Nominations for October 2008 AGM??

[Carl Hibbard]

Unfortunately the instruction to the board by the 2006 AGM was as far as I can ascertain (I was not present in person at that meeting) to set up a moderated forum specifically to discuss grading anomalies, which would be open to county graders and other interested parties. If this is correct, I do not think that the much more broadly based forum that we have ended up with can really be regarded as the creation of Council.

However, since creation the forum very rapidly (and, quite correctly IMHO) proceeded to cover a wide variety of subjects.

At what point was an instruction received to stop discussing these things and only discuss problems with the ECF Rating system?

I assume an instruction was received and it was ignored? Maybe it was never sent?

If the latter then it would appear that the wider range of subject matter was condoned.

No instruction was ever sent (or received...) in fact the use of the forum was initially welcomed by all

This is all about Holloid so talk of "others being put off" or any other consideration is of course a red herring

[Mick Norris]

Speaking as someone who has one job to get sponsorship into chess (albeit in a minor way compared to the efforts of David at the other end of the East Lancs Road), I find the ECF to be more of a hindrence than a help (since the departure of Martin Regan)

Carl - if you are going to move the location of this forum, I presume you'll email us all to let us know

[Sean Hewitt]

Martin Regan wrote

unfortunately in this case the board was instructed by Council at the AGM of 2006 to set up a public forum

Unfortunately the instruction to the board by the 2006 AGM was as far as I can ascertain (I was not present in person at that meeting) to set up a moderated forum specifically to discuss grading anomalies, which would be open to county graders and other interested parties. If this is correct, I do not think that the much more broadly based forum that we have ended up with can really be regarded as the creation of Council.

John,

Your point does not negate the ECFs responsibility under the Companies Act 2006. As far as I am aware it is a legal requirement (that cannot simply be ignored) not to put new items of any significance onto the agenda (or discussed under AOB) without the due notice to delegates. Such notice was not given to delegates on this issue and, as a delegate, I have been denied my right to vote and contribute to the debate on this issue.

Could you please let us know your observations on this particular matter. It's an important matter.

Sean

[Mike Gunn]

The link from the ECF site has disappeared (to be expected, I suppose).

I think the main priority should be to set up a site with a different domain name, rather than fighting the ECF which is both pointless and unlikely to succeed.

I would be happy to pay the cost (£30 a year, from my experience) if Carl is happy to continue as moderator.

I also find the ECF decsion to be a poor one, but the point is to communicate, not spend the next five years trying to overturn the decision.

[JustinHorton]

I personally think it's unlikely that any postings on this forum have cost the ECF any sponsors - at very least I think I'd like to have a bit of detail on this if I were to think it true.

There are good reasons to establish distance between the ECF and this forum, but they're not issues of sponsorshiop: they're issues of legal responsbility for board content. You need to know a bit about this before deciding what the precise relationship between organisation may be: but somebody has to take legal responsibility for content and be reasonably clear what the responsibility consists of.

At the end of the day I don't think it's all that clever a decision but at the same time - how much does it really matter? The important thing is that there should be such a forum so that issues are threashed through somewhere where we can see them, prior to discussion. It is possible to think that without taking any particular line on the rights and wrongs of any given issue (as I did not, for instance, on the resignations last year).

Incidentally, while I agree that forums like this are indeed fabulous for permitting participation, I note that in April I received an email from another prominent English chess forum which I had applied to join:

Your account is currently inactive, the administrator of the board will need to activate it before you can log in. You will receive another email when this has occured.

Oddly, that subsequent email is yet to arrive....

[David Robertson]

Presumably you refer to the Atticus forum, to which you would be a welcome addition. If indeed you applied to join, and await confirmation, that must be an oversight by our webmaster. I'll check with him (I'm only a co-moderator by the way). If you're still interested, apply again just in case (no pun). We deny no one who has anything intelligent to say about chess. You'll be the first to agree that qualifies you.

David
Atticus CC

[John Philpott]

This is a collective response to various recent posts, not to mention a PM from John Upham. My general perception is that although I do not like the decision taken, I do not think that there is any mileage in seeking to oppose it on the grounds of being unconstitutional or contrary to the Companies Act. If the Forum as it came to exist had been the direct result of a vote by Council initiated by a proposal on the agenda in 2006 to create just such a Forum, then there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this decision could only be undone by following the same route. However, this is not the case. As indicated and now confirmed by Carl the Council decision (which if I read the minutes correctly itself resulted from discussion about an Officer's report rather than a formal agenda proposal) only related to a grading forum. The wider Forum "happened" on Carl's call, and I would regard it as within the power of the Board to take action on this. It had of course already done so earlier in the year without reference to Council when the "ECF Official Forum" became the "English Chess Forum". If the Board meeting at which further concerns were articulated had not been taking place on the same day as a Council meeting, I suspect that the severance of links would similarly just have happened. I would be inclined to intepret the discussion and show of hands at Council as being the Board taking soundings about a decision within its remit, in much the same way as views were invited from Council about the suitability of Andrew Martin as Director of Chess For Schools prior to the Board making this appointment immediately after the conclusion of the Council meeting, rather than Council taking a decision without the necessary notice being given.

