ECF Annual General Meeting 13 October 2012

[Krishna Shiatis]

You don't represent all women, or even most of them.

No Sean, but we do represent a significant portion of the women on the forum. It is just this kind of attitude which drives away women from chess and chess hierarchy. Ignoring the few who are brave enough to post.

No one is pushing away existing female volunteers. Far from it.

Actually, yes you are. That is what I am trying to tell you.

[Sean Hewitt]

How council could think that it was preferable to have no one managing the membership scheme (now responsible for the majority of the ECF's funding) instead of Adam is beyond me.

This was largely the point I made at the meeting, albeit in less strident terms. I got a response that summed to "he has upset too many people to have on the board".

Thanks Rob. In which case my previous comment

The fiasco over Adam's non election seems to be more to do with personal agendas and vendettas than a rational judgement.

seems to it the nail on the head.

[Sean Hewitt]

No Sean, but we do represent a significant portion of the women on the forum. It is just this kind of attitude which drives away women from chess and chess hierarchy. Ignoring the few who are brave enough to post.

Posting on the forum doesn't qualify anyone for anything. The women who post on the forum are still a small minority of female chess players, just as the men who post here are a small minority (and an unrepresentative minority at that).

No one is pushing away existing female volunteers. Far from it.

Actually, yes you are. That is what I am trying to tell you.

Citation required Why don't you ask Jovanka what she thinks of my efforts regarding women's and girl's chess in England.

[Roger de Coverly]

Unless a similar debate was had about Chris Majer's election as Chair of the Governance Committee? I don't recall anyone disagreeing with the comment that it would be a waste of time for someone as well known as him to issue a statement.

The Governance Committee post is well established and it isn't expected the change of incumbent would make any difference to the functions. The position of Marketing and Membership is new, or at least recycled, so it's up to the prospective holder to define what the job would entail and a broad outline of the priorities. It's very possible that if a statement of intent had been made, it might have triggered an AGM motion to require that part of it should not be developed.

If you take the view that the ECF is run in part by a "not so secret" cabal of arbiters, it's evident that Adam has been banished from the inner circle.

[Krishna Shiatis]

Posting on the forum doesn't qualify anyone for anything. The women who post on the forum are still a small minority of female chess players, just as the men who post here are a small minority (and an unrepresentative minority at that).

Indeed, but that is not my point.

Citation required Why don't you ask Jovanka what she thinks of my efforts regarding women's and girl's chess in England.

You are changing the goalposts. I did not say you had not helped girls and women's chess. As always, misrepresenting.

I said that you are pushing away female volunteers with this attitude. I certainly would not volunteer now. As you said, I am just one. I would have thought that even one pushed away is one too many.

[David Shepherd]

That I have not been as active over the board as you is due entirely to the fact that whilst you were obsessing about the game I was in fact building up one of the North West's largest publishing companies. And even recently while you were obsessing with the membership scheme, I was, in the height of recession and for the fun of it, launching an entirely new venture - Google Gateway Gallery.

Rumor has it a marketing position has become available in a well know organisation

Has anyone ever considered splitting membership and marketing - possibly at a manger level, so one individual focusing on membership, increasing membership and providing benefits to members(e.g. discounts from commercial organisations. members website area ...) and one on bringing in external finance for the ECF? I guess though the ECF seem to have enough difficulty in getting one person let alone two.

[Sean Hewitt]

I said that you are pushing away female volunteers with this attitude. I certainly would not volunteer now. As you said, I am just one. I would have thought that even one pushed away is one too many.

You have previously posted that you are too busy with other things to get involved with the ECF. That's fine and perfectly reasonable. However, to now claim that I have pushed you away from something that you had previously ruled out is disingenuous.

[Roger de Coverly]

However, as a junior and a young (ish) man - I played rather a lot, I captained a strong Wythenshawe when it had Vic Knox and Paul Macklin in the team - I was for one year captain of Cheshire and North Wales and other clubs I have played for regularly include Chorlton, South Manchester, East Cheshire and Wilmslow.

According to the 1988 grading list, 117790E C141, up from 134.

As someone who was there, do you believe that the expansion of English chess in the 1970s and 1980s was despite or because of the near absence of membership requirements?

