AGM : 15 October 2011

[Alex McFarlane]

Can anyone say what the effect of the non-acceptance of the accounts will have on the loan from the Robinson Trust?

If I were a Trustee of that fund I would be very worried about giving money to the ECF. I emphasise that I have not spoken to any of the Trustees.

[Roger de Coverly]

. I would have ECF retain its monopoly of a national/FIDE grading system: no membership, no grade.

That of itself breaks the player requirement. Assuming that the closed shop is lifted to the extent that you are allowed to play non-members, you want to know the non-members' past results and how good they are. So you should grade and publish everyone or no-one.

If you can make "having a grade" an elite accomplishment in its own right, you may be able to get away with it. So make "ungraded" a term of abuse, then individual payment for grading can work.

[Roger de Coverly]

If it was me, I wouldn't have issued the accounts, I would have said I have no confidence in their accuracy

That's all very well, but when was the closing date, 30th April or 31st May? It's not some obscure accounting point, but fundamental stuff about how the ECF collects money and who it collects it from. Presumably the Finance Council was distracted by the Option 1/ Option 2 vote, otherwise the issue was there in the provisional forecasts.

The Board too must have been distracted, to have failed to notice.

[John Philpott]

Alex McFarlane wrote

Can anyone say what the effect of the non-acceptance of the accounts will have on the loan from the Robinson Trust?

None whatsoever: the accounts will be approved in due course by written resolution after the issues have been resolved.

[Roger de Coverly]

3. Chess events in this country are largely not organized by the ECF directly, so they can still continue even if the ECF goes under.

ECF loyalists dispute this, but most of the chess in England has little or no reliance on the ECF or its staffed office. The choke points would be international angles and grading. If in the future, the grading database was on ECF servers, that increases dependency.

[Sean Hewitt]

ECF loyalists dispute this, but most of the chess in England has little or no reliance on the ECF or its staffed office. The choke points would be international angles and grading. If in the future, the grading database was on ECF servers, that increases dependency.

It would be straightforward to set up a new national grading system. FIDE have a process for rating events where there is no national federation in place.

[Paul Cooksey]

3. Chess events in this country are largely not organized by the ECF directly, so they can still continue even if the ECF goes under.

ECF loyalists dispute this, but most of the chess in England has little or no reliance on the ECF or its staffed office..

Even if the ECF does not organise events, it legitimises them. If it disappeared I imagine most events would continue as they are for a while. But eventually it would becomes contentious which are legitimate events.

I think it would be hard to find a successful sport without a governing body.

[Roger de Coverly]

I think it would be hard to find a successful sport without a governing body.

Some formats of Poker maybe if you class them as a sport.

I think there's general agreement that the chess infrastructure is sufficiently resilient that it could survive the collapse of the ECF and allow time for a replacement body to be set up.

[David Pardoe]

. And the ECF must be legally reconstituted as a voluntary association of individually subscribing members, thereby dissolving Company, Board and the rest of that tiresome clutter.

Ok so you've just done all that. Where do Clubs, Counties, Leagues and Congresses fit in?

One of the most astonishing aspects of the ECF as an organisation, made yet more astonishing by yesterday's shift to membership, is that it recognises every kind of organisational sub-unit within its domain except the unit players actually join. Nowhere are clubs recognised. I'd start there. And I'd pretty much finish there too. I'd disintermediate the current structure, scrapping regions, counties and certainly, congresses, as political units of the ECF. Under fire in an argument, I might recognise some kind of place for counties and regions because I accept that practice and experience varies in different parts of the country. For now though, I'd press for a national model based on Player-Club-ECF

Would you demand that all bodies offering chess services exclusively supply only members of your "voluntary" association?

For me, 'voluntary' means voluntary. I would have ECF retain its monopoly of a national/FIDE grading system: no membership, no grade. But I would decouple it from a 'right to play' at the club level, accepting that some players are simply 'social players' for whom a grade may not be important. Instead, under my own draft membership proposals published to another thread, I'd create a Bronze category membership - much as we plan to have - which would seek to attract those players voluntarily into basic membership. I concede I need to think through the 'free-rider' (leakage) problem a bit more.

This is a sketch. It's not the last word. It isn't even my last word.

