ECF Director elections for 2012/13

[Paul McKeown]

I believe that in the matter of "tee-shirt gate" Mr De Mooi made two errors of judgement. Wearing the Tee-shirt and ,much more seriously, going to the press. Together these were reason enough that he should offer his resignation. He did - the board did not accept. I also believed, certainly at first, that De Mooi owned both Laura and yourself an apology.

I should have had little problem if the debate about Mr De Mooi's competence as a President continued - but it went much too far.

An entire tsunami of insult and bile has been heaped both on him and on Andrew Farthing as a bystander- far, far viler than was ever inflicted on you or Laura. The two men have openly been called liars, one has been all but accused of thieving, and both of having the ethics of rats. You may not have made most of these accusations, but you can no more walk away from some responsibility for them than De Mooi can walk away from Ray Keene's initial tweets.

I'll second that.

Much has been insinuated about Andrew Farthing, all of it baseless. He is owed a profound apology from several of the posters on this forum, the Howling Gibbon, and from Alec M.

de Mooi is a tw*t, that was known before his appointment and he didn't fail to disappoint. The most cogent remark on his character was that of John Moore's wife, reported elsewhere on this forum, long ago, that he was an annoying twerp, or something of that nature.

Alec M leapt, like a paladin knight of yore, to the defence of Lara Barnes, who had been unfairly accused of homophobia. However, rather than stopping when her honour had been publicly restored he continued brawling on the streets of this forum (and elsewhere) for another year to the detriment of chess in England. Alec M is an arbiter, a profession which demands impartiality, good judgement and diplomacy. I fail to see how he has demonstrated any of those virtues in this saga.

[David Robertson]

Well said, Martin Regan! Well said, Paul McKeown! [applause]

[Martin Regan]

Nothing on the size of the "token" Martin?

Jonathan - just a friendly warning - your posts on here and on your blog constitute a pretty clear case of defamation against Mr De Mooi - look up malicious falsehood.

Now to your question. I made clear that the size of the "token" was a key part of the issue and, unlike you, when something in an argument turns against me - I do not seek to ignore it because it does not fit with pre-conceived views.

I shall set aside for the moment that your co-blogger was adamant that the size of the "token" was not an issue only a few posts ago.

It clearly is.

Now let us suppose that the figure was above the £100 threshold I suggested - and I now have strong circumstantial evidence (not from Alex) that it was, I would ask the following questions.

1 Did the board or the CEO approve it.?

2 What were the benefits/work promised to the ECF?

3 Has Mr De Mooi delivered those benefits/work?

IF the answer to 1 and 3 are Yes - I see no problem.

IF the answer to 3 is No. Then I would want to know why.

IF such a scenario occurred then there may be a satisfactory explanation.

I would ask for it

IF there was not one - then I would seek the reimbursement of the money.

You will note the number of "Ifs" in there.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Jonathan - just a friendly warning - your posts on here and on your blog constitute a pretty clear case of defamation against Mr De Mooi - look up malicious falsehood.

Martin,
Thank you for the legal advice. I'm touched we can count you as a reader. I'm not sure I understand it, though, so please feel free to explain where I have said something that is a "falsehood".

I think I'm partly confused because the rest of your post is not so different from my blog article. I asked questions - how much was the ECF contribution to CJ's trip and why was he going there - in hope they might be answered.

I would agree that if the payment had been agreed beforehand and if the work expected has been undertaken then it is only fair that CJdM gets to receive the money. That was never my issue though which was/is:-

Was "token" really the best was to describe of the ECF's contribution to CJ's finances?


There's also a wider issue of how information from the ECF filters through to the membership, but I shall leave that one alone for now. It is obviously a rather large question.

[Martin Regan]

I don't wish to take this thread off subject

so please feel free to explain where I have said something that is a "falsehood".

Second attempt at this. Ignore the first.

Malicious falsehood is when someone makes a claim that may or may not be defamatory but was made out of malice.

Say X's lawyers decide that you had made all the accusations you have made because heis a friend of Y who it is well-known is a target of your blog.

You accuse X of
Being a liar
being a crook
being arrogant

Under malicious falsehood - you would need to prove all three, if the arrogance part was unable to pass muster your whole defence would collapse - In short everything you have written disapprovingly about X would need to be true (even if they are not defamatory)

[Jonathan Bryant]

I don't wish to take this thread off subject

Nor me so I'll just say,

You accuse X of
Being a liar
being a crook
being arrogant

Perhaps you could provide direct examples of these claims of yours.

