching: currently paid for by myself (PHP / MySQL)
New grading database: paid for by ECF (PHP / MySQL)

all with Zen Internet. The use of a common ISP will facilitate integration of the membership database (currently lovely old standalone MS Access (ugh!)

CoM uses a PayPal API to interface the CoM application, the ECF shop and PayPal.

Processing credit card transactions is another step-up the ladder.

There is enough expertise in this place to engineer a solution without recourse to outsourcing.

Commercial charges will be prohibitive (typically £800 - 1000 per working day) I suspect.

I was responding to this from Adam Raoof

Thanks Paul. There is software out there which already does everything a chess membership scheme needs, but they want a percentage of the turnover. I would think carefully about that. I think what we decide upon depends on other factors as well - I think membership should run from the date when you join, but I think the Board is minded to have a fixed membership 'season'. This will certainly place a heavy load on the office and the software! It will also cause problems calulating the pay-per-play fees if someone joins later in the year and we give them a membership which runs from October, and they have played a few events in the mean time. The whole thing can be very simple.

We will also be putting out to tender the redesign and management of The British Championships website, inviting separate bids for an online payment system for the British which would have to take account of the unique format of the Festival and all the events, and a system that will integrate with pairing software and the new grading database.

So is the ECF going to do all this in house then?

The point about the Serif software is that the payment part is already set up if you want to use it. It looks like paypal do a subscription payment option with an automatic reminder being sent out. Just a thought.

[Mick Norris]

Do we not have any chess players experienced in PR or Marketing who we could get to stand next year?

I imagine there are several among the 12,000 graded chess community. I personally know someone highly qualified in the field. But anyone with a professional reputation to lose, in PR or in other relevant fields, would hesitate before putting it at risk in the service of ECF under current arrangements. It's one thing to occupy the post; quite another, to do anything worthwhile

Indeed, but it is catch 22 if you can't change the ECF because you can't get the candidates because of the current state of the ECF

[IM Jack Rudd]

Do we not have any chess players experienced in PR or Marketing who we could get to stand next year?

I imagine there are several among the 12,000 graded chess community. I personally know someone highly qualified in the field. But anyone with a professional reputation to lose, in PR or in other relevant fields, would hesitate before putting it at risk in the service of ECF under current arrangements. It's one thing to occupy the post; quite another, to do anything worthwhile

Indeed, but it is catch 22 if you can't change the ECF because you can't get the candidates because of the current state of the ECF

That's not a catch-22, it's a vicious circle.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I can agree with this to a limited extent - as Phil acknowledged after the meeting when he spoke to me his presentation was not as good as Sabrina's and if I had judged them yesterday, I would have voted for Sabrina

As I explained in advance to Sabrina (for the avoidance of doubt, not by email, and not abusive), the MCF view was that Phil was the better of 2 good candidates

I think if Sabrina had stood yesterday for Marketing Director, she would have won and would be a very welcome presence on the board (not because she is young or female, that would be an added benefit) - of the 3 candidates who spoke, she marketed herself the best IMO

I imagine that some Council members thought that a vacancy was undesirable and voted for Tim, others did so because he was nominated by Andrew Farthing (even though Andrew expressed no support for Tim) and others because he was nominated by Stewart Reuben

Do we not have any chess players experienced in PR or Marketing who we could get to stand next year?

I agree that Sabrina's presentation was better (not that Phil's was terrible, mind you). The problem was that most votes and proxies had been decided beforehand based on the published statements. Some representatives would not have had the discretion to change any votes based on those presentations.

Marketing should be done professionally, IMO (trouble is the cost, of course). This ties into the need (expressed yesterday) to explain to people on the ground how the changes will affect them and to essentially promote a "support the ECF" campaign (otherwise the ECF will lose money). IMO, membership of the ECF should be marketed as supporting the ECF's wider activities (primarily junior chess and international chess), not just as providing grading services (which is a perception many have). Some won't want to support anything other than grading services (and some not even that), but there is a need to maximise membership from those willing to pay for it.

There was also mention of having a Manager of Marketing, rather than a Director, and rejigging the role of any Director to be wider and cover more things. Plus mention of a need for a person dedicated to Membership matters. Not sure how concrete those proposals were (or if they had been raised before), but they sounded interesting.

Is there a list of ECF Managers anywhere, as opposed to ECF Directors?

Ah here we go (presumably will be updated on Monday when working Office hours resume):

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/?page_id=79

That's actually a rather confusing list, but hopefully comprehensive.

[Roger de Coverly]

IMO, membership of the ECF should be marketed as supporting the ECF's wider activities (primarily junior chess and international chess), not just as providing grading services (which is a perception many have). Some won't want to support anything other than grading services (and some not even that), but there is a need to maximise membership from those willing to pay for it.

You can market it as that, but the practicality is that the income is used to support an office in Battle and other administrative support. If leagues feel obliged to make ECF membership a condition of participation, membership becomes a forced purchase, as it is for existing members who would be excluded from internationally rated events if they weren't members.

