2010 Annual General Meeting

[LozCooper]

Malcolm was not there. I know he is busy but it is a good idea to turn up if you are standing for office (even if there is nobody standing against you).

I think if he'd been there (or submitted something in advance saying why he was standing) the outcome would have been different. As it was, anyone undecided heard that he'd trashed the JRT in his column and had no intention of attending meetings or reading e-mails. Probably not the ideal cv for being a Non Executive Director in hindsight.

[benedgell]

Playing Devil's advocate here for a second, there are 2 questions that I can't help but wonder, that undoubtedly Malcolm would've been able to answer:

1. What would Malcolm bring to his role as Non Executive Director that he doesn't already bring to English chess from outside of the ECF?

2. Why does Malcolm want the role of NED?

A lot of people rightly quote Malcolm's ability to raise funds for chess, and his enthusiasm and drive for improving English Chess, but I'm not sure what would change to those 2 ends were he in the role of NED.

On the other side of things, am I right in saying John Paines was brought in for a fairly similar role in the past with no vote necessary? Couldn't the board repeat the process with Malcolm if they wished to?

[Alex Holowczak]

On the other side of things, am I right in saying John Paines was brought in for a fairly similar role in the past with no vote necessary? Couldn't the board repeat the process with Malcolm if they wished to?

John stood for President against CJ last year. It was agreed that CJ would be President, and John would Chair the meetings. Hence the post of Chairman was created. (Someone else can provide more details.)

The Board has the power to appoint the two Board vacancies internally. I don't know if there's a rule that stops them electing Malcolm. I do know that it would be politically dodgy to do so.

[Rob Thompson]

I do know that it would be politically dodgy to do so.

So? Sounds as if something to shake council up a bit (such as this) is probably worth doing. It would be interesting to see what happens, anyway

[Carl Hibbard]

1. What would Malcolm bring to his role as Non Executive Director that he doesn't already bring to English chess from outside of the ECF?

That is an excellent question, he has an account here so it would be interesting to get his perspective on this and what happened yesterday as well

[Matthew Turner]

The perspective of a successful chess related businessman? What more do you want?

[Carl Hibbard]

The perspective of a successful chess related businessman? What more do you want?

Of course, so perhaps the Marketing role would have been better than the NED one?

[Angus French]

The perspective of a successful chess related businessman? What more do you want?

Of course, so perhaps the Marketing role would have been better than the NED one?

But would there then be a risk of conflicts of interest?

If it's true that Malcolm Pein didn't attend the meeting, gave no election address, wanted his correspondence to be filtered and wanted an "alternate" to often act on his behalf then it seems to me that his candidature was half-hearted at best... Which is a shame as I think it could be useful to have the country's leading chess entrepreneur as a NED of the country's chess federation.

Something else: I don't see how it can work that a Board Member of a CLG filters the correspondence of a NED. I see a significant part of the role of a NED as being to keep an eye on the Board and the proposed filtering arrangement would presumably prejudice the NED's ability to do that.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The perspective of a successful chess related businessman? What more do you want?

Of course, so perhaps the Marketing role would have been better than the NED one?

But would there then be a risk of conflicts of interest?

If it's true that Malcolm Pein didn't attend the meeting, gave no election address, wanted his correspondence to be filtered and wanted an "alternate" to often act on his behalf then it seems to me that his candidature was half-hearted at best... Which is a shame as I think it could be useful to have the country's leading chess entrepreneur as a NED of the country's chess federation.

Something else: I don't see how it can work that a Board Member of a CLG filters the correspondence of a NED. I see a significant part of the role of a NED as being to keep an eye on the Board and the proposed filtering arrangement would presumably prejudice the NED's ability to do that.

Talking of filtering mail, I've been part of some organisations that had, shall we say, high-volume/traffic mailing lists, and from my experience such high volume or lack of mailing list discipline is due to either trying to do too much on one list, or lack of discipline on the part of those particiapting in said mailing lists (I should say here that I've lacked such discipline in the past and still do, to some extent). If it would make sense for the ECF to set up further subsidiary mailing lists, or keep the focus on the main Board mailing list more, well, focused, then that should be done, as it can really help focus what an organisation does and how efficiently the time of its members is spent.

[Alex Holowczak]

I see a significant part of the role of a NED as being to keep an eye on the Board

A few people have said this, and I don't understand why? What exactly are the Board going to do that warrants babysitting?

[Ljubica Lazarevic]

My understanding of a NED is to be an independent body from the organisation so that they can, with impartiality, monitor the board for any potential issues that may affect the legal and lawful standing of the organisation, as well as monitor operations for any issues with strategy, planning and goal-making. Based on that, I'd quite like to know that a NED is doing his best to monitor all actions and correspondences of the board.

If the ECF wants to take advantage of a successful businessman for raising revenue and marketing, perhaps a role as Director of Marketing would be far more suitable, rather than do this from a position where they can no longer maintain their impartiality with the organisation...

[John Upham]

I certainly wish I was working with Malcolm when it comes to marketing CoM and as for a large commercial opportunity that slipped away then I'm confident we'd be benefiting from it now had he been on board at the time. At least he would have know what an iPad and iPhone were!

[Carl Hibbard]

All game results to be made accessible on the grading website as a benefit for all players, with a view to providing further enhancements beyond that to members.

Which option was chosen on this one does anyone know please?

All players see everything or games breakdown is only visible for an ECF member or on an ECF member?

[LozCooper]

All game results to be made accessible on the grading website as a benefit for all players, with a view to providing further enhancements beyond that to members.

Which option was chosen on this one does anyone know please?

All players see everything or games breakdown is only visible for an ECF member or on an ECF member?

All players see everything with members receiving additional perks at the discretion of Carl Hibbard

[Carl Hibbard]

1. What would Malcolm bring to his role as Non Executive Director that he doesn't already bring to English chess from outside of the ECF?

That is an excellent question, he has an account here so it would be interesting to get his perspective on this and what happened yesterday as well

He should be 'here' shortly once we get his access sorted out