I've never said that CJdM is a "liar". It's certainly true that I've highlighted certain inconsistencies of his public statements, but that is a rather different thing.

I've certainly never said that he's a "crook" - nor, for that matter do I believe that he is. I've actually said that both here and elsewhere on more than one occasion, in fact.

I don't recall ever describing CJdM as "arrogant" although I'm pretty sure I have called him a "dufus" and a "plank". Still, aside from that being a matter of opinion, I'm not sure that I'm any more threatened by the legals for it than, for example - Paul Mc is for his posts tonight.


Anyway, I thank you for your concern. Anyway, as pleasant as it's been to debate this with you I must dash now. Got some bread baking and need to finish the ironing.

[Andrew Zigmond]

One final question for Martin. Do you still see my actions as those that have been most damaging to British chess?

Actually, Alex I do.

I believe that in the matter of "tee-shirt gate" Mr De Mooi made two errors of judgement. Wearing the Tee-shirt and ,much more seriously, going to the press. Together these were reason enough that he should offer his resignation. He did - the board did not accept. I also believed, certainly at first, that De Mooi owned both Laura and yourself an apology.

I should have had little problem if the debate about Mr De Mooi's competence as a President continued - but it went much too far.

An entire tsunami of insult and bile has been heaped both on him and on Andrew Farthing as a bystander- far, far viler than was ever inflicted on you or Laura. The two men have openly been called liars, one has been all but accused of thieving, and both of having the ethics of rats. You may not have made most of these accusations, but you can no more walk away from some responsibility for them than De Mooi can walk away from Ray Keene's initial tweets.

In the time since the original incident, I think as Peter Sowray hinted at, the English and indeed British Chess scene, has become an uglier place.

It is certainly the case that some absolutely unspeakable comments have been made on both sides. I think we would need to wade through all the private correspondance on both sides to judge who received the viler abuse. I am certainly not volunteering to do that. Alex appears to have attempted to rein in the worst excesses of his supporters; when it comes to CJ de Mooi Steve Giddins (for one) has been a lot nastier.

I'll repeat what I said earlier; this whole sorry saga has been a case of legitimate questions being asked and answers not being received. When that happens it's inevitable that people will draw their own conclusions.

Alex and Lara have repeatedly sought conciliation, CJ de Mooi has refused to conciliate. The truth is as simple as that.

I've personally never been one of those who has seen de Mooi's position as untenable. For a year I've been willing him to re-engage with the English chess community and lead the healing process. He would not do so, maybe something within him could not do so. If he brings anybody to mind it is Charles I who walked himself to the scaffold by refusing to negotiate even when it was in his clear interests to do so.

But for better or worse CJ is gone. I take no pleasure from it, in fact given what he delivered in the first year of his presidency it's a sad day for English chess. Now, however, must be the time to move on.

[Martin Regan]

Andrew Zigmond wrote:

You have raised concerns about Roger Edwards' suitability to be ECF President, your opinions are to be respected, so therefore we need the facts before the election takes place, not after.

It is a fair point, as I raised the matter.

Roger Edwards is a decent man.I do not know him well enough to like or dislike him. He is also a fine arbiter.

What he is not is a President of a national chess federation. His personality is his own - one might say that "he does not suffer fools" and certainly does not have the charisma, avuncular manner or diplomatic skills that are important for the job and that were possessed far more by the last two Presidents, De Mooi and Walsh. The sentence (I can hear the gasps of the De Mooi and Walsh critics) is precise.

But that in itself is not the main cause of my unease.

For all the myriad balls-ups that the ECF has engineered in its history, there is only one that still haunts the soul of the ECF establishment, that is talked about in hushed tones in a way that the Keene-Miles "incident", the Reuben-Keene "incident" are not.

It is the time when the English Grading system imploded. The time when the the grades were wrong, when thousands of players did not in fact get a grade - and when congress organisors were making physical threats against office staff - such was their frustration. The costs were large - eating up almost 15 per cent of the entire game fee and - in the days before widespread e-mail, leading to the pulping of the grading list and its reprinting.

The man in charge of this disaster was Director of Grading Roger Edwards. It was not solely his fault, a new software system was being tested which still had bugs, but Roger seeing the problems galloping towards him, choose not to seek help until too late, underestimated the work that needed to be done and overestimated his own capacity to do it- and then as the fiasco reached a crescendo - sent a proxy to Council with the demand that the entire software system should be scrapped or he would resign. Council refused on advice and the proxy phoned Roger who promptly resigned.

