2010 Annual General Meeting

[Alex Holowczak]

I notice we still don't know which directors opposed Malcolm. Perhaps, someone will let us know which Directors attended so we can work it out for ourselves.

That I can tell you: PP, LC, CEM, GC, AR, SR, CJ, JW (sorry to Christopher for initials-overload)

[Alex Holowczak]

Loz,
Just for the sake of clarity, I assume that you voted for malcolm in the hand vote. Did you then vote for him again in the card vote, or did you follow the Chair's request and abstain?

You're continuing to misunderstand, perhaps through my bad explanation.

A Council member suggested that for the decision to elect Malcolm to result in the ECF coming out of it with respect, the Executive Directors should abstain. At no point did the Chair request the Board to do that. If any Board members did abstain, they did so off their own backs.

Personally, I thought the request was unreasonable; if the Constitution/Laws say they can vote, they can vote! Council has the power to change that if they deem it appropriate. Some Council members spoke to that effect.

[Matthew Turner]

That is eight names.
I assume John Wickham did not vote (because they were electing his fellow Non-Exec)
Loz Cooper, Adam Raoof and Chris Majer have been indicted as supporting Malcolm
My guess would be that CJ and Gareth Caller would also support Malcolm?
That would leave Peter Purland and Stewart Reuben against.
I would not wish to do anybody an injustice, so I will await confirmation before commentiung further.

[Mick Norris]

I'll be posting a full report about both yesterday's meetings in due course

I've not attended an ECF/BCF meeting before, it was an interesting experience

In relation to Malcolm, a number of us present felt on the facts presented to us by CJ, that Malcolm was not an appropriate choice fro non-executive director

Lawrence's figures on the vote are correct - show of hands was 12-11 against with directors instructed not to vote, card vote was 62-49 with directors allowed to use their proxies but not their personal votes - the result would not have changed

I don't know if Chris Majer was correct to put it to the vote, but he did, so we voted

I think most of us present would very much welcome Malcolm into the ECF in a different role, but we had no opportunity to vote that way yesterday

Perhaps those not present can calm down a bit - I gave up a day with my 5 year old daughter to attend and now must go and see her

[Leonard Barden]

After reading this entire voluminous and occasionally fraught thread since it burst into life yesterday afternoon, I am wondering if I am the only Forumite to conclude that if Malcolm had accompanied his candidature by a bland message expressing pleasure at the prospect of working with his friend cj and the reinvigorated Board, he most likely would have been elected with only a few votes against or even nem com.

After election he could have asked the Board to ratify his choice of alternate, asked for said alternate to be added to the recipients for Board emails, then simply clicked the delete or junk button whenever a Board email appeared on his own laptop.

That would have avoided a large amount of hassle and hot air.

Or am I being too simplistic?

[LozCooper]

Loz,
Just for the sake of clarity, I assume that you voted for malcolm in the hand vote. Did you then vote for him again in the card vote, or did you follow the Chair's request and abstain?

I waved my appropriately coloured card in the air for the card vote. Sadly I don't have any other votes other than 1 for being International Director, obviously I don't organise enough tournaments or belong to enough organisations to qualify for extra votes

[Alex Holowczak]

Lawrence's figures on the vote are correct - show of hands was 12-11 against with directors instructed not to vote, card vote was 62-49 with directors allowed to use their proxies but not their personal votes - the result would not have changed

Not quite, it was 12-11 against with the directors instructed to vote, and 10-6 against with the directors instructed not to vote. I agree though the result would not have changed.

I still find it baffling that Council tried to force the Directors not to vote on an issue that they're quite entitled to vote on constitutionally!

I don't know if Chris Majer was correct to put it to the vote, but he did, so we voted

The Chairman has the right to force a card vote whenever he pleases. x Council people could do the same. No one could be sure of what x was, but there seemed to be > x asking for it, whatever x was.

[Mike Gunn]

I was at the meeting representing the Southern Counties Chess Union and I can endorse the accounts of the meeting given by Alex and Loz above. (I spoke in support and voted for Malcolm Pein.)

I agree that once more the ECF has demonstrated its capability for shooting itself in its collective foot by failing to elect somebody with the energy, connections and commitment to the development of British Chess which Malcolm possesses. However, I subscribe to the theory that what happened was largely the result of a cock-up rather than a conspiracy - specifically:

1. The directors and meeting were given misleading advice from the guy from the Governance Committee (sorry I don't know his name) who said that directors should not vote in the election (the point being that non executive directors were there to act as a check on executive directors and therefore should not vote in their election). This point was simply unconstitutional and unfortunately

2. Chris Majer (chairing the meeting) was rather vague on this point and didn't dismiss it out of hand (as he should have done).o make a ruling In retrospect I should have raised a point of order on this and forced Chris to make a ruling rather than just express my opinion and leave it hanging in the air.

