OMOV or an elected Council?

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
Steve Rooney
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Steve Rooney » Wed Oct 31, 2012 9:26 am

Shropshire has OMOV at its AGM, as long as the member's club has paid its league fees (these are now just £10 since we moved to membership). There is nominally a council of officers and club secretaries which can have some delegated powers but this hasn't met for past two years and in the past has only convened to deal with items that run out of time at the AGM.

Mick Norris
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Mick Norris » Wed Oct 31, 2012 10:15 am

Steve Rooney wrote:Shropshire has OMOV at its AGM, as long as the member's club has paid its league fees (these are now just £10 since we moved to membership). There is nominally a council of officers and club secretaries which can have some delegated powers but this hasn't met for past two years and in the past has only convened to deal with items that run out of time at the AGM.
Interesting

How many:
1- are eligible to vote?
2 - turn up to the AGM?

Do you allow proxies?
Any postings on here represent my personal views

Steve Rooney
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Steve Rooney » Wed Oct 31, 2012 11:22 am

Mick Norris wrote:
Steve Rooney wrote:Shropshire has OMOV at its AGM, as long as the member's club has paid its league fees (these are now just £10 since we moved to membership). There is nominally a council of officers and club secretaries which can have some delegated powers but this hasn't met for past two years and in the past has only convened to deal with items that run out of time at the AGM.
Interesting

How many:
1- are eligible to vote?
2 - turn up to the AGM?

Do you allow proxies?
All members of chess clubs in Shropshire are eligible to vote under the county's constitution. There may be 20-30 who attend, perhaps a fifth of those eligible? I can't recall if proxies are available, but if so they are not used much. The host club does tend to be more heavily represented than others, which has occasionally been mentioned, but I don't think there have been many issues on which people are really going to fall out, even if they don't necessarily agree.

Sean Hewitt
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Sean Hewitt » Wed Oct 31, 2012 12:26 pm

Steve Rooney wrote:The host club does tend to be more heavily represented than others.
The Irish Chess Union has OMOV. It's AGM this year had a few controversial proposals on the agenda and a number of contested elections. As a result, the fiercest discussion was where the meeting would be held with rival camps wanting it in their back yard so they could field members who would vote 'the right way'!

David Robertson

Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by David Robertson » Wed Oct 31, 2012 3:37 pm

Rule

OMOV isn't OMOV if the electoral franchise is abridged in any way

In plainspeak, if a person is unable reasonably to exercise a vote, notwithstanding formal measures to ensure they can, then they cannot vote for all practical purposes. For this reason, ballot boxes are not generally placed at the top of mountains; nor are elections held on important religious festivals. And so forth.

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JustinHorton
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by JustinHorton » Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:09 pm

Sean Hewitt wrote:. As a result, the fiercest discussion was where the meeting would be held with rival camps wanting it in their back yard so they could field members who would vote 'the right way'!
Ah yes, that used to cause fun and games in Surrey chess too. I remember too well.
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Alex Holowczak
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Alex Holowczak » Wed Oct 31, 2012 5:39 pm

JustinHorton wrote:
Sean Hewitt wrote:. As a result, the fiercest discussion was where the meeting would be held with rival camps wanting it in their back yard so they could field members who would vote 'the right way'!
Ah yes, that used to cause fun and games in Surrey chess too. I remember too well.
Mike Gunn mentioned this at some point. It caused them to go back to a Federal structure in the end.

Sean Hewitt
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Sean Hewitt » Wed Oct 31, 2012 5:47 pm

JustinHorton wrote:
Sean Hewitt wrote:. As a result, the fiercest discussion was where the meeting would be held with rival camps wanting it in their back yard so they could field members who would vote 'the right way'!
Ah yes, that used to cause fun and games in Surrey chess too.
A dispute? In Surrey? Get away! :lol:

Paul Buswell
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Paul Buswell » Wed Oct 31, 2012 5:56 pm

Sean Hewitt wrote:A question - what voting system does your local leagues or county association have?

Mid-Sussex League is one vote per team in the League, so clubs have 1 to 5 votes - no proxies as far as I know. Plus various officials.

Kent County is 'registered players' , i.e, individuals vote. Players have to be registered to play for League teams. Just to cover myself I register (i.e. just send in a list) every member of our Club, just in case they are ever called on to play for one of our Kent League teams. No proxies as far as I know. Plus various officials.

