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Updated 2.7.01
SCCU NEWS

SCCU ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
30th June 2001 at the Exmouth Arms, Starcross St, London NW1
did not occur. Ten people came, and the quorum's 12. Those who were there held a meeting anyway and did the easy and non-contentious things in an Irregular sort of way, but the real meat of an AGM was impossible. This included election of Officers and Non-County Members, not to mention the adoption of proposed revisions to the Constitution.
     We said 10, but actually an 11th member turned up after an hour and a half. The pub cat was not to be found, and the meeting remained determinedly inquorate. Frustratingly a 12th person was present. He represented a body whose application for Non-County Membership was on the agenda, and he could not count towards a quorum until a quorate meeting had said so. The quorum was finally "achieved" after the meeting had broken up, when a freshly arrived county rep was discovered in the bar downstairs. By this time, naturally, some of the others had gone away.
     Anyway, here's (some of) what the meeting did. It was all unofficial.
(1) Minutes of the previous AGM were "approved" by the meeting, and signed (no doubt improperly) by the President.
(2) Officers' Reports
(a) Grading Secretary. Howard Grist said it had been "an interesting year", but things seemed to be falling into place. The BCF Grading Director, who happened to be present, said his target date for publication was the first week of the British. He expected to meet it. The meeting felt, and the Director agreed, that the list should not be held up waiting for late results. It is the intention to include a list of events which have been left out because their results were not received in time.
(b) County Match Controller. David Smith said he had written to all the Chiltern people about the suggestion to amalgamate the U125. A Chiltern person present said the Chiltern secretary had also written to the Counties, in a very loaded way, advising against acceptance. One County had replied favourably nonetheless. Hampshire were not thought to be interested in qualifying through the SCCU, but it would be easy enough to count their matches as friendlies for SCCU purposes.
     This seems to leave two counties whose views are not known yet. The Chiltern AGM was past. However, there seemed no reason why we should not go ahead anyway, in the coming season, if it turned out to be what the Counties wanted. DS would continue his explorations. He was given the go-ahead to act, in consultation with the President, if the situation was clarified by August.
(3) Money. Even quorate, the meeting could not have adopted the Accounts. They were unaudited. (The Auditor has been going through a very busy period.) But details are still as reported under the next-but-one meeting down. The membership and entry fees remain what they were. No one wanted to change them anyway.
(4) Presentation of Trophies was made, to such Counties as were there to receive them. We will not say which Counties were not.
(5) Election of Officers did not take place, as we have said. This does not mean we are without Officers. The Constitution places no term on tenure of an Office. The incumbents therefore remain in post for the moment, so long as they are willing. The Officers were all present and no one said no.
(6) Constitution. While we could not adopt the new Constitution, the opportunity was taken to make one or two changes to the draft. One was a reduction of the quorum from 12 to 10.
The meeting closed after two hours, and turned into a meeting of the

SCCU EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
This was legal, because the quorum for Executive meetings is 6. The Executive did two things. Firstly it elected the various SCCU reps and the Rules & Appeals Sub-Committee (see the updated Who's Who?), and co-opted Fred Manning as Curator of Equipment as always. Secondly it set the date for its next meeting as Friday 7th September (7 pm at the Exmouth Arms).
     This is an important date, because the meeting will also be a SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING to do the things the "AGM" could not do. It will be confined to essentials: Accounts, Elections, and the new Constitution.
     It is unusual to hold a General Meeting on a Friday evening. The Executive knew this, but thought a Friday attendance could scarcely be lower than the Saturday one we'd just had.

SCCU EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
met on Friday 11th April 2001 at the Friends House opposite Euston Station in London. This was a new (or strictly re-activated) venue, notable for its early chucking-out time of 9.30pm and its lack of a bar. The chucking-out time may not have been a bad thing. The Exmouth Arms, previously booked and cheaper and bar-enabled, had cancelled our reservation at short notice. 14 attended. Main items:
(1) Deputy President. Roy Heppinstall of Essex, who attended by invitation, was appointed Deputy President of the Union.
