My Resignation

[Alex McFarlane]

I can deny that it was me - besides the Board will tell you I wasn't sacked, simply not reappointed or as one Director put it "I no longer have confidence in (you)".

I think it is safe to say that if I had been able to make things public I would have done it here first.

[Carl Hibbard]

I think it is safe to say that if I had been able to make things public I would have done it here first.

Is is perhaps time to let everything be known as the ECF seem to be remaining quiet?

[Roger de Coverly]

Is is perhaps time to let everything be known as the ECF seem to be remaining quiet?

Latest on the Giddins blog is that CJ wanted the Darwin money transferred to his control so as to ring fence it exclusively for payments to and for the top players. There could have been other ways of achieving this, but again why not announce this last year before the Congress started, or no later than the AGM? The organisers of the British have many years of experience and are surely familiar with sponsor or benefactor requirements to direct particular payments to particular purposes. The JRT amount has to be ring fenced for juniors for instance. I'm not familiar with the ECF's banking arrangements, but would it have been possible to open a bank account in the ECF's name but with access controlled mostly by CJ and used exclusively for ECF payments to top players?

[John Upham]

According to SGs latest blog:

The federation’s Director of Home Chess (and possibly its next CEO, if rumours are true…)

What rumours?

[John McKenna]

Andrew Zigmond >... come to Scarborough... <
Did make it one year and the saw the famous bay and grand hotel where the 1930 Masters Tournament (1. Colle; 2. Maroczy; 3. Rubinstein...) was held that summer. Enjoyed the ambience.

[Alex McFarlane]

If the post script to SG's blog is true then that is another reason that De Mooi owes the organisers an apology. If true then it shows that despite statements to the contrary the Board had no faith in the organisers, otherwise it would have insisted that things were done properly and with a proper auditing trail. We would certainly then have known what the tax situation was/is!

We had been made aware that the sponsorship money was specifically for conditions. With our agreement Adam Raoof had been trying to find a Press Officer. At that time we were cursing the fact that we would need to maximise the return to the sponsor by attempting to raise the coverage of the event even though it was thought that the costs of the PO would put the Championships into the red.

This is the first time I have heard this claim. I hope that someone on the Board will confirm or deny it.

[David Lettington]

What rumours?

I thought that you national chess journos were supposed to get the rumours first?

Perhaps some BCM investigative journalism is required. No need for phone hacking though......

[John McKenna]

Are we about to witness 'Battle-gate'?
I do hope that there will be no 'whitewash' at the Watch Oak!

[John Upham]

What rumours?

I thought that you national chess journos were supposed to get the rumours first?

I could ask Adam but he will deny it - he can be a real tease!

[Ian Kingston]

Latest on the Giddins blog is that CJ wanted the Darwin money transferred to his control so as to ring fence it exclusively for payments to and for the top players.

Would it have been so difficult to set up a separate bank account for this purpose? I know very little about accountancy and bookkeeping, but this strikes me as being a simple and transparent solution. I certainly wouldn't fancy having £15000 or so 'resting' (see Father Ted) in my account.

[Jonathan Bryant]

What rumours?

I thought that you national chess journos were supposed to get the rumours first?

Perhaps some BCM investigative journalism is required. No need for phone hacking though......

BCM investigative journalism is required and long overdue. Same is true for CHESS, of course.

[John Upham]

BCM investigative journalism is required and long overdue. Same is true for CHESS, of course.

We are attempting to coax Roger Cook out of retirement.

[Matthew Turner]

Perhaps it is worth deleting a few posts here so that we can get back to the more substantive points of the thread.

[David Pardoe]

We appear to be well into the `CJ bashing` season just now, with abuse being hurled from the touchlines, and some seemingly wanting to settle scores.
Is this a wise approach..?
No wonder our President has fallen silent of late....
Looking back briefly at CJ`s record. He`s made (along with others), considerable efforts to try to raise British/ECF chess from under a cloud. Great fund raising initiatives and efforts to raise the profile of our chess scene...not least those `Simultaineous` tours with Nigel Short. The Staunton Dinner. And then we had a tremendous British Championships, where an unpresidented number of our top GMs turned out to produce one of the best events for many years, at least from a `British` perspective. I cant imagine how much time CJ must have spent making personal telephone calls, trying to persuade all parties to join forces for Great British at Sheffield...huge amounts of time and effort. Take a bow CJ for that 5 minute standing ovation you never got for these personal efforts.
Yes, maybe in 1997, we had some world class GMs, bussed in from across the globe, all expenses paid...no questions asked...first class on Air India, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, or whereever. And off they went...smash and grab raid completed, leaving our home players empty handed. So what did we do...yes, typical...we booted them out.
So, CJ & team have certainly had to do some tough wheeling and dealing to get so many of our GMs on board last year. And lets face it...fund raising for the ECF is a thankless task, at least it has been as long as I can remember. Part of the problem is `too many wanting to take-out` and not quite so many being willing to give....?
I`m not sure that a defined `process` as such could work for the `British` ...more a question of individuals using there creative talents to try to do there best to get a result under very challenging circumstances. We have very few such people who are prepared to give up these vast amounts of time and energy (free...), and risk/use there own finances, in order to further the cause of British Chess, In short, I know of nobody who could have got close to achieving what CJ has achieved...I certainly dont see anyone with a magic wand coming forward to carry the banner for British/ECF chess. So, I`d urge some restraint in this mud slinging contest, lest we move from having one extremely creative talant trying to better our Chess, to having absolutely no-one....and we become reduced to a whinging rabble...
No, I`m not for one minute suggesting that everything is swept under the carpet...let there be proper enquiries, using normal process. Let confidences be respected. Let there be less `lynch mob rule`, and calling for heads to roll...and less demands for people to hang out there dirty linnen....
Meanwhile, those claiming to be whiter than white, who think they could do better are welcome to stand for posts that are democratically up for grabs at various AGMs. And maybe more of our `delegates` could actually make the effort once a year to turn out and raise questions/join debates, rather than dishing out `proxies`, which some people collect like `trophies`, to wave symbolically as power tokens.
This is one reason I`m so keen to see OMOV and online voting for the Membership. If there are say 10,000 Members, and say only 5 -10% of these actually vote (online), that would give an active pool of about 700 or so voters...quite a good number. So, if you said that 10 online votes equalled 1 delegate vote, it would give an effective voting pool of say 70 votes at the AGM, which could be quite an influencial body, expressing a `grass roots` opinion. I believe this could be very useful.
Yes, I`m all in favour at looking for more effective ways to ensure things are run properly, but I do think we need to address the issues that our elected leaders face...namely having totally unreasonable workloads and impossible challenges...which they are then expected to deliver in a flawless manner.
Finally, one small point regarding oversight of the board.. We elect Non Exec Directors. There role is to oversee matters of conduct on the board by board members, and challenge anything that is not in order. This is a statutory obligation, so maybe our Non Execs have role to play in keeping good order.

Yes, lets by all means make it a priority to improve process......and learn from our mistakes.

[John McKenna]

After Matthew Turner's request to have some posts deleted I posted the following -
"Life's a joke and all things show it, I thought it once and now I know it." (epitaph of John Gay, author of The Beggars Opera)
And,
"I'll get my coat." (Fast Show)
It never appeared!?