Development

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
NickFaulks
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Re: Development

Post by NickFaulks » Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:29 pm

Ian Thompson wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:39 pm
If all 12 votes go to A you maximise the chance of the majority of the members getting what they want. Do anything else and you don't.
My point precisely. I'm not sure why Chris disagreed, perhaps I didn't explain it so clearly.
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John Reyes
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Re: Development

Post by John Reyes » Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:33 pm

Matthew Turner wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:12 pm
John,
Had Malcolm stayed in the election for CEO and you had received no further feedback, would you have voted

6-0 for Mike

4-2 for Mike

or 3-3

All of those seem perfectly defendable on the feedback you've got, so I am not sure that saying that you will vote the way members have said really tells the whole story.
Me and tim have 6 votes each and I would have tried to talk to him. I would have said 8-4/7-5 for Mike, but tim would disagree and he would have never have voted for Mike which is a shame as he put his name forward for the role and don’t listen to the members
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Chris Goodall
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Re: Development

Post by Chris Goodall » Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:43 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:27 pm
Chris Goodall wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:14 pm
I think it more likely that Council made something up that seemed okay.
That is exactly what they did. Are you suggesting something that you think is better?
There are better voting systems and worse ones, but that wasn't the point. The point was whether, in Council's eyes, the possibility that your email could be rejected by a Silver rep's spam filter because you had a Nigerian-sounding name, and that that could translate into your preferred candidate losing the Silver votes 12-0, was a feature or a bug.
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NickFaulks
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Re: Development

Post by NickFaulks » Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:44 pm

John Reyes wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:33 pm
I would have said 8-4/7-5 for Mike
That is what I disagree with, although John's motives are as always impeccable. The Silver members are supposed to have 12 votes ( still less than 3 per cent of the total ), not four or two.
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Paul Cooksey
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Re: Development

Post by Paul Cooksey » Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:47 pm

Just to make myself popular, I don't really agree with either John or Tim.

I think Tim is right that so few members responded that you can't really be sure a majority opinion is being expressed. So however much John wants to be the voice of members, and I do believe he is absolutely sincere and honest, the members representative system doesn't really let him.

But on the other hand I don't think Tim is clear enough to the members about how he intends to vote to be able to say "I was elected on my platform and intend to vote accordingly" in the way that for example, I would for Berks.

In my opinion Tim very clearly wants English grassroots chess players to spend more money supporting professional chess organisers. I think that is a perfectly legitimate position, but I suspect it would lose to "none of the above" if you could somehow get all the silver members to vote. So very problematic for me that that position is not clear.

Of course I'm not a silver member, so arguably none of my business.

NickFaulks
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Re: Development

Post by NickFaulks » Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:55 pm

Chris Goodall wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:43 pm
The point was whether, in Council's eyes, the possibility that your email could be rejected by a Silver rep's spam filter because you had a Nigerian-sounding name, and that that could translate into your preferred candidate losing the Silver votes 12-0, was a feature or a bug.
Ah, I didn't think it was. If opinion is so evenly divided that the rep genuinely cannot decide on which candidate is preferred, then abstention ( or 6-6 ) is of course an option.

That is not what happened here. John was in no doubt that there was an overall preference for Mike, but felt he should give some of his votes to the minority - which is in practice the same as throwing away some of his votes.
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John Reyes
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Re: Development

Post by John Reyes » Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:08 pm

Chris Goodall wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:43 pm
NickFaulks wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:27 pm
Chris Goodall wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:14 pm
I think it more likely that Council made something up that seemed okay.
That is exactly what they did. Are you suggesting something that you think is better?
There are better voting systems and worse ones, but that wasn't the point. The point was whether, in Council's eyes, the possibility that your email could be rejected by a Silver rep's spam filter because you had a Nigerian-sounding name, and that that could translate into your preferred candidate losing the Silver votes 12-0, was a feature or a bug.
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David Sedgwick
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Re: Development

Post by David Sedgwick » Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:08 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:55 pm
That is not what happened here. John was in no doubt that there was an overall preference for Mike, but felt he should give some of his votes to the minority - which is in practice the same as throwing away some of his votes.
It's taking account of the views of a minority. which is (or should be) a feature of any democratic system.

If I were a Member Representative, I would consider it my duty to ensure that the views of all who had expressed an opinion were taken into account.

Paul Cooksey
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Re: Development

Post by Paul Cooksey » Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:17 pm

I got seven responses when I canvassed opinions, mostly wishing me good luck.

The Pearce report got two response to the question about how Council could better represent members. 50% of those were from me.

I don't think members are completely disinterested in the ECF but I don't think they want to be involved in the detail. Asking them to elect someone they trust to represent them makes sense to me. Pretending we can get meaningful votes on policy matters seems detached from reality

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Chris Goodall
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Re: Development

Post by Chris Goodall » Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:35 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:55 pm
Chris Goodall wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:43 pm
The point was whether, in Council's eyes, the possibility that your email could be rejected by a Silver rep's spam filter because you had a Nigerian-sounding name, and that that could translate into your preferred candidate losing the Silver votes 12-0, was a feature or a bug.
Ah, I didn't think it was. If opinion is so evenly divided that the rep genuinely cannot decide on which candidate is preferred, then abstention ( or 6-6 ) is of course an option.
But if helping your constituents get what they want is a good thing, in other words if maximising happy constituents matters more than minimising unhappy ones, then the last thing you want to do is split your votes 6-6. That would give 0% of your constituents what they want. That would be, in your words, throwing away ALL your votes. Better to flip a coin and give 50% of your constituents what they want.
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Ian Thompson
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Re: Development

Post by Ian Thompson » Sun Oct 17, 2021 5:05 pm

Chris Goodall wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:35 pm
But if helping your constituents get what they want is a good thing, in other words if maximising happy constituents matters more than minimising unhappy ones, then the last thing you want to do is split your votes 6-6. That would give 0% of your constituents what they want.
No it wouldn't. It means that 50% get what they want regardless of what you do; which 50% determined by how people other than you vote.