Edit to add: in Kent County notice of meeting to the player's club is deemed to be notice to the player.

PB
Last edited by Paul Buswell on Wed Oct 31, 2012 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Neil Graham
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Neil Graham » Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:48 pm

I'd love to hear how OMOV might work.

I receive lovely glossy brochures from at least three financial institutions of which I'm a member advising me of the arrangements for their AGMs. If all their shareholders, members, investors receive these how much do they cost to prepare and post? Tens of thousands I'd guess especially as the postage for a standard letter is now 60p. Now that the ECF has a membership of 6000+ and increasing it couldn't possibly afford to mail out all the masses of paperwork to its members. Could it all be done by e-mail? I would suggest that there are substantial numbers of ECF members not on-line. They would have to be sent documents by post. What sort of venue would have to be booked to accommodate a prospective turnout of hundreds?

The membership of this board might give some clues. Someone (Ian Kingston I think) gave some useful analysis. Of the 10,000 or so active chess players in this country 800 are members here of which the majority are silent or have posted once. There are a couple of dozen prolific posters who dominate the board. One can look forward to a OMOV vote meeting attended by Messrs de Coverley, Holowczak and the like (no offence to the two named gentlemen; just a reflection on the amount they post on here).

Should we move to a OMOV system, the huge majority of players will do exactly what they do now. That's nothing. When we can't get Directors and Officers and when elected delegates fail to attend meetings do we really expect that OMOV will change anything. I look forward to the directly elected Police Commissioners - let's see what turn-out that attracts with all the publicity generated in the papers and on the television.

How many counties have a OMOV system - how many people actually turn up? I thought Yorkshire had something like this in place - perhaps they can let us know?

Alex Holowczak
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Alex Holowczak » Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:53 pm

Neil Graham wrote:One can look forward to a OMOV vote meeting attended by Messrs de Coverley, Holowczak and the like (no offence to the two named gentlemen; just a reflection on the amount they post on here).
I hardly say anything at Council meetings, I'll have you know. :wink:

Two of the first three was because I was taking minutes, admittedly. Most latterly it was because I was standing against Not This Candidate, so figured the best way of getting elected was to keep my mouth shut. :lol:

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JustinHorton
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by JustinHorton » Wed Oct 31, 2012 7:51 pm

Sean Hewitt wrote:
JustinHorton wrote:
Sean Hewitt wrote:. As a result, the fiercest discussion was where the meeting would be held with rival camps wanting it in their back yard so they could field members who would vote 'the right way'!
Ah yes, that used to cause fun and games in Surrey chess too.
A dispute? In Surrey? Get away! :lol:
I believe they never did find the mysteriously missing attendance list...
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

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Ian Kingston
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Ian Kingston » Wed Oct 31, 2012 10:12 pm

Neil Graham wrote:The membership of this board might give some clues. Someone (Ian Kingston I think) gave some useful analysis.
That was David Robertson, I think, in the '100,000 posts' thread.

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Carl Hibbard
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Carl Hibbard » Wed Oct 31, 2012 10:21 pm

Ian Kingston wrote:
Neil Graham wrote:The membership of this board might give some clues. Someone (Ian Kingston I think) gave some useful analysis.
That was David Robertson, I think, in the '100,000 posts' thread.
Despite the inaccurate post of pip-squeak Giddins which he seems unable to correct it does appear 613 members have posted at least one post and we still get around 2,000 unique visitors per day
Cheers
Carl Hibbard

Neil Graham
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Re: OMOV or an elected Council?

Post by Neil Graham » Thu Nov 01, 2012 11:50 am

Carl Hibbard wrote:
Ian Kingston wrote:
Neil Graham wrote:The membership of this board might give some clues. Someone (Ian Kingston I think) gave some useful analysis.
That was David Robertson, I think, in the '100,000 posts' thread.
Despite the inaccurate post of pip-squeak Giddins which he seems unable to correct it does appear 613 members have posted at least one post and we still get around 2,000 unique visitors per day
As Mr Giddins has developed a number of derogatory sobriquets for his "favourite" posters on here are we now to refer to him as "Pip-squeak?"