For those who don't recall the period, in addition to Government grants, team and event sponsorship, the BCF was financed by levies on county associations. On paper, at least, players had to be "registered" with the BCF to play in local leagues, county matches and National club and an annual form had to be filled in and membership slips issued. The levy was based on an approximation to head count and activity. In practice eligibility checking was almost non existent, helped by the absence of a central record. Much of the growth in numbers took place in Congresses which were almost autonomous from the BCF with no externally imposed membership requirements.

[Krishna Shiatis]

I said that you are pushing away female volunteers with this attitude. I certainly would not volunteer now. As you said, I am just one. I would have thought that even one pushed away is one too many.

You have previously posted that you are too busy with other things to get involved with the ECF. That's fine and perfectly reasonable. However, to now claim that I have pushed you away from something that you had previously ruled out is disingenuous.

What I said previously was true.

That I was considering since then, is also true.

That I would not now volunteer because of what I have seen is also true.

If you feel it is disingenuous, that is your opinion, but not true.

[Roger de Coverly]

Has anyone ever considered splitting membership and marketing - possibly at a manger level, so one individual focusing on membership, increasing membership and providing benefits to members(e.g. discounts from commercial organisations. members website area ...) and one on bringing in external finance for the ECF?

It's only recently merged them

But why is marketing seen as fund raising? Usually Marketing and sales are related, so in the case of the ECF, marketing is about promoting chess and the ECF's role in it.

[David Shepherd]

It's only recently merged them

Whoops

I guess I just got sick of the endless bickering and wanted to steer the thread towards suggesting things that may be of use

[Rob Thompson]

I certainly would not volunteer now.

I hadn't realised you were volunteering before. Perhaps I just missed you last weekend?

[Martin Regan]

RdC wrote:

According to the 1988 grading list, 117790E C141, up from 134.

As someone who was there, do you believe that the expansion of English chess in the 1970s and 1980s was despite or because of the near absence of membership requirements?

Ah yes but that was an old money grade - 160 in new money.

To your question. First I seem to recall that there was a membership requirement at that time or certainly in the early 1980s - I remember the little plastic BCF card.

But in reality I do not think the growth in chess at that time had anything at all to do with the BCF, membership or not.

But we are in different times and the purpose of a membership scheme should be not to raise money per se, but to raise money so it can be spent to try and increase chess participation at a competitive club level (which is where many of the problems lie).

That is why I wanted to start the debate about what chess players want from the ECF.

If they want strong national teams, soviet style chess academies and luxury playing conditions then they are going to need to pay for it. If they want just a grade and a national team of amateurs then the cost is less. You can have a membership of £100 or £5. I would have tried to deliver either, if people had then willing to actually join the debate.

If the ECF now introduces membership and just carries on as is, then I would actually accept that this is a bad thing.

At the very least they should be looking at OMOV and also a whole raft of measures to help chess clubs on the ground prosper. One of things I was actually working on before I left was to to get the local newspaper groups around the country to take a syndicated chess column, free of charge, from a leading GM - with space beneath for news from the local chess club. This should be the type of thing that the ECF does and , in my opinion, it is immeasurably easier to deliver such things under a membership model.

[Krishna Shiatis]

I certainly would not volunteer now.

I hadn't realised you were volunteering before. Perhaps I just missed you last weekend?

I never said I was volunteering for the ECF Rob, (I do volunteer for KJCA).

I said that I was considering.

[Roger de Coverly]

But we are in different times and the purpose of a membership scheme should be not to raise money per se, but to raise money so it can be spent to try and increase chess participation at a competitive club level (which is where many of the problems lie).

You want to raise money from club players .. to spend money on club players.

Membership requirements are a headache that you have to work around when trying to structure teams. It's my belief that compulsory membership and leagues as we know them just are not compatible in the longer term. The USCF has always had compulsory membership. Here and there, they have a sufficient density of players to support evening leagues. These are invariably not USCF rated, so don't require membership.

http://cclny.comlu.com/chess/CCLNY/cclny.htm
http://www.chicagochessleague.org/cicl/History.htm
http://www.liicl.com/