Chris Majer was bought in to fix the mess and did so.

[Roger de Coverly]

Chris Majer was bought in to fix the mess and did so.

The blow by blow account is on the SCCU site. Roger Edwards was Director of Grading from September/October 1999 for a year. He stepped down as Director, but stayed with grading as a manager reporting to Chris Majer.

Here's one of the SCCU tabs
http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/0001/grad.htm
There's also material under BCF and for the 9900 year.

[harrylamb]

In view of Martin Regan's vitriolic attack on Roger Edwards I thought I would see what confirmation I could get of the events he describes using historical records. Below is a list of the officers holding the most senior BCF grading position compiled from the BCF year book. The year given is the title year of the year book.

Year.........Name.............Job title
1989-90 Roger Edwards Director of National Grading
1990-91 Roger Edwards Director of National Grading
1991 Roger Edwards Director of National Grading
1992 Roger Edwards Director of National Grading
1993 Roger Edwards Director of National Grading
1994 Roger Edwards National Grading Officer
1995 Roger Edwards National Grading Officer
1996 Roger Edwards National Grading Officer
1997 Roger Edwards National Grading Officer
1998 Chris Howell Director of Game fee and Grading
1999 Chris Howell Director of Game fee and Grading
2000 Roger Edwards Director of Game fee and Grading
2001 Roger Edwards Director of Game fee and Grading
2002 Chris Majer Director of Grading

In 1998 after 10 years service running the Grading system Roger retired. In recognition of his sterling service the BCF awarded him an honour.

The BCF Council marked their appreciation of Roger's work by making him an Honorary Life Vice-President of the BCF

Chris Howell the new Director promptly introduced new software for the grading system. It was not a success.

(the 1999 grading list was) a grading list late and full of errors

The next grading list due August 2000 was not published in its final form until April 2001.

Although Roger is down in the year books as Director of Game fee and grading in 2000 and 2001. It is clear from Richard Hadrell’s file http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/0001/grad.htm (Thanks to Roger de Coverley for the URL) that in Autumn 2000 Chris Majer was in charge of grading and that resolution of the software problems was being undertaken by a committee led by Chris Majer with Roger an important member of that team.

The committee took until April 2001 to solve the software problems and publish the final version of the list. The next grading list Summer 2001 appears to have been published on time. In 2002 Roger became Grading Database Manager for a year before finally retiring from grading.

Martin has made serious allegations against Roger

it was the time when the English Grading system imploded. The time when the the grades were wrong, when thousands of players did not in fact get a grade - and when congress organisors were making physical threats against office staff - such was their frustration. The costs were large - eating up almost 15 per cent of the entire game fee and - in the days before widespread e-mail, leading to the pulping of the grading list and its reprinting.

The man in charge of this disaster was Director of Grading Roger Edwards. It was not solely his fault, a new software system was being tested which still had bugs, but Roger seeing the problems galloping towards him, choose not to seek help until too late, underestimated the work that needed to be done and overestimated his own capacity to do it

I believe the historical record shows Martin's criticisms to be greatly exaggerated and aimed at the wrong person. I was around at the time and organising about five congresses a year. I do not want to rely on my memory because it is fallible. I prefer to go off the records of the time. For me the picture the record paints is that Roger

• From 1989 to 1998 devoted 10 years of his life to national grading
• Received an honour from the BCF for his work
• Retired
• His successor put in a software system with serious faults then disappeared from the historical record.
• Roger came out of retirement
• Spent a spent eight months as part of a team resolving the software problems
• Spent a year as data manager
• Then when everything was working well he resumed his retirement

We ought to applaud his 14 years of devoted service to the cause of English Grading

[Roger de Coverly]

Below is a list of the officers holding the most senior BCF grading position compiled from the BCF year book.

I would have to look at my paper copies of the SCCU Bulletin (where else?), but it's my memory that in the second year of BCF national grading (was it 1985, 1986 or 1987?) that the wheels seriously fell off. I have this recollection of setting the board order for the county team based on results of up to two years earlier because the grades weren't calculated and published until Christmas. This is around the same time as the BCF had fielded a team second in the Olympiad and ran the first half of a world championship match.

By contrast the 1988 list complements the BCF Office, its new Dell computer, new programs written in Clippper and amongst others Roger Edwards.

