Ecf Silver member letter
Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:21 am
This is what michael and myself have sent out to the silver members
Dear Silver Members
This letter comes to you from Michael Farthing and John Reyes, the two silver member representatives on the ECF Council, which meets for the Annual General Meeting on Saturday 13 October. A shorter letter this time but with important questions. Please do read!
In general the AGM does not make financial decisions which are the responsibility of the April Finance Meeting. However, this year there is a request from the Board to revise the budget for the current year and the provisional plans for future years. There is an accompanying proposal for an increase in membership fees above that previously outlined in April. As your representatives this is an area where we expect to be guided by your reactions and, given the significance of the changes, we really do need you to tell us what you think about each of the planned areas of increased spending and the consequential likely effect on membership fees. There will be voices in many directions but it would help us immensely to know what you all think and adds to our credibility in the meeting if we have a goodly number responding.
Full papers are available at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/about/ec ... and-board/. Here is a summary of the main items on the agenda together with our current views. We have not followed the order of the agenda but deals with the potentially more divisive question of budget first.
Finances
The Board is proposing increases to the budget for the current (2018-9) year as follows:
International Spending £17,500
Women's Chess £10,000
Office support £12,000
Development Officer £10,000
Total £49,500
Of this £18500 would come from ECF trust funds and £26000 from ECF reserves (for this year, but the continuing costs in future years would be financed from membership fee increases). The remaining £5000 is envisaged to be self-financing by the Development Officer from increased membership and is partly a bonus payment that is dependent on this. The development officer's principle role would be to increase membership.
The increase in international spending essentially funds players to participate in elite tournaments including the Olympiad, the World Chess Championship cycle and Norm tournaments for titles. There is an element for elite development training and analytical support. £3000 of the increase is to support senior chess.
The women's chess budget would total £15000 (ie £10000 increase on the current £5000) Of this, £10000 would be used for support of women in tournament chess (the British Chess Championships and the English Women's Championship) and £5000 (the trust fund contribution) for social support of clubs and other organisations that have a programme for encouragement of women to participate in chess.
The £12000 extra for the office support is to cover an increase in staffing (£6000) and partly in anticipation of salary rises (£6000) to compensate for a fall in the level of salary being paid as compared to equivalent jobs elsewhere.
The anticipated increase in membership fees for silver members involves a rise from £23.50 this year to £27 next year (increased from the proposal of £25 presented at the last Finance Meeting) with a plan of a further increase the following year to £30. Full figures for other levels are available in Paper C29.13 on the ECF website.
We are purposely making no recommendation to you one way or the other. This is a matter of what each member believes is appropriate and we want to hear from you. It may also be that some of you will be in favour of some increases and not others. We will seek to have separate votes on different items of expenditure should this seem appropriate.
Elections
This year the President (Dominic Lawson), Chief Executive (Mike Truran), Chairman of Council (Mike Gunn), Chairman of the Governance Committee (Robert Stern), and one member of the Finance Committee (Ian Reynolds) are up for election and all the current incumbents are standing for re-election and are unopposed.
Traci Whitfield (Junior Chess) and Alex Holowczak (Home Director) have both decided to stand down from their roles. Alex has made this decision because of the high burden the post demands at a time of year when he has significant other commitments. With the encouragement of the Board and of Traci he has agreed to stand instead for Director of Junior Chess and is unopposed.
Chris Fegan was appointed to the Board as Director of Women's Chess earlier in the year and is now standing for election by the Council. There has been some criticism that he was given this role as a man when there were two women applicants for the post. The Board has stood by their decision that the best qualified person was appointed and in this election Chris is unopposed.
This leaves the only contested position that of Director of Home Chess, to replace Alex Holowczak. There are two candidates, Tim Wall and Adrian Elwin and their election addresses are on the website. We do not have great knowledge of either candidates, though both have been active in running chess activities. We shall be guided by any (reasoned) recommendations we receive from silver members and also by how the candidates present themselves at the meeting.
In ECF elections there is always an option to leave a particular post unfilled if none of the candidates convince Council representatives of their worth. This option has occasionally been taken by Council, but we would not vote this way unless we received a very strong response from you. [For the avoidance of doubt, an orchestrated submission of identical Emails will not constitute a strong response].
Other Items
We do not feel there are any other items of great significance. Full details can be found on the ECF site and if anyone has other concerns then please do raise them with us.
