English Chess Forum

who will be going?

You?

No I'm not a rep.
It clashes with the usual date of preliminary National Stage County matches.
Will be very reluctant to play if wanting to put back a week as that clashes with 4NCL final w/e where a number of players will play.
What I will miss is the live reporting on this Forum by John RIP.

I will.

I hope that the ECF will do something for John, as his Reports were great

Papers for the meeting have started to appear here.

Angus French wrote:Papers for the meeting have started to appear

On voting reform, I see that someone made the point that rather than arguing about who should vote, what is allowed to be voted on can be just as important. So the ECF Board can decide to restructure the British Championship Congress and qualification rules without even informing Council, however constituted, of its intentions, let alone ask for a vote of approval for its plans.

I'm will be ringing around to try and get some proxy votes for the meeting as sometimes the bigger the votes, the biggest the voice

The paper summarising the outcome of the consultation on voting reform makes for interesting reading. Some constructive points were made but ultimately there were only twenty five direct member respondents. Which says something about apathy; if hundreds of ordinary members are frustrated at being disenfranchised they didn't exactly jump at the chance to make their voice heard. Which doesn't alter my view that the system does need reform, although I stand by my view that full OMOV is not the best way forward.

Andrew Zigmond wrote: if hundreds of ordinary members are frustrated at being disenfranchised they didn't exactly jump at the chance to make their voice heard.

Writing privately to the ECF doesn't make your voice heard. In any case, the consultation misses the point. It doesn't matter so much who gets to vote, but what it is they are allowed to vote on. It's wrong that the ECF can make major changes to key events on the calendar, without those affected, whom the ECF relies on for financing have any say in whether they approve or disapprove of those decisions,

Being indirectly able to throw the relevant director out of office three years later isn't much compensation.

If ECF Directors are going to hide behind the mantra of "operational decisions", the criticism that they and the ECF are unaccountable to those that pay for the ECF will remain.

Andrew Zigmond wrote:The paper summarising the outcome of the consultation on voting reform makes for interesting reading. Some constructive points were made but ultimately there were only twenty five direct member respondents. Which says something about apathy; if hundreds of ordinary members are frustrated at being disenfranchised they didn't exactly jump at the chance to make their voice heard. Which doesn't alter my view that the system does need reform, although I stand by my view that full OMOV is not the best way forward.

Of those organisations with the votes in the current system, only the MCF (we discussed it at MCF Council), the SCCU and SCCA (Surrey) replied

No response from the NCCU, MCCU, EACU or WECU
No response from leagues (other than the Manchester League via the MCF, and leagues via SCCA possibly), particularly London League
No responses from counties other than Surrey and Greater Manchester (via the MCF)
No responses from congresses

I think this says something about apathy from existing Council members

John Reyes wrote:I'm will be ringing around to try and get some proxy votes for the meeting as sometimes the bigger the votes, the biggest the voice

On the subject of proxies, does anyone know who I need to get organisations to contact if they wish me to act as proxy for them?

John Reyes wrote:I'm will be ringing around to try and get some proxy votes for the meeting as sometimes the bigger the votes, the biggest the voice

I have to admit that I don't think this is the way forward, particularly for a direct membership representative. Where the council system has arguably fallen down in recent years is when individuals have sought to hoover up undirected proxies and use them to gain excessive influence in ECF affairs. If voting reform is implemented wrongly we could end up with an even worse situation of certain individuals gaining influence at council on the grounds that they are supposedly speaking for ECF members.

My perception as a silver member is that you and Michael seek to represent us with integrity and this would not be enhanced by a few extra undirected proxy votes.

benedgell wrote:On the subject of proxies, does anyone know who I need to get organisations to contact if they wish me to act as proxy for them?

Ben, surely you know the answer already, having attended numerous Council meetings in recent years (and acted in those meetings as a proxy)? Said organsations need to complete the Attendance Form attached to the notice of the meeting and return it to the ECF Office.

Roger de Coverly wrote: If ECF Directors are going to hide behind the mantra of "operational decisions", the criticism that they and the ECF are unaccountable to those that pay for the ECF will remain.

As I think Mike Truran may have said, it is true that the ECF board consider certain matters to be an operational one, rather than a council one. However any requisitionist can force a matter on to the agenda by following the relevant company process, although in this particular instance it would have to wait until the AGM. If I felt that strongly about a specific issue I would be contacting requisitionists and asking anybody I know with influence within chess for their assistance. If somebody of such little importance as me could make a reasonable stab at getting something on to a council agenda, surely a player of your strength and experience could do the same - particularly as you suggest that you are not the only person who is unhappy at the changes.

Mick Norris wrote:

Andrew Zigmond wrote:The paper summarising the outcome of the consultation on voting reform makes for interesting reading. Some constructive points were made but ultimately there were only twenty five direct member respondents. Which says something about apathy; if hundreds of ordinary members are frustrated at being disenfranchised they didn't exactly jump at the chance to make their voice heard. Which doesn't alter my view that the system does need reform, although I stand by my view that full OMOV is not the best way forward.

Of those organisations with the votes in the current system, only the MCF (we discussed it at MCF Council), the SCCU and SCCA (Surrey) replied

No response from the NCCU, MCCU, EACU or WECU
No response from leagues (other than the Manchester League via the MCF, and leagues via SCCA possibly), particularly London League
No responses from counties other than Surrey and Greater Manchester (via the MCF)
No responses from congresses

I think this says something about apathy from existing Council members

Was there an invitation to Council members to respond? If there was, I missed it.

As I an individual member, I did receive an email requesting feedback. Said email was, in my opinion, badly constructed (asking the reader to go to the ECF website for further information rather than providing a link to the appropriate webpage with consultation paper). Perhaps this might, to an extent, explain the poor response.