ECF Council: Issues within Paper C29.12, Challenges for English Chess (in particular,The Development Manager)

[Hok Yin Stephen Chiu]

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[Roger de Coverly]

(admittedly, I don't really care if they are ECF members of not, as long as people are getting involved and becoming club members).

The ECF should perhaps clarify its thinking on this. Is it looking to convert people who already play some form of competitive chess into ECF membership? Or is it seeking to attract entirely new players? If it had to choose one or the other, which is its choice?

[Michael Farthing]

The development manager will not, as I understand it, be a director as Hok seems to think (apologies if I've misunderstood you).

I can't see a problem with the model. However, I don't think it will work and there are no details of what sort of actions the manager will take. Is he going to put adverts in local papers saying "Why not join a chess club"; offer free advertising on the ECF site to firms that sponsor an in-house club? provide newsletters to club and league secretaries with tips for increasing participation? Maybe a travelling grandmaster doing simuls? I really have no idea. We did have a publicity manager for a while who worked with local groups to put on chess events - it got quite a lot of stick, though personally I thought he made a good stab at it and he had some worthwhile ideas. Ultimately, though, it was not generating much change.

It looks a little as if the Board hopes to appoint a professional fund raiser who will (obviously ) know how to do it. In fairness, they do say that the appointment will only happen if they find the right person. I'm not convinced that the right person will give much time for a base salary of £5000.

[Hok Yin Stephen Chiu]

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[Roger de Coverly]

Again, I have the same concerns.

I had the impression Tim Wall may have been pencilled in for this job having written the (unpublished) development paper, but with Alex H moving sideways, he's standing for Home Director instead.
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-cont ... m-Wall.pdf

Also in
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=9839&start=15

At the time, I was essentially arguing for the creation of the post of Development Officer, but since the post of Director of Home Chess will become vacant in October, it makes sense for me to aim to carry out the plans put forward in that paper from the Board. If that means that someone else is employed by the ECF to carry out the Development Plan reporting to the Director of Home Chess, that's fine by me.

[Andrew Zigmond]

I'm sorry Hok but I have to disagree. I don't consider the paper to be irresponsible. Slightly overambitious perhaps but for the first time the ECF is focusing on the area that most needs attention; attracting new players to the game. I hate disagreeing with you as I see you as one of the new generation of chess visionaries that the English game needs (Peter Hornsby is another example). This is completely different to some contributors to this forum (three in particular) who are negative about everything the ECF does without offering anything positive or constructive of their own.

When the late Martin Regan was reflecting on his (ultimately unsuccessful) stint as CEO he made an interesting comment. Upon being elected to the role he spoke to as many players as he could make contact with and asked the question, `What do you want the ECF to be?` Once he had a consensus he would try to make that happen but he would also need to tell them how much it would cost. If they weren't prepared to pay for it there was nothing he could do. I didn't agree with Martin Regan on everything but he was (literally) bang on the money with that one.

The ECF will always be the umbrella rather than the person clutching it. They will provide the overall strategy and structure. People like you and me on the ground will have to do our own thing and adjust accordingly to local issues (our main disagreement seems to be whether ECF membership is a disincentive or not). But hopefully we will soon have an overall strategy to be part of rather than working in a vacuum.

Sponsorship; whether we like it or not there are only two people in English chess who have the ability to pull in the big corporate money we need. Even the most generous assessment of one of them suggests he is a maverick who doesn't work well within the ECF. That leaves us with Malcolm Pein; the man who has negotiated the sponsorship with Capital Developments that has given the British championship a shot in the arm. Malcolm has been distracted by his international ambitions lately but I'm sure he will continue to seek a sponsor for the national teams. If he can't do it - who can? And I don't think it's simply a case of local sponsorship being magnified on a national scale. There are many local organisations who are happy to give community grants. For a big corporation there is no real return on sponsoring chess so a five figure philanthropic donation is all we can expect.

[Angus French]

if that someone [the Development Manager] somehow hits the 500 new members a year target

... the bonus and expenses will be covered by the ECF via the increases in membership growth for the first year of membership over and above the current growth plans of 500 per annum over the next three years.

As I read it, the Development Manager won't get paid a bonus or expenses unless the growth in membership is above a net 500 new members a year. To achieve the maximum bonus (of £5K) and payment for expenses (also of £5K) I guess the growth in new members would have to be something like a 1000 a year.

Edit: corrected typo.

[Angus French]

I had the impression Tim Wall may have been pencilled in for this job having written the (unpublished) development paper...

What the Board's 'Challenges for English Chess..' paper doesn't explain is *how* membership numbers might be increased and how the appeal of competitive chess can be widened. I suspect the Board has missed a trick in not also publishing Tim's paper which explains his ideas on this.

[Hok Yin Stephen Chiu]

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[Paul Cooksey]

This is completely different to some contributors to this forum (three in particular) who are negative about everything the ECF does without offering anything positive or constructive of their own.

Does anyone know who the third one is? I'm thinking of organising a curry.

[Michael Farthing]

What, on Saturday? Is this a bribe? I'm easily bought!

[Nick Grey]

It sounds to me that Micha?el Farthing ought to change his name to Mick Cash a union leader getting paid more than the PM & holding the commuters & other travellers to ransom. Those that are attending.

Or is Michael now Hurricane Michael 2018. I'll save the weather issues up for other posts.

Anyway what are the ECF going to do about travel or organisers?
Lay on minibuses, car sharing schemes etc to get players to evening chess & congresses.

Nice big one coming 23/10 for a week. I have already taken 6 days annual leave this year because my 10 trains an hour is now 2 an hour & you can't get on the trains.

Why have payment targets - seems pointless & a strange budget item. If the monies going towards chess curries, chess in the pub or wine bar that is completely acceptable / no sugar tax beverages or removing plastics that is fine by me. Or paper too.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I hope Hok gets involved with ECF at some stage (although I would really understand if he didn't want to!) He seems full of ideas, but more importantly listens to other points of view, which is pretty rare anywhere, let alone this forum.

As for a "Development Manager", I'm not convinced that basing a bonus on targets which are achieved by other people is a great idea. Admittedly, the company for which I was formerly employed did that as well, but I thought that was stupid as well. The DM is going to have to rely on local people doing the actual work, so (s)he is more likely to be an "enabler" than a "doer".

One local pub in Redhill has a table where people frequently play chess. Recently, we went there after we had finished at the club, and they had more people playing than we did... It is doubtful any would want to play seriously, but at least they were playing. If that's repeated in 100 million pubs, you would have a lot of players.

[NickFaulks]

As for a "Development Manager", I'm not convinced that basing a bonus on targets which are achieved by other people is a great idea.

Nor do I, but presumably that's what the person who is going to get the job wants.