Michael Farthing and John Reyes
Dear Silver Members
This letter comes to you from Michael Farthing and John Reyes, the two silver member representatives on the ECF Council, which meets for the Annual General Meeting on Saturday 13 October. A shorter letter this time but with important questions. Please do read!
In general the AGM does not make financial decisions which are the responsibility of the April Finance Meeting. However, this year there is a request from the Board to revise the budget for the current year and the provisional plans for future years. There is an accompanying proposal for an increase in membership fees above that previously outlined in April. As your representatives this is an area where we expect to be guided by your reactions and, given the significance of the changes, we really do need you to tell us what you think about each of the planned areas of increased spending and the consequential likely effect on membership fees. There will be voices in many directions but it would help us immensely to know what you all think and adds to our credibility in the meeting if we have a goodly number responding.
Full papers are available at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/about/ec ... and-board/. Here is a summary of the main items on the agenda together with our current views. We have not followed the order of the agenda but deals with the potentially more divisive question of budget first.
Finances
The Board is proposing increases to the budget for the current (2018-9) year as follows:
International Spending £17,500
Women's Chess £10,000
Office support £12,000
Development Officer £10,000
Total £49,500
Of this £18500 would come from ECF trust funds and £26000 from ECF reserves (for this year, but the continuing costs in future years would be financed from membership fee increases). The remaining £5000 is envisaged to be self-financing by the Development Officer from increased membership and is partly a bonus payment that is dependent on this. The development officer's principle role would be to increase membership.
The increase in international spending essentially funds players to participate in elite tournaments including the Olympiad, the World Chess Championship cycle and Norm tournaments for titles. There is an element for elite development training and analytical support. £3000 of the increase is to support senior chess.
The women's chess budget would total £15000 (ie £10000 increase on the current £5000) Of this, £10000 would be used for support of women in tournament chess (the British Chess Championships and the English Women's Championship) and £5000 (the trust fund contribution) for social support of clubs and other organisations that have a programme for encouragement of women to participate in chess.
The £12000 extra for the office support is to cover an increase in staffing (£6000) and partly in anticipation of salary rises (£6000) to compensate for a fall in the level of salary being paid as compared to equivalent jobs elsewhere.
The anticipated increase in membership fees for silver members involves a rise from £23.50 this year to £27 next year (increased from the proposal of £25 presented at the last Finance Meeting) with a plan of a further increase the following year to £30. Full figures for other levels are available in Paper C29.13 on the ECF website.
We are purposely making no recommendation to you one way or the other. This is a matter of what each member believes is appropriate and we want to hear from you. It may also be that some of you will be in favour of some increases and not others. We will seek to have separate votes on different items of expenditure should this seem appropriate.
Elections
This year the President (Dominic Lawson), Chief Executive (Mike Truran), Chairman of Council (Mike Gunn), Chairman of the Governance Committee (Robert Stern), and one member of the Finance Committee (Ian Reynolds) are up for election and all the current incumbents are standing for re-election and are unopposed.
Traci Whitfield (Junior Chess) and Alex Holowczak (Home Director) have both decided to stand down from their roles. Alex has made this decision because of the high burden the post demands at a time of year when he has significant other commitments. With the encouragement of the Board and of Traci he has agreed to stand instead for Director of Junior Chess and is unopposed.
Chris Fegan was appointed to the Board as Director of Women's Chess earlier in the year and is now standing for election by the Council. There has been some criticism that he was given this role as a man when there were two women applicants for the post. The Board has stood by their decision that the best qualified person was appointed and in this election Chris is unopposed.
This leaves the only contested position that of Director of Home Chess, to replace Alex Holowczak. There are two candidates, Tim Wall and Adrian Elwin and their election addresses are on the website. We do not have great knowledge of either candidates, though both have been active in running chess activities. We shall be guided by any (reasoned) recommendations we receive from silver members and also by how the candidates present themselves at the meeting.
In ECF elections there is always an option to leave a particular post unfilled if none of the candidates convince Council representatives of their worth. This option has occasionally been taken by Council, but we would not vote this way unless we received a very strong response from you. [For the avoidance of doubt, an orchestrated submission of identical Emails will not constitute a strong response].
Other Items
We do not feel there are any other items of great significance. Full details can be found on the ECF site and if anyone has other concerns then please do raise them with us.
Michael Farthing and John Reyes
