Chief Executive 2021

[Chris Goodall]

Is there not an element of score settling going on from some quarters? I believe Roger Emerson was a member of the Pearce committee which reported on ECF governance.

And of the three-person panel that threw out Tim's complaint that the Development Officer hiring hadn't been sufficiently stitched up in his own favour.

Something I'm sure he won't have to worry about with Malcolm as CEO and Chris as governance chair.

[Jon Tait]

The Govt can do things quickly, if for example, lots of people are dying. They may not have done it perfectly (but who would?), but that really was important.

Since you've needlessly inserted your own politics re COVID into this thread:

The government did not "do things quickly" at all. That was one of their major failings. Just one.

As for not having "done it perfectly": That's an absolute understatement. Almost anybody – including the previous Conservative administration – would have done it much better.

Doubtless this will all come out at some stage in a public enquiry – whenever that might be – but until then the entire shambles has been very well documented (up to Jan 2021) by journalists for the Sunday Times: see here.

Returning to the topic at hand: I'd just say that, having read this entire thread, I now care even less who wins this ECF election than I did before, which was already very little.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Since you've needlessly inserted your own politics re COVID into this thread:"

Arrant nonsense.

[David Sedgwick]

Deleted

[Matt Mackenzie]

"Since you've needlessly inserted your own politics re COVID into this thread:"

Arrant nonsense.

Whether "political" or not, your claim was a matter of subjective opinion rather than established fact.

[Wadih Khoury]

I am sure others can bring more ideas to the table, but as I see it, chess sponsoring brings at least a couple of things:

• Associate your brand with a "serious" and "intellectual" activity. In some countries it can be associated with other notions like "elite" or "perfect gentleman".
• Increase brand awareness with your future employees by funding the junior end of the spectrum. Junior chess players tend to be from ambitious professional backgrounds that are likely to be profiles of interest for some companies

Per example, in France I saw the Boston Consulting Group finance the creation of a new junior chess club in Paris. They gave hard cash to pay coaches, but also offer some head office space on Saturdays.
In England, we are lucky (or unlucky depending on the point of view) to have a thriving banking and consulting industry. Many of these companies, if properly approached, could also finance the chess circuit at little cost to them while increasing their visibility with potential future employees.

Chess tournaments and clubs in many other countries find private sponsorship, so surely we have something to offer back to them.

And that's before even getting into public sponsorship. I am still amazed how local council abroad offer their amazing historical town halls for a chess tournament (gaining visibility and tourists), but here they would rather keep their assets unused rather than give it for free to an activity that cause little disruption and has an overall positive image.
Just thinking of my own little town, if I were to organise a 50 player tournament, surely that would attract about 100 people to the town for 2 days, that will spend in local supermarkets and restaurants and maybe even hotels. And the council could brag about organising a chess tournament and encouraging children development, etc...

I am not a marketing guy, so I am sure someone could have worded the above much better than I would, so please focus on the essence of the message (there is money out there, and people do find benefits in funding us) rather than my convoluted word smithing.

On the topic of sponsoring, someone shared a link to Judith Polgar's chess festival
https://globalchessfestival.com/gcf-202 ... it-contest

You can see a lot of references to Morgan Stanley which seem to be heavily sponsoring the event.

Surely in the UK we can get one or multiple of Goldman, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Bain, Accenture, KPMG, Microsoft, etc... to sponsor either money or venue space in order to either finance the learning part of chess (financing coaches, local events, clubs) or the viability of chess as a career (increased value and number of prizes in tournaments).

[Roger de Coverly]

Just thinking of my own little town, if I were to organise a 50 player tournament, surely that would attract about 100 people to the town for 2 days, that will spend in local supermarkets and restaurants and maybe even hotels. And the council could brag about organising a chess tournament and encouraging children development, etc...

That depends where and when it's held. Many tournaments attract a high number of local residents, so there's not much extra spending on hotels and restaurants. In fact a tournament usually needs a bedrock of local support. Hopefully it's one of the ways of getting casual players to "turn professional". In others words play serious chess with clocks and ratings.

[John Swain]

Mike Truran and Malcolm Pein have reached an agreement. Mike will now stand unopposed as CEO with Malcolm continuing as International Director:

https://developingenglishchess.com/stat ... colm-pein/

[Matthew Turner]

I didn't see that coming

[JustinHorton]

Do we still get to see Chris Fegan get pasted

[Jonathan Rogers]

"piece in our time", to help out anyone writing tabloid headlines

[JustinHorton]

It was clear to me that both candidates had considerable support and that the electoral outcome would be quite close

Uh huh

[John Swain]

Malcolm has tweeted:

"Delighted to announce I have reached agreement with Mike Truran on a way forward on the key policy issues so there is no need to have an election. Very pleased with the outcome and the depth of support I enjoyed across the country."

[Jonathan Rogers]

It was clear to me that both candidates had considerable support and that the electoral outcome would be quite close

Uh huh

No doubt Mike was the clear favourite and, er, no doubt that is relevant background to the agreement (!). But, what Malcolm says also seems right in itself.

[Carl Hibbard]

Do we still get to see Chris Fegan get pasted

I doubt it.