The current structure is not necessarily wrong in terms of basic building blocks.
ie, Unions (overlooked by some), Counties, Leagues, Congresses, Junior groups, clubs....and members.
Maybe even `web` players and correspondance players to be included.
All perfectly fine constituent groups.
Two problems...first theres no clear structure, ...second the disjoint between these leads to disfunctionality...not least random AGMs which dont capture key events, so dont express a view on key issues to there delegates. eg, one recent league AGM, covering all clubs, failed to debate the ECF Membership scheme. That should have been the place where views were sort. Failing that, all club secretaries should have been directly consulted. This is not a criticism of the league body, but merely indicative of the failings of these organisations.
One of the problems is the `lets keep things simple` mentality.
This is a cover in many cases, for those who simply cant be bothered to do things properly...so we end up with a shambles that needs sorting.
Another problem is simple communication. eg, a local club held its AGM recently. They never thought to advertize this to the members, nor even email members with a reminder...not to mention an agenda?
Yet another concern is the way that some can `use` the rules to steer things in a particular direction, which is not to the benefit of the general membership, and certainly can in no way be described as `democratic`.
So, its right through the strata that things dont work.
Take last w/e ECF AGM...how many delegates actually bothered to contact there membership and properly consult about various points.... I`d be surprised if even 50% managed any direct and meaningful communication. What that means is you end up with a meeting where Delegates can simply pluck an option out of thin space and cast there vote? Democracy gone sadly wrong. Dubious Director appointments can be a kick in the teeth for any organisation.
Then again, you get cases where issues are debated, but if delegates are already committed to voting ion a particular way, the value of any debate can be lost, because the voting is already predetermined.
So, the basic model could work better...but problems can be compounded by certain groups playing power politics and operating `closed shops`, so they dont hear what they dont want to hear. Quite often `rules` are cynically used to steer things in certain directions, in what many might regard as a blatant abuse of power, or manipulation of rules. Such practices should be curtailed...maybe a complaints group should be established.
Thats one reason why a OMOV, at various levels could be very beneficial...based exclusively on `electronic votes`.
But the various bodies need to be seen to be consulting more widely and effectively with there memberships (and not just selected subsets).
The other historical issue is about `territory`. I think this needs to be addressed with a little flexibility, but essentially, from an administrative perspective, official county boundaries should be respected. League overlaps are another matter.
Taking MO`s as an example of potential conflict. I`d start by restricting MO`s to just Union and county bodies.
Taking Congresses (on another tac). Congresses must declare there membership (email list), and demonstrate that they have consulted, in order to qualify for voting rights...as should other bodies.
If some of these points could be addressed, I`m sure the infrastructure could be made to work more effectively.
One final point. All these constituent groups must operate by a fair and democratic set of rules. Should they not do so, then complaints to the ECF should be possible, and penalties/sanctions applied. These could include fines, and suspension from voting.
Looking broadly, we have all these bodies who collectively drive UK chess...that should be the key purpose.
Do we need to be divided into `amateur & professional`. My gut feeling is no. Whilst those who do happen to earn good money from chess or whatever, should pay due taxes etc...chess does not merit a `professional` label. Lets save that for the really big boys..playing golf, tennis, snooker, and those grotesquely overpaid football muppits.
Maybe we do need some form of Charter which binds constituent groups more committedly into the `club`, and has an agreed standard of conduct.
All of this is of course just an outline framework....and just my observations.

[Andrew Farthing]

I've posted a reasonably full account of the decisions taken at Saturday's AGM on my blog http://englishchess.org.uk/farthing/. Sorry it's taken until now - I took a day away from ECF work yesterday. The full Minutes will be published as soon as I've written them and circulated them to the Board.

I recently made arrangements for the Comments facility to be activated on the ChEx blog, so I can receive comments and questions there as well as on this forum.

[John Philpott]

Andrew Farthing wrote

Sorry it's taken until now - I took a day away from ECF work yesterday

I don't think that anybody could reasonably begrudge you the day off!

[Roger de Coverly]

I've posted a reasonably full account of the decisions taken at Saturday's AGM on my blog http://englishchess.org.uk/farthing/. .

There's also your observations on the Witney rapidplay. I note from the entry form for this event no mention of grading, Game Fee or membership requirements, so unless there's evidence to the contrary I'd assume it won't be graded. Do you think this type of local event with no direct connection to the ECF is a prototype for the future?

It's my understanding that to run such an event in the future and have it graded, it will be necessary either to restrict entries to Silver or Gold members of the ECF, or to charge an extra £ 6 for every non-member and Bronze member.

[Andrew Farthing]

There's also your observations on the Witney rapidplay. I note from the entry form for this event no mention of grading, Game Fee or membership requirements, so unless there's evidence to the contrary I'd assume it won't be graded. Do you think this type of local event with no direct connection to the ECF is a prototype for the future?

It's my understanding that to run such an event in the future and have it graded, it will be necessary either to restrict entries to Silver or Gold members of the ECF, or to charge an extra £ 6 for every non-member and Bronze member.

Your understanding is correct. As for whether it's a prototype for the future, that's for others to decide.

I was happy just to be present at a friendly, well-run event and I hope that it continues to thrive, whatever decisions the organisers may take over its future form. It was an interesting example of a successful event with no monetary prizes (there were trophies, medals and certificates, so the junior players all went away with something to show for their day) and, as a result, very low entry fees.

[Roger de Coverly]

As for whether it's a prototype for the future, that's for others to decide.

Exactly, and if you are involved with similar events, you have to decide whether to put a £ 6 difference in entry fees between members and non-members/club members or whether to make the event wholly or partly ungraded.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

As for whether it's a prototype for the future, that's for others to decide.

Exactly, and if you are involved with similar events, you have to decide whether to put a £ 6 difference in entry fees between members and non-members/club members or whether to make the event wholly or partly ungraded.

Is there not a current rebate that can be claimed by members anyway? I can't remember what that is, but I remember claiming it a few times on entry forms by quoting my ECF membership number. So surely events already have to factor in things like this?