[David Robertson]

All this 'Director', 'Manager' business is pure nonsense. People are playing at being a 'Board' just as ECF is posturing as a 'Company'. Cut through the b/s, and ECF is a piddling outfit, let's be honest. Its annual budget is small change in a real company. Put it like this: 500 players or so will spend roughly twice ECF's annual budget over the course of the 4NCL weekends this year. Yet the ECF has erected one enormous confection of guff to oversee and direct a mere £160k. A Council of c.240 delegates? A Board of 10+? Managers of this and that. But no one with a discretionary penny to spend.

Either we become a membership organisation willing to vote the finances fit for a decent oufit, designed to meet a specification we have collectively, by proper process, defined. Or the ECF drifts aimlessly, unreformed, into oblivion.

Where to start? Council as currently constituted must abolish itself; or be abolished by some means. And the ECF must be legally reconstituted as a voluntary association of individually subscribing members, thereby dissolving Company, Board and the rest of that tiresome clutter.

[Paul Cooksey]

Do we not have any chess players experienced in PR or Marketing who we could get to stand next year?

I imagine there are several among the 12,000 graded chess community. I personally know someone highly qualified in the field. But anyone with a professional reputation to lose, in PR or in other relevant fields, would hesitate before putting it at risk in the service of ECF under current arrangements. It's one thing to occupy the post; quite another, to do anything worthwhile

Marketing should be done professionally, IMO (trouble is the cost, of course).

I might disagree, I am thinking about it. I also know someone high qualified. But I know a lot of chess players, and I think I only know one, and there is no chance he would have time to accept the job. In comparison I know loads of players who work in finance, and the ECF still struggles to fill all its finance roles.

My feeling is that we'd be incredibly lucky to find some with professional skills and the time and desire to do a difficult job. We can hope to get lucky, maybe we will with Tim Woolgar. I suppose we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. But maybe we should lower our standards for candidates if we do need to replace him.

I looked at the duties of the Marketing Director, and the things Christopher lists. I think an energetic person who could demonstrate a strategy, awareness of the challenges, and good judgement could do a good job. I wouldn't want to be in the position where some like Sabrina would not consider applying for the Marketing role because they feel unqualified compared to an unrealistic benchmark.

[Paul Cooksey]

All this 'Director', 'Manager' business is pure nonsense. People are playing at being a 'Board' just as ECF is posturing as a 'Company'.

Shush! The appearance of status appeals to some volunteers, and giving them an impressive job title is free. Don't disillusion anyone

[Roger de Coverly]

. And the ECF must be legally reconstituted as a voluntary association of individually subscribing members, thereby dissolving Company, Board and the rest of that tiresome clutter.

Ok so you've just done all that. Where do Clubs, Counties, Leagues and Congresses fit in? Would you not expect them to set up some form of collective organisation to establish common standards?

Would you demand that all bodies offering chess services exclusively supply only members of your "voluntary" association?

[John Upham]

I looked at the duties of the Marketing Director,

I suspect that the most critical criterion is:

Does the DoM market chess or the ECF?

If the DoM can restrict his or her activities to the ECF then progress might be made. However, it will be easier to market chess rather than the ECF IMHO.

I suspect that a lack of clarity on this matter has impeded progress for many years.

Perhaps I should include a third option?

[Paul Cooksey]

Perhaps I should include a third option?

[Dragoljub Sudar]

Can someone please clarify what proposals were actually passed? Alex's post mentions bye-laws 1 & 2 being passed but not the 'rates proposal doc' which is the one that states the charge for all non-members will be £1 or £2. Was that actually voted on as well?

On the ECF website the doc covering the proposal for bye-law 2 states:
"Made by the Council of English Chess Federation .... and 15th October 2011 in pursuance of Article 82...
WHEREAS the Articles of Association of English Chess Federation... the Game Fee established respectively for results:
(a) of Standard graded games at 44 pence;"

If bye-law 2 was passed, and the rates doc not voted on, doesn't that mean game fee is only 44p?

Ps: where can we see these Articles and what changes were voted on?

[John Philpott]

David Robertson wrote

Where to start? Council as currently constituted must abolish itself; or be abolished by some means. And the ECF must be legally reconstituted as a voluntary association of individually subscribing members, thereby dissolving Company, Board and the rest of that tiresome clutter.

It is recognised that if the ECF is to pursue charitable status, there will need to be two organisations to deal respectively with the "charitable" and "non-charitable" activities. One of these organisations, and it seems likely to be the "charitable" one whch would be responsible for non-professional chess, will need to be created from scratch, so there will be a golden opportunity (probably within the next 12 months) to start with a blank piece of paper and design a new fit for purpose organisation. It is the possibility that something like this might happen that encourages me to continue to stand for office and accept the imperfect set of rules that we have after yesterday's meeting as an interim stage on a longer journey. There is, of course, no guarantee that any golden opportunity will necessarily be grasped: there was a previous opportunity when the ECF assumed the functions of the BCF, but that was circumscribed by the instruction of Council to replicate as far as possible the old organisation in the new. However, I am content for the time being to work towards the development of a coherent set of proposals to put to the vote: if they are not accepted, I will worry about that when it happens.