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Stephen Westmoreland
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Re: Development

Post by Stephen Westmoreland » Sun Oct 17, 2021 6:01 pm

Just on the voting for the members, I would suggest looking at something like Survey Monkey to ballot members or other tools. This would preserve anonymity and also be straight up conclusive. Especially with measure to prevent repeat voting. May be worth looking into in future.
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Paul Cooksey
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Re: Development

Post by Paul Cooksey » Sun Oct 17, 2021 6:06 pm

We were quite close to a system like that Stephen. But you had to go through zoom to get to it, WiFi bandwidth etc.

I reverted to paper immediately, on the basis an almost working IT system is usually as bad as a broken one. But suspect will be sorted out for next time.

Some general thing to consider for next time too, such as whether Council wants to encourage to people to turn up in person as one of the aims of the meeting.

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Chris Goodall
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Re: Development

Post by Chris Goodall » Sun Oct 17, 2021 7:39 pm

Ian Thompson wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 5:05 pm
Chris Goodall wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:35 pm
But if helping your constituents get what they want is a good thing, in other words if maximising happy constituents matters more than minimising unhappy ones, then the last thing you want to do is split your votes 6-6. That would give 0% of your constituents what they want.
No it wouldn't. It means that 50% get what they want regardless of what you do; which 50% determined by how people other than you vote.
Technically true, but if we assume that voters are happier with a rep that votes with their preference than a rep that votes against it, flipping a coin is still the best strategy.
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John Reyes
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Re: Development

Post by John Reyes » Sun Oct 17, 2021 9:56 pm

Roger Lancaster wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 2:44 pm
To the extent that Tim is heaping more coals on the fire of the Truran/Pein debate, I really don't feel that he does English chess any favours. I can see there's an argument, in chess as in life, for the command-and-control model but my own preference for the 'enabling' model is reinforced by the knowledge that the alternative would result in one person, assisted by his disciples, having near-total control of English chess. I acknowledge that it's perfectly possible that this would be beneficial but it might equally well be detrimental. Continuing this argument seems to me counter-productive when there are other matters, and the much-debated issue of development officers is one example, where constructive discussion might actually be useful.
i just seen this on one of tim comment on Chess.com from Angus that quote this

Tim has also written for Malcolm's Chess magazine and he accompanied Malcolm to the 2018 FIDE elections in Batumi where Malcolm was the running mate of Georgios Makropoulos.

Chris Fegan, whose candidacy Tim supports, is a full-time employee at Malcolm's CSC organisation. Tim says the Non-executive Directors' report to the ECF AGM is partisan and constitutes a personal attack on Chris. I don't see it that way. Rather, it seems to me that the NEDs have quite rightly highlighted that bad relations within the Board have impacted on its operation. The NED report is here: https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-cont ... l-2021.pdf. The NEDs also reported strained relations between Board members in their report to last year's AGM: https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-cont ... ectors.pdf. The NEDs referred to the appointment of a Development Officer being central to the friction. Tim Wall, the author of the above piece, applied for the Development Officer position but the post was awarded to someone else. Almost immediately this happened, Chris Fegan, as Director of Women's Chess, appointed Tim to to a new position, Women's Recruitment Officer, which hadn't been advertised. The Women's Recruitment Officer role cut across the role of the Development Officer and was cited as one of the reasons for the resignation of the Development Officer. Statement here: https://www.englishchess.org.uk/develop ... signation/.


but also this was more shocking

How much paid work have you done for the guy you are recommending we vote for? You seem to have forgotten to mention your conflict of interest here.'

Actually, Justin, I tend to do more work for the English Chess Federation than for Chess in Schools and Communities. Since 2017, when I started working full-time as a chess teacher, coach, organiser, and chess journalist, I have been an England coach at 1 World Schools Championship (Turkey, 2019) and 2 European Schools Championships (Poland, 2018, and Romania, 2019). In 2020, I worked directly for Mike Truran organising the England leg of the European Online Youth Championships (a hybrid event where the England teams gathered, socially distanced, at a venue in the Midlands).

I have also been a regular coach at ECF Academy training weekends since 2017, and wrote dozens of articles for the ECF newsletter extolling the virtues of developing grassroots chess in England until Mike Truran ordered the editor of the newsletter to fire me for the 'crime' of constructively criticising his work in a blog on Chess.com.

For the record, I have also worked as press officer for CSC at the London Chess Classic in 2018 and 2019, and as a promotions officer for CSC during ChessFest in July 2021.

You can check all this information with the ECF and CSC. Of course, like many volunteers in English chess, I also do lots (probably too much) of unpaid work for chess clubs, congresses and local county associations.

I know i'm not as Articulated at Tim, but maybe that the reason why he don't like Mike
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