Independent Constitutional and Governance Review Commission

[Roger de Coverly]

I think its unlikely anyone from WECU will be attending. There's not really any interest in contributing further to the consultations.

Be careful though, you might find they decide to recommend the abolition of the Unions, or just their special powers over the ECF.

[Angus French]

Angus,
The invitation that has come to me was in the form of an e-mail from Phil Ehr and referred to "input from Presidents and Council Representatives of the regional chess unions". From this, I deduce that the intention is only those Council representatives from the Unions. This is in line with what I recall being stated by Gareth Pearce at the last Council meeting. I intend taking up the invitation on behalf of SCCU. To this end, I have sought inputs from all other SCCU Officers and County representatives (and more generally from around my own County - Sussex) adding to / detracting from thoughts that had already occurred to me. In your case, please liaise with Mike Gunn (current Surrey rep to SCCU) if you want to feed anything back to me ahead of this meeting which is anticipated to be on either the 20th or 21st July.

Julie Denning

Julie - Ben also - thank you for the further information. I'd forgotten Gareth Pearce had said his Working Group would consult the chess unions. Indeed, it's also in the Commission's Terms of Reference that this should happen.

[Mick Norris]

Phil Ehr attended this afternoon's MCF AGM, and spoke on this topic among others, and took questions

We were very grateful that Phil travelled up for the day just to attend - the ECF, and Phil himself, have rightly got it in the neck for poor communication, so well done for reversing this in Manchester today, and previously at the SCCU, WECU and MCCU AGMs

[David Sedgwick]

The Commission's presentation at the British Championships took place this evening.

I got in at 1950 to watch online and logged on for the advertised start at 2000, only to find that the presentation was already underway. Even then I suspect that I was not watching live.

Only three people in the audience spoke. They were Mike Gunn, Gary Willson and Phil Ehr, all of whom I feel can be described as ECF insiders. Nevertheless there was clearly a fair amount of interest. The number shown as watching online was steady between 45 and 50, which I think was more than double the number who were watching last night's session with Phil Ehr at any point. (Edit: This is not correct. Please see below.)

Mike argued the case for direct election of the Board by members, but the panel did not appear to agree. Indeed, I formed the impression that their recommendations overall were likely to be less radical than I had hitherto expected.

All the same, I hope that, when the time for decisions to be taken is reached, a Special Council Meeting will be held, as has usually (albeit not invariably) been the case previously for this kind of once in a decade review.

[Angus French]

I watched live from 7PM, having been reminded of the event by Andrew Martin at the end of his and Ravi's commentary on the British. I also saw a tweet which usefully gave a URL for the video.

The live audience figures I saw slowly increased from 4 at the start to 12 at the end - I wonder if the 45 to 50 figure David gives above is for the total number of views of the video recording (standing at 90 when I looked a few minutes ago)?

The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxfOa-x0GJ8 and lasts just over 30 minutes. I think it's worth watching; there were some interesting points made and responses to the same.

So far as I am aware there was no facility for questions to be put in advance or by those watching online.

I agree with David that it would be good idea to hold a Special Council Meeting to discuss the Commission's report once it's published.

[Carl Hibbard]

Gareth came across as hard work is it worth a proper listen?

[David Sedgwick]

The live audience figures I saw slowly increased from 4 at the start to 12 at the end - I wonder if the 45 to 50 figure David gives above is for the total number of views of the video recording (standing at 90 when I looked a few minutes ago)?

Yes, that would be the case. Hence the point which I made about there being more interest than last night was not valid.

However, if you announce a presentation for 8.00 pm and hold it at 7.00 pm, you can't expect much of a live audience.

[Michael Flatt]

Having watched the YouTube broadcast by the Gareth Pearce and Roger Emerson, I got to wondering how many ECF members have got as far as skimming through the Terms of Reference and the document on governance published by the Sport and Recreation Alliance. Not many, I bet.

The three points I noted from the presentation were:
1. The verbiage of the Voluntary Code of Good Governance for the Sport and Recreation Sector. It comprises 40 pages but, I believe, only pages 6 and 7 contain anything of substance; i.e what it terms "the seven principles of good governance",
2. To date, many comments gathered by the "working party" are related to detailed operational issues that lie outside the Terms of Reference,
3. The working relationship between Board Members is for them to manage themselves.

Although the "working party" will remain existent until Annual General Meeting in October 2016, I think it most likely that their work will be completed long before then. Of course, their initial findings will be reviewed by the ECF Board and it is that review which may delay the publication of the final report.

I am greatly impressed by the presentation and the professionalism, commitment and approachability displayed by those undertaking the review. It is a thankless task.

[John McKenna]

Thanks to Michael Flatt drawing more attention to this review.

What's it really about then?

I am not sure, but here's how it strikes me.

As Michael said, I can't believe that many of the grassroots have even looked at this exercise.

The three points noted by Michael do not inspire any confidence in me -

1. The verbiage of the Voluntary Code of Good Governance for the Sport and Recreation Sector. It comprises 40 pages but, I believe, only pages 6 and 7 contain anything of substance; i.e what it terms "the seven principles of good governance",
2. To date, many comments gathered by the "working party" are related to detailed operational issues that lie outside the Terms of Reference,
3. The working relationship between Board Members is for them to manage themselves.

The first one implies a large degree of obscurity to the grassroots.

The second a large degree of irrelevence to the excercise but relevance for the grassroots.

The third a complete failure to engage with what is perceived to be a major source of problems and failures at the ECF, by the grassroots.

So, not a lot of joy from a grassroots perspective.

Although the "working party" will remain existent until Annual General Meeting in October 2016, I think it most likely that their work will be completed long before then. Of course, their initial findings will be reviewed by the ECF Board and it is that review which may delay the publication of the final report.

Sounds like it could be kicked into the long grass or at least delayed until after the next AGM.

I can't help thinking that sometime, somewhere, someone will thank the commision for their work.
But, what's the real point of it and will anything practical come out of it?

[Roger de Coverly]

I can't help thinking that sometime, somewhere, someone will thank the commision for their work.
But, what's the real point of it and will anything practical come out of it?

The original proposal was that the ECF directors should investigate the feasibility of introducing a form of one person one vote representation into some or all of the ECF's affairs, including presumably the election of directors.

That was raised at the 2013 AGM
http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/1314/bcf.htm

[John Upham]

Unhelpfully, the YouTube video of this event has

Comments are disabled for this video.

Surely encouraging feedback is a good thing?

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Surely encouraging feedback is a good thing?"

Oh, really John! If you encourage feedback people might be "off message".