3. CJ divulged that Malcolm might not attend every meeting (appointing an alternate), would have ECF emails filtered for him (by CJ) so he just read the important ones - none of this needed to be said and could be twisted to create the impression of a lack of commitment. None of this needed to be (or should have been) said.

From speaking to other members of the Council it was clear there was a lingering and widespread resentment about Malcolm's editorials in Chess laying into the ECF as well as the recent Telegraph piece (which I was unaware of). Early comments seemed to suggest that many were prepared to overlook these as history but after the bogus constitutional point muddied the water and the (apparent) lack of commitment things seemed to go down hill.

[Alex Holowczak]

After reading this entire voluminous and occasionally fraught thread since it burst into life yesterday afternoon, I am wondering if I am the only Forumite to conclude that if Malcolm had accompanied his candidature by a bland message expressing pleasure at the prospect of working with his friend cj and the reinvigorated Board, he most likely would have been elected with only a few votes against or even nem com.

After election he could have asked the Board to ratify his choice of alternate, asked for said alternate to be added to the recipients for Board emails, then simply clicked the delete or junk button whenever a Board email appeared on his own laptop.

That would have avoided a large amount of hassle and hot air.

Or am I being too simplistic?

Slightly.

If they'd taken the vote to elect him before the adjournment for tea, rather than hold the BCF AGM first, Council may not have been aware of his articles.

An election address would have massively helped his cause.

[Mike Gunn]

Apologies for poor editing of tha above post (still seething after the meeting).

[Alex Holowczak]

I was at the meeting representing the Southern Counties Chess Union and I can endorse the accounts of the meeting given by Alex and Loz above. (I spoke in support and voted for Malcolm Pein.)

I agree that once more the ECF has demonstrated its capability for shooting itself in its collective foot by failing to elect somebody with the energy, connections and commitment to the development of British Chess which Malcolm possesses. However, I subscribe to the theory that what happened was largely the result of a cock-up rather than a conspiracy - specifically:

1. The directors and meeting were given misleading advice from the guy from the Governance Committee (sorry I don't know his name) who said that directors should not vote in the election (the point being that non executive directors were there to act as a check on executive directors and therefore should not vote in their election). This point was simply unconstitutional and unfortunately

2. Chris Majer (chairing the meeting) was rather vague on this point and didn't dismiss it out of hand (as he should have done).o make a ruling In retrospect I should have raised a point of order on this and forced Chris to make a ruling rather than just express my opinion and leave it hanging in the air.

3. CJ divulged that Malcolm might not attend every meeting (appointing an alternate), would have ECF emails filtered for him (by CJ) so he just read the important ones - none of this needed to be said and could be twisted to create the impression of a lack of commitment. None of this needed to be (or should have been) said.

From speaking to other members of the Council it was clear there was a lingering and widespread resentment about Malcolm's editorials in Chess laying into the ECF as well as the recent Telegraph piece (which I was unaware of). Early comments seemed to suggest that many were prepared to overlook these as history but after the bogus constitutional point muddied the water and the (apparent) lack of commitment things seemed to go down hill.

I agree with this completely.

Regarding 1), I think he was expressing a personal opinion rather than a governance-related point. I think he was of the opinion that the Non-Executives were on the Board now the unions aren't, and that the Non-Execs were the police of the Board, rather than the Unions as they used to be. Given I was coming into this fresh, i.e. post-BCF, I don't see why that needs to be the case at all. I don't see why it's desirable either, given the candidate had far greater qualities to bring to the Board than acting as a policeman.

Regarding 3), I don't think Peter Purland had attended many Board Meetings this year. He had certainly missed at least three due to other chess-related commitments - admittedly related to his role as Junior Director. I still think far too big a deal was made of it.

[David Clayton]

Could we have a web cam streaming these meetings live? Then we could all see and hear what was said first hand?

Regards

David

[andrew martin]

We could do. But don't expect the viewing figures to be very large.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

On re-reading this thread, I'm not clear if Malcolm Pein was actually at the meeting or not. Was he there, or was this a nomination and election in absentia?

[Mike Gunn]

Malcolm was not there. I know he is busy but it is a good idea to turn up if you are standing for office (even if there is nobody standing against you).