It is, of course open to any combination of Council members meeting the minimum criteria to qualify as "the requisitionists" to put down a motion for a future meeting in respect of an official Forum. If the maximum benefit from having a Forum is to be derived, such a motion might usefully also seek to amend the Directors' and Officers' Regulations so that these specify not only that Directors are expected to make every effort to attend meetings of the Board and Council, but that they are expected to participate in debates on the Forum in respect of matters pertinent to their Directorates. However, the next meeting of Council will be the Finance Council, and the consent of the President or Chairman would be necessary to allow a non-financial item to appear on the agenda.

For the immediate future more pragmatic steps need to be considered. Independent links to the Forum will be necessary if non-members are to find it now that it can no longer be accessed via the ECF homepage. The SCCU website has a working link, and I have requested the Essex Chess Association webmaster to follow suit.

[Carl Hibbard]

The link from the ECF site has disappeared (to be expected, I suppose).

I think the main priority should be to set up a site with a different domain name, rather than fighting the ECF which is both pointless and unlikely to succeed.

I would be happy to pay the cost (£30 a year, from my experience) if Carl is happy to continue as moderator.

I also find the ECF decsion to be a poor one, but the point is to communicate, not spend the next five years trying to overturn the decision.

Thanks for the offer but things are fine - this forum will move to a new and seperate domain sometime this week

Time permitting...

[John Upham]

As indicated and now confirmed by Carl the Council decision (which if I read the minutes correctly itself resulted from discussion about an Officer's report rather than a formal agenda proposal) only related to a grading forum.

John,

Does this mean that within a few days of posts appearing that were off the topic of ratings that alarm bells were sounding at Battle HQ?

The question remains as to why the forum was allowed to continue for such a length of time if other topics were being freely discussed?

I would say that by not taking action, the direction that the forum took was accepted and condoned.

In spite of all this nonsense it will continue to grow and prosper and hopefully help those seeking advice about English Chess.

[David Robertson]

Incidentally, while I agree that forums like this are indeed fabulous for permitting participation, I note that in April I received an email from another prominent English chess forum which I had applied to join:

Your account is currently inactive, the administrator of the board will need to activate it before you can log in. You will receive another email when this has occured

Oddly, that subsequent email is yet to arrive

Your details have been traced (let 'Huesca' be the evidence). Our forum administrator believes a confirmation/activation email was sent at the time. Apparently it has not been received. You will doubtless be disappointed to learn that there has been no conspiracy against you: we tolerate all manner of pains in the *rse on the Atticus forum. I'm advised for technical reasons you may need to reapply though.

David
Atticus CC

[JustinHorton]

The behaviour of the ECF is akin to the stasi in East Germany and the KGB in the USSR.

Don't be silly.

[JustinHorton]

what's silly?

I'm sure you know very well what's silly.

[IM Jack Rudd]

We are approaching Godwin's Law territory here, and that's never a good sign for an internet discussion.

[Alasdair MacLeod]

I was surprised to read here that the recent ECF AGM decided to sever links with this forum which was done without prior notice. I’m even more surprised that only 2 people out of 30 voted to keep it.

There was no mention of this proposal on the agenda (or amongst the vast amount of papers!). If it was on the voting form, I would have joined John Philpott, Richard Haddrell and I’m sure many others in voting to keep the link.

I find this forum invaluable in keeping up to date with chess matters in this country alongside other websites like the SCCU one. The best example is the planned grading change for next season where I am now better equipped to answer queries on this from members of the English Deaf Chess Association.

Although the link has disappeared from the ECF website, it deserves to be ‘advertised’ on as many other English chess websites as possible.

[Ian Kingston]

I find this forum invaluable in keeping up to date with chess matters in this country alongside other websites like the SCCU one. The best example is the planned grading change for next season where I am now better equipped to answer queries on this from members of the English Deaf Chess Association.

Exactly. My experience in various organisations has always been that those that communicate with their members tend to thrive, while those that don't usually fail. In the modern era, with email, text messaging, Internet forums and social networking sites, a bi-monthly publication (Chess Moves) is no longer sufficent to maintain an adequate level of communication – for one thing, it's mostly a one-way medium.

I've no doubt that Board members didn't like a lot of what they read here. Some of it has been hostile, ill-informed and unnecessary. But much of it was just the opposite, and the Board should have engaged with its critics rather than running away.