English Chess Forum

Gold members will have been circulated with details and statements by three candidates for two of the Council positions which nominally represent them. I don't know if there's any intent to publish the statements at the ECF website or discuss them here. The electorate are the Gold members and they are asked to vote either by post to the ECF Office or by email to John Philpott.

I have a PDF bringing together the statements by the three candidates, but it had not occurred to me to publish this on the website as the election is essentially a private matters for the Gold members who are each receiving the statement either by e-mail or (in a disappointingly large numbers of cases) by post. What do others think?

Votes are coming in at a healthy rate. I will be very interested to see how the day 1 totals compare with the final result.

I shared John's surprise that there should actually be a need for an election for this. The candidates are William Armstrong, Daniel Staples, and Robert Thompson, only the latter of whom was familiar to me by virtue of this forum. I thought his statement was very good, though why any 19 year old with his whole life ahead of him should want to spend any of it in this particular position is quite beyond me.

I'll resist the temptation to publish their statements though. Let's not get overexcited about things like this, when we could be making predictions about Short v (Rupert) Jones ...

Jonathan Rogers wrote:why any 19 year old with his whole life ahead of him should want to spend any of it in this particular position is quite beyond me.

When Rob attended Council in April, it was the first chess-related meeting I'd ever been to where I wasn't the youngest attendee in the room.

Jonathan Rogers wrote: I thought his statement was very good

Let's quote part of it, which is of relevance to the Short v Jones election.

Given that I am seeking to be a representative for Gold Members, it is a reasonable assumption that a large proportion of those I am seeking to represent will play FIDE rated chess and be interested in the issues pertaining to FIDE. I am currently of the opinion that given FIDE's stance it is impossible to promote amateur chess without being antagonistic towards the leadership of FIDE, and thus I believe that English chess needs a FIDE delegate that will vigorously defend our interests in FIDE.

I find that difficult to disagree with and I would think a serious majority of Gold members would go along with it.

The Jones manifesto breaks protocol by declaring the ECF board voting in favour of Bessel Kok in 2006 as 6-2. Whilst it can be suspected strongly that one of the Kirsan supporters was the then FIDE Delegate, who was the other?

Jonathan Rogers wrote: I thought his statement was very good

Roger de Coverly wrote:I find that difficult to disagree with and I would think a serious majority of Gold members would go along with it.

If all electioneering was this nice I may be tempted to do it more often

Roger de Coverly wrote:The Jones manifesto breaks protocol by declaring the ECF board voting in favour of Bessel Kok in 2006 as 6-2. Whilst it can be suspected strongly that one of the Kirsan supporters was the then FIDE Delegate, who was the other?

The FIDE Delegate doesn't have a Board vote, so he won't be 1 of the 2. That is, unless Rupert has included him in the results.

Alex Holowczak wrote:

Roger de Coverly wrote:The Jones manifesto breaks protocol by declaring the ECF board voting in favour of Bessel Kok in 2006 as 6-2. Whilst it can be suspected strongly that one of the Kirsan supporters was the then FIDE Delegate, who was the other?

The FIDE Delegate doesn't have a Board vote, so he won't be 1 of the 2. That is, unless Rupert has included him in the results.

This is in the wrong thread, but so be it.

Roger is referring to Gerry Walsh, who at the time was both FIDE Delegate and President. He had a vote on the Board in the latter capacity.

I have no idea whether or not it is true that Gerry opposed the motion to support Bessel Kok at the ECF Board Meeting. However, he was totally behind the Kok ticket by the time we went to Turin. That was apparent to me from certain conversations which took place, or which didn't take place, in the departure lounge at Heathrow or Gatwick. (I can't remember which.)

I appreciate that my previous sentence is a bit cryptic, but it's not something on which I wish to elaborate.

David Sedgwick wrote:I appreciate that my previous sentence is a bit cryptic, but it's not something on which I wish to elaborate.

You'll be fuelling speculation of a cover up, if you carry on in that vein!

David Sedgwick wrote: Roger is referring to Gerry Walsh, who at the time was both FIDE Delegate and President. He had a vote on the Board in the latter capacity.

This is what was said at the time
http://web.archive.org/web/200603170246 ... _mar06.htm

The ECF acknowledges the good work and valuable input of the incumbent Kirsan Iilmyumzhinov, Deputy President, Georgios Makropoullos and their team and also recognises the considerable contribution of David Jarrett as FIDE Treasurer.

I didn't figure out whether this was the ECF being diplomatic and polite or a necessary compromise wording because of divided opinions on the Board.

Having no previous experience of an election for direct members' representatives, I was not sure what sort of response rate to expect. 54 to date, considering that the e-mail only went out late on Monday afternoon, and the snail mail may not yet have reached its recipients, is quite encouraging.

John Philpott wrote:Having no previous experience of an election for direct members' representatives, I was not sure what sort of response rate to expect. 54 to date, considering that the e-mail only went out late on Monday afternoon, and the snail mail may not yet have reached its recipients, is quite encouraging.

Maybe we can get them to vote on written resolutions in future, instead of Council?

Alex Holowczak wrote: Maybe we can get them to vote on written resolutions in future, instead of Council?

I don't see why Direct Members cannot be asked to vote on Directors and motions even if only indicative for the guidance of Council.

Roger de Coverly wrote

I don't see why Direct Members cannot be asked to vote on Directors and motions even if only indicative for the guidance of Council

Proper OMOV is an approach that merits proper debate. "Voting to provide guidance" seems like a halfway house where I cannot see the benefits outweighing the costs. For one thing, there are rather a lot of direct members for whom the ECF does not currently hold an e-mail address.

John Philpott wrote:Having no previous experience of an election for direct members' representatives, I was not sure what sort of response rate to expect. 54 to date, considering that the e-mail only went out late on Monday afternoon, and the snail mail may not yet have reached its recipients, is quite encouraging.

One concern should be the number of e-mails sent out that weren't received by the member. I got mine, but only after I retrieved it from my junk e-mail. I wonder how many went permanently astray, and what happens if the result of the election is close, so lost voting papers matters.