April Finance Council meeting

[Roger de Coverly]

Is there going to be an April Finance meeting? The AGM last October accepted a proposal to change the financial year end to 31st August, but the paper outlining this suggested that future timetables were going to be considered at a January EGM, which for the ECF didn't actually happen.

The AGM season for leagues, clubs and counties starts in May. Such meetings might wish to be informed what financial unpleasantness was heading in their direction from the ECF.

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... ar-end.pdf

(edit) Going back in time, the paper proposing the change of year end was
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... g-year.doc

This suggested Finance meetings in July, to possibly coincide with the British Championship Congress and an AGM in February. If there's an intention of continuing to run 14 for the price of 12 deals to cover the British Championships, the rates from 1st September 2013 would need to be known by 1st July 2013 at the latest.

The other point is that postponing the year end and the Finance meeting has the effect of delaying the release of bad news, or good news if there is any, about the ECF's financial position. (/edit)

[John Philpott]

The Finance Council meeting will take place on Saturday 13 April at the Ibis Hotel Birmingham. This date was fixed at October's AGM and is reflected both in the draft minutes of that meeting at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... 012-v3.pdf and in the "dates for your diary" page accessible via the calendars menu on the ECF website at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/?page_id=22666

The idea of radically changing the timing of the general meetings, which was proposed by the previous Finance Director, was not proceeded with by the Board.

[David Pardoe]

Various points on the agenda caught my attention....
Firstly, rule changes for the Counties competitions.... recent threads have discussed various possibilities, which deserve consideration, I believe. The NCCU suggest changing the grading bands...yes, a good idea, but I`d go further and opt for even wider bands, say Open, U170, U135, and U100...and balance this by increasing county team sizes to 20 - 24 boards. I`d also include sub-bands within the main bandings to ensure a good spread of players across the wider bands. As said, benefits would be to ease selection problems, reduce overall travel, reduce the number of matches and room hire costs, allowing counties to choose better quality venues.
If you reduce to 12 boards you reduce player opportunity and create a minimalist event that would simply attract less interest, and things would sink further. I`ve also mentioned in other threads that some county and Union restructuring might create a much more interesting competition, that would hopefully attract many more counties to take an active part.
Counties and Unions could look at creative ways of encouraging new teams and greater entry levels, including looking at `East` & `West` groupings to reduce travel, and picking venues that gave the participants a fairer crack of the whip as regards travel.
To illustrate...take the NCCU.... if Yorks split into 4 zones, based round say Bradford, Sheffield, York and Humberside you might be able to generate upto 4 new sets of county teams... If say they operated an East-West split...that might allow Cheshire, Merseyside, Central Lancs (based at Preston, not Manchester), Bradford and Cumbria to form one group. Then say Northumberland, Durham, Teesside, + York, Humberside & Sheffield zones...to form another grouping. Then if you established good central venues for both groups that gave all teams a fair travel journey, it might just encourage greater interest. But Rome was not built in a day, and having good active county captains who can pull together teams, make good match arrangements..etc...all helps to make the party swing...
Other areas might consider restructuring, and may even create new smaller county zones, or sub groupings. County and Union bodies need to look more creatively at how things might be restructured to get the best results.... It might be that we need a new Minor counties event designed specifically for small counties. One possiblity might be for such counties to play a single team event that covers all the grading bands, where you limit the number of players in each grade band eg...you might stipulate that max of 4 players are above 180, max of 4 players to be above say 160, max of 4 players to be above 140, max of 4 players to be above 120, and max of 4 players above grade 100... creating a new 24 board county event for minor counties.