(2) Money. The Treasurer presented the draft Accounts 2000-2001. As always, we were underspent. The budgeted £850 deficit had turned into a £363 one. This was due partly to savings on routine expenditure, and partly to the non-occurrence of budgeted items. Trophy replacement, for example. (An important Trophy has been donated this year.) There has also been a significant underspend on Juniors, perhaps because for most of the season we have had no Junior Organiser. We have some £3350 in the bank.
     The proposed budget for next year is similar to last year's. There is no proposal to increase entry or membership fees.
(3) County Matches. David Smith tabled a summary of the season's winners and BCF-qualifiers. Pausing only to explain why Essex I appeared in his report as "(lucky) Essex", he went on to a BCF rule change which seemed to be in the air. The BCF Home Director wished to introduce a definition of "club membership", as used in the eligibility rules. Cambridgeshire come into this. In the Cambridge University Chess Club, membership is for life. The County has been known to take advantage of this by using players whose sole visible means of qualification is the fact that they belonged to the University club years ago (and by definition still do, though they may not have set foot in the county since). The Director seeks a definition of club membership along National Club lines, so you'd have to be an "active" member in some tangible way..
     The Executive (which happened to have no Cambs rep present) supported this. It also raised the question of very strong players who suddenly come out of the woodwork at the semi-final or Final stage. Cambs came up in this connection as well, but so did at least one County from outside the Union. Some match captains will have nothing to do with guest stars, others use them freely. The Essex I captain declared himself firmly in the first of these camps. The Executive saw merit in the principle that new players should not be allowed to turn out at the top end of a team in the later stages of the competition. A rule along these lines will be recommended to the Director.
(4) County Matches (SCCU Stage): Regional splits. It had already been decided not to split at Open level. The County Match Controller had since discovered no County that wanted us to split anywhere else, and no County that would enter more teams if we did. That seemed to settle it.
     Except for one thing. We actually do have a regional split at U125. It's just that it was achieved, years ago, by the left-hand end of the Union breaking away and calling itself the Chiltern League. Every single SCCU County except Cambridgeshire plays at U125 level, at one end or the other. The Chiltern end does not have significantly different rules from the SCCU one. Perhaps it would make sense to invite the Chiltern U125 back into the fold, on the understanding that the current regionalisation would continue. It would generate an extra BCF qualifying place, which could be made automatically available to a "Chiltern" County. It was agreed to ask the Chiltern people what they thought about this. We could even go ahead next season, if it was what people wanted.
     There is a small complication in the form of Hampshire, since they play in the Chiltern League. If the U125 amalgamated under SCCU control Hants would need to become a full Member County, presumably with dual membership in the same way as Cambridgeshire. They are, of course, a Non-County Member already because they play in the U14/90.
     No one is talking about swallowing the Chiltern League. We're talking about the U125, and the Chiltern League runs other things. There is, for example, a Chiltern U170 league. You wouldn't even try to combine this with the SCCU U175. For one thing, it's U170. For another it's for teams of 20 (perhaps because there is no Chiltern U150). For a third, it bans Juniors! (There is a Chiltern Junior league as well.)
(5) Juniors. It was noted that someone seemed to have already organised the Chiltern end of the U14/90 next year without any reference to the new SCCU Junior Organiser. This seemed a bit naughty. But there's no real problem so long as everyone knows it's an SCCU competition. It is, and always was, and Graham Snow's in charge. The Fleming Board, the SCCU's U14/90 Trophy, was presented at the meeting to Sussex, this year's winners.
(6) BCF Membership: new categories (see BCF page 29.4.01). Someone asked, "How will the BCF publicise the new categories?" SCCU rep on MB: "Pass."
(7) BCQ places 2001-2. The Union has three places in its gift. The first had already been awarded (see 9th March below) to the Southend Congress 2002. There were now three applications for the other two places. The Executive awarded them to the Hitchin and Ilford Congresses, with Hastings (a 5-day Christmas tournament) in third place in the poll.
