English Chess Forum

Following a meeting of the ECF Board held 9th May 2008; the New ECF Board is as follows:
President Gerry Walsh
Chief Executive Chris Majer
Finance Director Robert Richmond
Director of Marketing Peter Wilson
International Director Stewart Reuben
Junior Director Peter Purland
Home Chess Director Cyril Johnson
Non Executive Director 1 John Wickham
Non Executive Director 2 TBD (Consultation to be held with Constituent Units)

Additionally the following Manager appointments were made:
Congress Stewart Reuben (reporting to International Director)
Grading Dave Thomas (reporting to Chief Executive)

Thanks are due to all of the retiring Directors.

Experienced ECF watchers will notice the reappearance of familiar faces. This is as it should be at a time of crisis. In October there will be the opportunity to bring in new blood.

Representatives from the Constituent Units will be invited to the next ECF Board meeting.

Jesus Christ! It's the Return of the Living Dead

New blood? Wasted on a corpse, I'm afraid

David Robertson
Atticus CC

This is not good. The same old establishment

Ernie - if you accept, which I am well aware that in at least one case you would rather not, the four continuing directors as a given, who would you have appointed to each of the other positions if the power to make the appointments had laid in your hands rather than the Board's?

As an exercise in succession management, it owes alot to the business process long-followed by the Chinese Communist Party: names disappear, and you never know why; new names appear, and you never know how. That's how it must seem to anyone who doesn't follow forums like this - and frankly, to most people who do.

Simply wheeling the old guard back in is no sort of way to proceed; it simply leads to ridicule. Anyone giving a moment's intelligent thought to the matter must be contemptuous of such a solution. Better the entire Board stand down, and move immediately to fresh elections, than this gimcrack outcome. A skeleton crew could be left to manage key events pro tem.

But Ernie is right to repeat what a number of us have been saying in recent days: namely, nothing sensible can be done within the ECF with the current President in post, or under the current organisational arrangements. The ECF is structurally dysfunctional and not fit for purpose. Only the gullible or vain need put themselves forward, that much is clear following recent resignations.

The crisis begins in governance with a failure to answer the question: whose ECF is it? It spills over into Board structure and function, flows through conflicts in role and responsibilities, and emerges as a catastrophe of policy and strategy. Those of us, myself included, who have many years Board-level experience, and who understand corporate governance, have never seen anything like it. Where for example does one find the fiduciary principle at work in the ECF Board?

My solution? The principal non-exec Board member, John Wickham, and the Chair of the Governance Committee, John Philpott, should take soundings and gauge opinion. Then, wearing grey suits, they should call upon Gerry Walsh, have a quiet chat, then usher him alone into a private room. There Gerry will find upon the table a bottle of scotch, and a loaded revolver.

David Robertson
Atticus CC

Where you have 2 sides with entrenched views you usually end in deadlock or war. War is costly; and often there are no clear winners at the end; only a lot of bloodshed. Peversely, most people have the same high level objectives (e.g. a well structured, well run chess scene that flourishes at junior and amateur level and provides high quality support to emerging British chess professionals), they just disagree on how to get there and at what cost. Successful resolution of such conflicts is usually obtained by people agreeing on some very simply high level objectives and then mapping out a road map on how to get there with elections/compromise used to decide on issues where there is deadlock.

I am not a seasoned veteran of chess politics so I don't know what a suitable road map might be. But as a straw-man, something along the lines of the following to me seem sensible:

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OBJECTIVES
1. The candidates for President/CEO in October each set out some simple high-level objectives for the ECF (I bet the dfferent candidates' objectives are not dissimilar actually). The winning candidate's objectives become the ECF's objectives.

BUILDING A SUBSTANTIAL, WELL-INFORMED AND ENFRANCHISED MEMBERSHIP
2. As suggested in my other thread, I would require - from the 2008/2009 season onwards - that all players who wished to particpate in a graded congress or league to register with the ECF and provide an e-mail or postal address. Quarterly newsletters would be sent out and issues raised (links to this web forum would help ensure that all sides of all debates were heard). Registered players would be encouraged to join the ECF (still on a voluntary basis) with the promise that by the time of the next elections (scheduled for say October 2009) there would be a "One member, One Vote" system in palce for election of ECF officers.

3. October 2009: Elections are held on a OMOV basis. Manifestos are sent out to all registered players in May (with players who become members by end August 2009 entitled to vote, thereby further increasing the membership). These manifestos would include a range of policies including on such things as how/whether to spend some of the reserves on chess promotion, the grading fees vs compulsory ECF membership policy, Role of ECF etc etc

UTOPIA
4. The elected administration is seen to have a mandate and people who disagree with the administrations policies at least accept it was elected fairly. A new constitution is drawn up and approved by the elected board.

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I accept that the above is rather optimistic. The timeframe I have suggested may be ridiculously tight. Perhaps October 2010 or 2011 is a better target. And I'm sure seasoned chess officials can improve on this rather hastily put together straw man significantly.

But you get the idea.

Can somebody please explain to me what the issues with the old ECF/BCF were, and who was involved etc.? It's just that I've only been following how ECF chess is run and how it works for about a year or so now... thanks

Many thanks for posting that so promtly Chris - nice to know what is happening.
Presumably it will be on the ECF website tomorrow.