I have this horrible memory that the 1985 or 1986 system tried to use the Sinclair Spectrum.

[Krishna Shiatis]

In view of Martin Regan's vitriolic attack on Roger Edwards

Martin has made serious allegations against Roger....

I believe the historical record shows Martin's criticisms to be greatly exaggerated ....

I do agree with Harry. I also believe that Martin has made vitriolic attacks not just at Roger E, but also Jonathan Bryant, Ernie L, myself and a lot of other people on this forum who have dared to ever ask questions.

He accuses everyone of besmirching other people's characters and writing bile when actually none of the people he has accused have done this (that I can see anyway). The only bile which is repeatedly dripping seems to come directly from him.

The biggest problem with his comments is that people reading them will assume that they are true if they have not actually read what has been going on.

I hope that Carl will take a look at this when he is able.

PS hope you are enjoying Lanzarote Carl!

[harrylamb]

it's my memory that in the second year of BCF national grading (was it 1985, 1986 or 1987?) that the wheels seriously fell off. I have this recollection of setting the board order for the county team based on results of up to two years earlier because the grades weren't calculated and published until Christmas. ...By contrast the 1988 list complements the BCF Office, its new Dell computer, new programs written in Clippper and amongst others Roger Edwards. I have this horrible memory that the 1985 or 1986 system tried to use the Sinclair Spectrum.

You are right Roger. There were problems with the national grading list in the mid 1980’s. In the period up to the mid 1980’s the national grading list consisted of only of the top players in the country. Lower down each Union produced it own grading list. With the rise of computer power the BCF agreed to take over the union lists and produced a unified national list. The 1986-7 year book hints at problems

A major project such as this does not proceed without setbacks. Plans made in September proved to be unduly optimistic and progress has been slower than anticipated

The problems must have got worse. The next year book is more open

NCCU data had to be omitted

To expand on this quote. All NCCU data was omitted from the grading book.

and yes

The main channel of input is through Sinclair spectrums

Roger was MCCU grader from 1985 to 2002. He had no post in national BCF grading until 1989. This makes his record more impressive. A 17 year stint as MCCU grader. Taking on the BCF job when the grading system was in dire trouble and running it successfully. These are achievements in addition to in addition to his record given in my previous post.

[Roger de Coverly]

[I would have to look at my paper copies of the SCCU Bulletin (where else?), but it's my memory that in the second year of BCF national grading (was it 1985, 1986 or 1987?) that the wheels seriously fell off.

After taking a look at the Bulletin for the relevant years, 1986 was the first year of the national system and NCCU excepted, seemed to go smoothly. The problems came in the next year, 1987, when the grading list didn't come out until Christmas. I don't think a full report was ever made public, but it seemed to stem from difficulties in merging new players with the players from the 1986 list. I think the "difficulty" was that the BCF didn't have a computer powerful enough to merge two files and run a sort by name. The eventual solution may have been to buy a "proper" computer at the then cost of around £ 4000, presumably the Dell with Clipper installed mentioned in the 1988 grading list.

[David Pardoe]

Glad to hear Harry setting the record straight regarding Rogers outstanding contribution to English/British Chess.
The grading issue is a very tricky area...
I`ve always thought that gradings were simply approximations of playing strength, and that certainly for players graded below say, 175, these numbers could be read as (plus or minus 30, in many cases.
Anyway, I think that Roger caught the backlash from Martins earlier responce to Alex`s posts (and others), where CJ has been repeatedly slagged off on these bb`s in a way that looked like targetted overkill, in a clear attempt to blacken his name and reputation.
Yes, questions should be asked and answered...but most of these should not be on this bb, they should be private enquiries from the ECF board, conducted in confidence. I wonder whether these have been made, but possibly these may be ongoing.
What we dont need is public slanging matches where officials, who give much of there time for nothing, get rewarded with this public assault....and NO credits for good deeds done.
Did I read that CJ has offered to underwrite the 2013 Torquay British...if so, I hope the offer still stands and it would be a great gesture. Maybe this was CJ`s way of contributing positively to British Chess. We need more such positive gestures, and less of the mindless whinging.
As for the forthcoming elections...I think we need to take stock of matters, and put out further calls for volunteers to fill senior posts..
I`d also like to see more `regional delegates` on the ECF board...we clearly need more hands to the pump, and stronger direct regional representation I`m sure would help give better balance.