English Chess Forum

I have received details of a consultation on the County Championship.

See here :- http://www.englishchess.org.uk/county-c ... tion-2017/

May I suggest anyone who is interested or indeed uninterested or disinterested fill in the document?

Neil Graham wrote: May I suggest anyone who is interested or indeed uninterested or disinterested fill in the document?

At the player level there's a question missing. Why, because of the eligibility rules, is it necessary for some players to play for teams that are invariably outclassed? That's sort of solved itself over time, by uncompetitive counties just not bothering to attempt to run teams.

(edit) to be fair these questions, or a version thereof, are asked in the Counties section.

It would be my view that 3 of the 4 questions are absolutely critical.

Whether or not the team would be competitive
Whether or not the county has enough players who want to play
Whether or not a captain can be found

(/edit)

Good intentions. Clueless judgement. The usual mix with ECF

I completed the questionnaire as a former County Captain, now many years absent from the CC nonsense. I should emphasise too that I completed it as a Player, the last and lowest of the categories available. Bureaucrats and Arbiters and kindred dross get most of the attention. Another standard ECF ordering of affairs. Please do excuse my scorn.

The Qs read as a nostagia trip, an invitation to confirm or deny an appetite for the past. At no point was I asked if my priorities had changed. For example, at no point was I asked as a mere player if the 4NCL was now more important, more convivial, better quality, more motivating and a better use of my time. At no point was I asked if I felt the CC had been degraded beyond rescue by the introduction of u-180, u-160 and, God help us, u-140, u-120 and the utterly absurd u-100 nonsense. At no point was I asked to rank my (hitherto) problems as a captain - because top, by a wide margin, would be player availability, not biscuits on the day.

I could go on. But the will to live fades. A consultation isn't a consultation, it's a pretence, if it asks the wrong questions

There is "do you have any other comments?". I didn't, so I must have thought the questionnaire was ok.

I have to say that my reaction was that I would fill in "Other Comments" and omit the rest.

"I have to say that my reaction was that I would fill in "Other Comments" and omit the rest."

That seems the sensible approach - the management at the place I worked for some time produced questionnaires every couple of years and after the first attempt of course carefully avoided "other comments", and just had questions like, "Are the management (a) fantastic, (b) brilliant or (c) excellent?"

Closed questions are easier to process, but "other comments" usually attracts more useful answers.

Michael Farthing wrote:I have to say that my reaction was that I would fill in "Other Comments" and omit the rest.

So you did?

Not yet.

county-championships-consultation-2017 wrote:The ECF regularly receives comments from a number of these stakeholders about ways to improve the Championship

A pity these suggestions couldn't have been presented in the background information to the questionaire. I guess we'll have to wait to discover the details.

For convenience of those wishing to respond to the questionaire, the current rules of the ECF competition (2016-17 season) can be found of the foot of ECF website page: http://www.englishchess.org.uk/competit ... onships-2/

For SCCU member counties, the SCCU County Championship, an independant competition founded in 1894, provides a convenient qualification route to the ECF competition.

Michael Flatt wrote:For SCCU member counties, the SCCU County Championship, an independant competition founded in 1894, provides a convenient qualification route to the ECF competition.

I think this is important. If you ask a player from Kent, Essex, Middlesex, Surrey or Sussex how they feel about the County Championship, their reply is likely to be based on the SCCU competition. In a good year this is followed by a trip further afield, and possibly even the Finals.

Players from outside the South East may well have less satisfactory experiences.

NickFaulks wrote: In a good year this is followed by a trip further afield, and possibly even the Finals.

It's regarded as two separate competitions, a winter league and a summer knock-out.

Wide disparities of resources and strength can be accommodated in a knock out format. In a league format there's rather less point.

Neil Graham wrote:I have received details of a consultation on the County Championship.

See here :- http://www.englishchess.org.uk/county-c ... tion-2017/

May I suggest anyone who is interested or indeed uninterested or disinterested fill in the document?

The link at that link refers to itself (or at least it does right now).

It should link to here:

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/county-c ... tion-2017/

Very similar URLs (the latter has pluralised the championship), but different pages...

I started to fill in the consultation as a player but just gave up - the truth is that the county that I would choose to play for has no team - the questions didn't seem to allow for that option

I'm getting an error message but have now got it. I'll mention it at our match tomorrow. Only 30 years experience but then again I'm only a 55 yo puppy with a senior moment or two, & just about got over some lets say unpleasantness at a county match that has been subject on this forum & action by my county to avoid another incident in future.

There is a postcode lottery & commendable that SCCU recreated a North v South mega match last month.

For those who have valid comments to improve the county events, there is space to record these. Maybe pass on comments to your ECF Rep...Bronze, Silver, Gold.
There are some very good features of these competitions that deserve to be flagged up.
All these events require a certain amount of hard work to get them off the ground... finding team captains is but one.
Make no mistake, these events have much to offer to our chess communities..