Governance Consultation - Council Voting Register

[Paul Cooksey]

I propose each ECF Member should nominate the Organisation they wish to represent them in Council. Each Organisation would have one vote in Council for every hundred members.

I like the idea for several reasons:
1. It addresses the problem players feel with disenfranchisement.
2. It is a thing that could be implemented relatively simply
3. It encourages Organisations to support membership
4. It removes what is now an historic link between votes and game fee, and reflects the new membership organisation.

In a sense, the idea is a compromise between OMOV and representative democracy
• Players can now choose who they want to represent them, I hope addressing the concerns of people who think they have a poor local organisation or representative
• If in the future we can, and want to, support online voting, we could allow players could choose “Vote Online” instead of an Organisation. Each online vote would be 0.01 Council votes in a mixed model.

The player would choose their Organisation at the time of payment. If cvent requires, or supports, the player creating an account before paying, the member could change their Organisation up until a deadline before Council.

I would expect some Organisations with voting rights in Council to lose them, particularly Congresses. But since those organisations no longer fund the ECF, I do not see any issue with that happening, if it reflects the will of the players. I do like the idea Organisations would have a carrot for encouraging membership, increased ECF influence. Currently there is only the stick of game fee. I am also comfortable with the idea Organisations might choose to campaign for votes.

Andrew Farthing’s consultation paper on Governance, addresses many issues to which this is not relevant. But I think this idea represents a simple and achievable way for the ECF to reform without increasing complexity or cost.

Comments anyone?

[John McKenna]

With the coming attempt by the ECF to move from a considerable amount of indirect revenue (game fee) to mainly direct revenue (membership fees) it would be a good time to involve new members (who used to be just players) and longstanding ones in the decision making processes.
(Most just paid to play but soon you can also have a say, is how I'd put it.)
However, some of the workings of the ECF that have come to light on this august forum have seemed at times 'Byzantine' and reform is needed at the centre, too.

[Angus French]

My initial thought is that Paul's idea is interesting and implementing it through the membership system is neat (assuming Paysubsonline will allow a new field with, say, an associated drop down list).

What would an organisation be - a body which is registered to submit results for grading plus some others which that doesn't cover?

If an organisation receives fewer than 100 votes from members would it get zero votes on Council?

Possibly if an organisation ended up with zero Council votes (or fewer than it thought was merited) that might create a problem. For example, the organisers of a league might think: why do we bother?

Maybe 1 council vote for each, say, 30 ECF member votes would be better - I'm guessing that this would produce as many Council votes as currently exist (around 250 - 260) assuming membership take up is close to 10,000.

Would Board members be disenfranchised? Or could a vote be given to each Director - a slight compromise but maybe the only one.

[Krishna Shiatis]

Interesting proposal.

Just out of curiousity, what is wrong with One Member One Vote?

[Sean Hewitt]

I agree with Paul that one member one vote is probably impractical, though I think it should be looked at. Cost is probably an adverse factor.

Thinking about a representative model, another possibility is that no organisation can nominate the same representative.

However, you could still end up with one person receiving a number of proxies because of the requirements of the companies act.

[Alex Holowczak]

what is wrong with One Member One Vote?

Various arguments are used against OMOV:
(1) The venue. Do you book a venue for 30 or 3,000?
(2) The cost of distributing Council material. Given the large number of people who don't supply e-mail addresses, the cost of posting stuff is not insignificant. Some Councillors insist on being sent paper copies even though they are perfectly capable of downloading and printing materials themselves.
(3) Given Birmingham and London host the meetings, if ever the Birmingham/London Leagues don't like something (or otherwise), they could flood the meeting to vote against it.
(4) Given proxies could still be allocated, you potentially have people turning up with 100s of votes.
(5) The ECF would have a share price of £13. In order to guarantee control of 75% of Council, and assuming no more than 500 vote, then the ECF could basically be bought for about £15,000.
(6) I could make Ma and Pa members of the ECF, and get them to give me their proxy. If I wanted to be a Platinum member, I could give roughly the same amount of money as Gold + 2 Bronze, but get 3 votes for my troubles. Come to think of it, I could make any fictitious person I want an ECF member to achieve the same.

To get around (5) and (6), you'd need far more costly procedures in terms of presenting ID in order to make people ECF members.

[Alex Holowczak]

Thinking about a representative model, another possibility is that no organisation can nominate the same representative.

However, you could still end up with one person receiving a number of proxies because of the requirements of the companies act.

I don't think that would achieve anything.

The Birmingham League could nominate its President as the ECF Delegate, who then always gives his proxy to Dave Thomas. As opposed to nominating Dave Thomas as the representative in the first place.

One solution might be to limit the number of votes a delegate can have to 1. So (say), the Birmingham League could have 7 votes, but it needs to send 7 delegates in order to get those 7 votes?

Edit: That wouldn't work, the other six just nominate one as their proxy...

[David Robertson]

Back of an envelope - the ECF way.

Come on now. Ask the right questions before you start churning out answers. I'll kick it off (again!)

Q.1 In a relationship between member/player and ECF, what should be the basic unit of association?

Think how it is currently; think how it might be otherwise. Discuss

[Sean Hewitt]

Another possibility is a mixture of organisations (based on games played as now) and player representatives (as described by Paul). The aim should be that the organisations and players reps should have about half of the votes each. This reflects the fact that players need organisations and vice versa.

[Richard Bates]

Perhaps we should have an electoral college. After all, the Labour Party hasn't got rid of it yet

[Sean Hewitt]

Perhaps we should have an electoral college. After all, the Labour Party hasn't got rid of it yet

Nor the United States!

[David Robertson]

Electoral colleges emerge where political elites don't trust the mob.

It's true of the United States where, despite their lofty pronouncements, the Founding Fathers didn't really want things left to direct democracy. It's true of the Labour Party too where large numbers of the activists are borderline bonkers (as in other parties, I should quickly add). I wouldn't rule it out for ECF therefore.

The other principal context in which an Electoral College is useful, is when community/ethnic/religious schisms require the electoral protection of minorities, usually through a system of 'reserved seats' or 'reserved franchise'

[John Philpott]

David Robertson wrote

Q.1 In a relationship between member/player and ECF, what should be the basic unit of association?

I have long since thought that an appropriate unit might be the chess club, as that is the entity with which the typical player is in a direct relationship, but which is the one unit that is largely missing from the present structure. Barnstaple Chess Club was admitted to membership as an "other organisation" yesterday, but only on the basis that it is not a typical chess club!

[Brendan O'Gorman]

On the other hand, the ECF is a volunteer body with no CEO, no International Director, no Director of Membership and Marketing, and a new Finance Director who needs to get to grips with an organisation that can't produce a set of audited accounts. It needs to do less not more!

[Martin Regan]

It really is simple - but first you need to take the simple step of answering the question that was was posed by David R earlier in the thread.

The ECF has always looked at problems from the wrong angle - thus the membership, of which I am an advocate, was introduced for the purpose of raising finance so that the ECF could carry on as usual.

Had it been introduced as a method of engaging and enfranchising players - it would have still brought in the same finances but provided a much healthier relationship between organisation and members.

OMOV must become the next step, those who resist it are profoundly wrong. And those who bring up the usual counter arguments of cost and logistics simply lack imagination.

As a first step I would give every member the opportunity to vote for the President - the organisations figurehead. I should deprive Council of that vote

I would then give each member the opportunity to vote on the five year strategic plan for the ECF. In sections. This would then form a recommendation to Council who I truly believe would be swayed by such a vote.

In the medium term I would extend the vote to members on all director elections, but make the term of office two or three years.

Finally - and the hardest part , I would seek to abolish Council