Candidates for office

[Michael Flatt]

Nice to see Angus comments with at least confirmation that this forum is prohibited.

Carl, I think that attitudes have changed. There has been discussion on the ECF Forum regarding its purpose and even resulted in the Commercial Director wanting to resign but because he had not submitted his resignation in the required formal manner it was rejected.

There can be no doubt that EC Forum provides an essential service to chess players which the official ECF forum fails to do and it now tacitly accepts the reality.

It may have been the intention of the ECF Board to ignore this forum but in practice this is where the real discussion takes place. There are still some ECF officials who have no kind words, only abuse, for this site. They should be ignored.

I have posted on the ECF forum and my experience is that engagement with chess players is minimal. It has merely become the official organ for publishing official announcements.

The ECF website is not fully maintained and information of interest to me is often out-of-date or impossible to locate. In the past, I have made suggestions to the webmaster but he has no time to pursue any of them, even if he agreed with them.

The comments in Angus French's report as NED clearly identify that the ECF Board has no focus. I suspect that this is not a surprise to chess players at large. Some Board members have a clear idea of what is required but generally they do not gain the necessary support. It seems to be typical of voluntary organisations in the UK.

[Steve Rooney]

A non executive director who is on the board to represent the interests of ordinary members has no business accepting a muzzle when it comes to participating in an open forum. This self-imposed ban by most of the board directors is frankly pathetic and stupid, but for an NED to go along with it is especially concerning. (I do however respect Angus' decision to be the only one to tell members about it.)

The leadership of the ECF board appears to want to operate in a world where they control all the information about ECF business. Wake up! The world has moved on and all organisations and businesses have to accept that life is now different. We are all subject to constant scrutiny and challenge. Yes, forum participation can be frustrating, and can sap the energy of volunteers if not handled properly - but it is not going away.

This is not any old forum. It has been the most vibrant and active communication channel in English chess for a number of years. Its active participants cover a huge span of active chess players from ordinary club players to internationals and some of the widely respected 'grandees' of the chess world. Those ECF directors who have chosen to boycott this communication channel - including many who previously were very active participants here - demonstrate utter contempt for ordinary members.

We have recently found ourselves in the ludicrous position of a seriously divisive proposal being put forward on adjudications and yet none of the proponents have had the balls to defend it either here, or on the ECF-managed forum.

Grow up, ECF directors.

[Roger de Coverly]

A non executive director who is on the board to represent the interests of ordinary members

That's a riddle in itself, as to what the role of a non-Executive Director is supposed to be. We had Malcolm Pein this time last year lecturing us on what they were supposed to do and whether the candidates measured up to his expectation. The Sport and Recreation Alliance have some governance principle that a good qualification for the role is not to be able to play chess or have any interest in it.

The leadership of the ECF board appears to want to operate in a world where they control all the information about ECF business.

That is abundantly clear, their control extending beyond that into supplying no information about ECF business, as witnessed by the lack of timely even short summaries of Board meetings. I suppose we can at least be thankful that the process of advance publishing of AGM papers on the website has survived the black-out.

[Andrew Zigmond]

This is not any old forum. It has been the most vibrant and active communication channel in English chess for a number of years. Its active participants cover a huge span of active chess players from ordinary club players to internationals and some of the widely respected 'grandees' of the chess world. Those ECF directors who have chosen to boycott this communication channel - including many who previously were very active participants here - demonstrate utter contempt for ordinary members.

My question here would be who is the ECF accountable to? Is it accountable to its members or the UK chess playing community as a whole (I appreciate that there is an overlap in terms of who the ECF's policy affect). You are correct to say that this forum attracts distinguished figures from all levels of the games whose opinions should be listened to. It also attracts a certain amount of people who use this forum to pursue vendettas and steer the subject towards twenty year old disputes that weren't resolved in their favour. Not everybody here is an ECF member (granted that's true of the other forum - something I personally disagree with but I don't insist upon it) and the moderator has stated that he is not personally accountable to the ECF.

[Rob Thompson]

Carl - Angus reports that he was asked not to post on this forum. That is a lot weaker than saying that this forum is prohibited.

[Michael Farthing]

The strength of the request, however, is subtly different when the person asked has been appointed by the Board rather than elected by Council. Maybe on Sunday Angus might share his thoughts with us?

[Bill Porter]

.......Not everybody here is an ECF member (granted that's true of the other forum - something I personally disagree with but I don't insist upon it) .......

There's no ECF membership requirement.
I'm not an ECF member and got a response to a legitimate non-member question concerning email opt out:

Hello,
Opt in/ OPT out mailing is coming soon , .....

[Stewart Reuben]

Roger >It had not been previous public knowledge that this tournament had ECF financial support.<

The English Seniors did have financial support of £1000 and that came from an ECF cheque book. But it did not come from an ECF Budget. Money has been given by an anonymous donor for the various English Championships. So that money was only available to spend on those projects.

Similarly a sum has been made available by another donor to be spent solely at my direction. I decided it would be best put in an ECF Account rather than my own and then accessed when needed.

[Carl Hibbard]

Carl - Angus reports that he was asked not to post on this forum. That is a lot weaker than saying that this forum is prohibited.

The point is was the idea to "communicate" with members or to compete and replace here?

[Roger de Coverly]

The point is was the idea to "communicate" with members or to compete and replace here?

I would guess an internal fight against those, perhaps not Directors, but otherwise influential who see Forums as the work of Satan. With an official forum complete with moderators able to delete criticism of the ECF, perhaps their fears would be assuaged.

It's somewhat undermined by the lack of usage of the official forum. The Director proposing the excommunication of leagues having adjudication in their set of rules has been absent in the debate, both here, as could be expected, but also on the official forum. Attempts to clarify what the term "pure membership scheme" actually meant are also greeted with silence.

Those who are ECF Representative members for the various bodies having voting power at ECF AGMs and other meetings are also silent for the most part. Would it be too much to expect them to debate issues prior to the actual formal ECF meetings? It's not as if the participants in ECF meetings can reliably be sworn to non-disclosure.

[Rob Thompson]

Carl - Angus reports that he was asked not to post on this forum. That is a lot weaker than saying that this forum is prohibited.

The point is was the idea to "communicate" with members or to compete and replace here?

I believe the former. This may of course have been a hopeful fantasy.