I see mention is made of small changes to the Membership scheme. As I`ve said in other threads, we need some new bands to increase the numbers taking up membership...to nearer 30,000, would be a good target. Bulk membership options and `low cost` mixed category membership might encourage more `newbies` to join. If, for example they could get an introductory membership for say £10 that enabled them to play upto 10 games in any category of event, or mix of categories, Im sure that would encourage more takeup. These points are all covered in other threads in more detail.
Yes, we need to look at the OMOV issue and I think a hybrid model could work well, where a mix of Delegate & OMOV (taken on a proportionate basis), is used.
Many of these points are discussed in more detail in other threads, and I think that separate papers should be prepared on each of these for more detailed discussion, after some initial discussions to take soundings at various AGMs and meetings.

[John Philpott]

It is Saturday morning: what better way of spending the day could there possibly be than attending the ECF Finance Council meeting in Birmingham? Well I probably could think of a few, starting with the match at St Mary's. A couple of pre-meeting points:

1. Mike Gunn is unable to attend because of a family commitment. The first item on the agenda will therefore now become the election of a Chairman under Article 24.

2. For the first time in a while Sean Hewitt, who on this occasion has 20 votes on a poll, will not be the Council member holding the greatest voting power. That distinction passes to David Welch, who has 23.

More information may be forthcoming during the day provided that the Hotel WiFi is as good as that available on Chiltern Railways.

[Angus French]

Mike Gunn is unable to attend because of a family commitment.

I think it would be helpful if Board members could flag in advance whether they will attend ECF Council meetings.

[John Philpott]

Angus French wrote

I think it would be helpful if Board members could flag in advance whether they will attend ECF Council meetings.

You might very well think that......

In the meantime Mike, who was due to present item 16 dealing with the complaints procedure, has provided a statement on the subject which can be seen at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... cedure.pdf

[Sean Hewitt]

2. For the first time in a while Sean Hewitt, who on this occasion has 20 votes on a poll, will not be the Council member holding the greatest voting power. That distinction passes to David Welch, who has 23.

I didn't think I had the most votes last time. Wasn't that Mike "30 votes" Truran?!

[John Philpott]

I am now at the Ibis and the WiFi is fine. What is less fine is the extremely noisy re-roofing work that is taking place immediately above the meeting room. I understanding that the ECF will be seeking a refund on the room hire.

[Paul Buswell]

Angus French wrote

I think it would be helpful if Board members could flag in advance whether they will attend ECF Council meetings.

You might very well think that......

In the meantime Mike, who was due to present item 16 dealing with the complaints procedure, has provided a statement on the subject which can be seen at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... cedure.pdf

Mr Gunn's statement (and I thank John Philpott for the link) says at its conclusion:

Meanwhile the Non-Executive Chairman apologises to the small number of people who have made complaints since January to which he has not responded.

I am one of those "small number of people". (The nature of my complaint is not, of course, something to be shared on this forum). What absolutely riles me is that Mr Gunn has not given me one jot or tittle of even a bare acknowledgment. No response to the original e-mail; no response when that e-mail wa later sent on as hard copy (clearly marked 'confidential') via the ECF office; no response when my concern over his silence was flagged with him through another Board member. Not one word.

That is unacceptable and an egregious discourtesy on Mr Gunn's part. A simple sentence to the effect that all complaints were on hold until October would have sufficed. That is not too much to ask.

PB

[Carl Hibbard]

In the meantime Mike, who was due to present item 16 dealing with the complaints procedure, has provided a statement on the subject which can be seen at:

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... cedure.pdf

The second point puts to an end a lot of the more recent complaints

[John Philpott]

Roger Edwards has been elected as Chairman of the meeting.

[John Philpott]

Half an hour in and we are still on the minutes of the previous meeting.

[David Robertson]

You're enjoying yourself. Yes?

[John Philpott]

David Robertson wrote

You're enjoying yourself. Yes?

Strangely enough I am. A good humoured meeting so far, and we are now making progress onto the more substantive agenda items.

[John Philpott]

Still reasonably good-humoured (although one or two of those present are showing some sign of losing their patience), but making desperately slow progress. Over two hours and twenty minutes in and currently stuck in an extended discussion on the membership and Game Fee exemptions in item 6