April 2016 Council meeting

[Jonathan Bryant]

Correct.

Also a good response to, "the ECF Forum has allowed a post from yet another account with a transparently made up name?"

On a substantive point from the thread, I was disappointed to read you discussing representation of various groups within the ECF without making any reference to financial contribution of those groups.

I'm not sure why or how the ECF has come to endorse a taxation without representation model but it's not a good look.

[Bob Kane]

official ECF Forum accounts deleted yesterday include ..
M Regan EX CEO
R Kane Ex Commercial Director
C Fegan EX Strategic Advisor to the Board

Must be part of the communcations stratagy requested by council and approved at the last board meeting

[Martin Regan]

My account does indeed appear to have gone walkabout. At present , I shall believe that it was an accident, as explained in an ECF post about the thread itself.

And I fully expect it, along with the others, to reappear.

[Michael Farthing]

A man with a level head.

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm not sure why or how the ECF has come to endorse a taxation without representation model but it's not a good look.

The advocates of the ECF's approach to membership didn't what to risk defeat by putting the scheme through as a constitutional change, so it was implemented by butchery to the previous articles. In these the chess organisations had almost all the votes as they provided a lot of the ECF's finance. It actually started to go wrong fifteen years ago, when the BCF falsely claimed that FIDE rules required individual membership in order to have an International rating. It should have been insisted on, that this required a shift in voting rights as the number of individual members built up.

[Michael Farthing]

In the discussions about OMOV one obvious possibility has as far as I'm aware never been raised, but was suggested to me by Email this morning in response to my letter to silver members. That is, quite simply, that fee increases should be put to a vote of the direct members. Such a step could probably be accomplished simply by a Council resolution without any change in the Articles. I have to say, it might be a dangerous line - the Board would certainly have to work hard to make its case!

[Paolo Casaschi]

official ECF Forum accounts deleted yesterday include ..
M Regan EX CEO
R Kane Ex Commercial Director
C Fegan EX Strategic Advisor to the Board

Must be part of the communcations stratagy requested by council and approved at the last board meeting

Why not deleting the whole forum if this is part of the plan anyway?

[Martin Regan]

MF;

In the discussions about OMOV one obvious possibility has as far as I'm aware never been raised, but was suggested to me by Email this morning in response to my letter to silver members

I would refer you to my numerous posts on the subject going back years. This and the election of the president of the two and quickest ways in which real power can be given to players quickly.

[Carl Hibbard]

You can't delete accounts by mistake have they just gone or been deactivated?

[Carl Hibbard]

You can't delete accounts by mistake have they just gone or been deactivated?

No they have been deleted one by one a new definition of EX.

[Jonathan Bryant]

... a new definition of EX.

They have ceased to be.

[Angus French]

In the discussions about OMOV one obvious possibility has as far as I'm aware never been raised, but was suggested to me by Email this morning in response to my letter to silver members. That is, quite simply, that fee increases should be put to a vote of the direct members. Such a step could probably be accomplished simply by a Council resolution without any change in the Articles. I have to say, it might be a dangerous line - the Board would certainly have to work hard to make its case!

That's a very interesting idea.

I was also thinking it would be useful to carry out a survey of members (maybe non-members could be included too): it would be an opportunity for the ECF to tell its members about what the ECF does, to remind them of the benefits of membership, to ask members what they think the ECF does well and what it could do better, to ask some specific questions such as whether members are happy about the way they're represented on ECF Council... (non-members, if they are ex-members, could be asked why they are ex-).

[Mark Jordan]

In the discussions about OMOV one obvious possibility has as far as I'm aware never been raised, but was suggested to me by Email this morning in response to my letter to silver members. That is, quite simply, that fee increases should be put to a vote of the direct members. Such a step could probably be accomplished simply by a Council resolution without any change in the Articles. I have to say, it might be a dangerous line - the Board would certainly have to work hard to make its case!

That's a very interesting idea.

I was also thinking it would be useful to carry out a survey of members (maybe non-members could be included too): it would be an opportunity for the ECF to tell its members about what the ECF does, to remind them of the benefits of membership, to ask members what they think the ECF does well and what it could do better, to ask some specific questions such as whether members are happy about the way they're represented on ECF Council... (non-members, if they are ex-members, could be asked why they are ex-).

A survey is an interesting idea and, as a former market research executive, is the kind of project I have familiarity with and sympathy for. One has to be careful how one goes about doing such a survey though. If the idea is to get an accurate idea of what respondents think about the ECF, one has to be careful not to let bias slip in though and "reminding them of the benefits of membership" may certainly be a marketing objective but it cannot be an aim of a valid survey of opinion. Undertaking a project which yields an accurate (within margins of error) picture of opinion within a population, is a hell of a lot more difficult than most people imagine, which is why so many are done very badly indeed!

[MartinCarpenter]

Or even impossible with the sort of response rate I guess you'd be looking at here

[Mark Jordan]

Or even impossible with the sort of response rate I guess you'd be looking at here

Oh I don't know: there certainly seem to be a few opinions out there! You'd be surprised how many responses a survey will get if it's done right! It would be good though to get a somewhat more balanced perspective of the range of views out there rather than have to rely on whatever people have to say in the pub after a match or whoever happens to shout loudest, express their views most articulately or post most frequently on social media.