(8) County Matches (again). It was agreed, notwithstanding the comments made last time (see 9.3.01 below, item 3 first paragraph) that you couldn't do a lot about recalcitrant Counties except issue clear guidelines at the start of the season.
(9) SCCU General Rules (see 9.3.01 below, item 6). This is in hand.
(10) National Club 2001-2. This had somehow passed the SCCU's infrastructure by, but the Executive had had the good fortune to hear of it through other channels. The Home Director is considering changes. He is minded to retain the Open and U125, and replace everything else by a new competition with mean grade under 160. He does not propose to put it to Council, because the Clubs are not represented at Council. That the Clubs are represented at Council through their Counties is possibly something he'd missed. The Executive, while not happy about the intended proposals, had nothing better to offer. But it did not feel that changes of this magnitude should be pushed through by the Management Board without going to Council.
The meeting finished soon after 9.30pm.

SCCU EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
met on Friday 9th March 2001 at the Exmouth Arms, London NW1 (7 pm). 12 attended. In chronological order modified by expediency:
(1) Money
Happy to start with this, because your Webmaster understood it. Everyone is paid up.
(2) Grading
It was reported that a corrected "August 2000" list, including all the events that should have gone in and didn't, would be with graders imminently. The corrected grades would be used in calculations for the 2001 list. At the moment there were no plans to publish them generally. The Executive, by a 6-1 majority, thought this wrong. At the following day's Management Board meeting the Union would urge the BCF to put all the new and changed grades on the BCF website.
     The deadline for sending results, provisionally changed to the end of May, had been moved back to the end of June and some wondered whether the BCF was leaving itself enough time to get the August list out. The (acting) Director, who happened to be present, said promising was impossible but there was no reason why it shouldn't work. There was more manpower this year, including a paid Grading Officer, and a checker was even now on its way to graders which should cut out many of the errors that had held things up last year.
     A delegate, noting that the SCCU U14/90 was Rapidplay but used Standardplay grades for eligibility, asked which way it would be graded. Answer: Rapidplay. (It does say that on the U14/90 page.)
     [Digression. Your Webmaster may have misunderstood this delegate, but had an impression he was worried the BCF computer wouldn't know to ignore the Standard grades match captains had given. In fact it always ignores the grades match captains give. Match captains give grades for players' and readers' interest and to show they're not over the limit, and graders will use them as an aid to identification. So long as players are correctly identified the computer already knows what their grades are, and which one to use.]
(3) SCCU County Matches
The Controller said there had been more defaults and disputes than usual (with Middx leading the way on four match defaults). Complaints about venues and playing conditions also seemed to be on the increase. Where a captain failed to meet the one-month's-notice rule he would issue a warning, but would not normally impose a default for first offences. Maybe we needed some more rules about things like this, and some explicit penalties. It was agreed to have it on the agenda for next time.
     It was noted that Middx in the Open, despite their three defaults, might still possibly qualify for a Minor Counties nomination. The rules prohibit nomination of teams that come bottom. (Another Union was believed to be doing it this year and getting away with it, but we would not.) Middx said that, even if they failed to come bottom, they would still not wish to accept nomination.
     The BCF's deadline for the Preliminaries had been shifting around pretty much lately, but now seemed to have settled on the 28th April. The SCCU Controller had been given this date earlier in the day by the Director, who said it had always been the 28th April. (Try telling that to the SCCU Webmaster.) The new date presumably supersedes the one on the BCF site.
(4) SCCU U14/90 Championship
It was noted that Hampshire had been allowed in, as a Non-County Member. Their participation had been presented to us as a fait accompli, though a welcome one, and the President had ruled that the NCM solution was OK. Someone asked what the WECU thought about it, and no one knew because no one had asked them. (Why should we, if it was what Hants wanted?)
     Oxon and Sussex had won their groups and qualified for the Finals on the 31st March. The other group was not finished yet. Middx, who were in it, had made a determined effort to meet the deadline and thought it wrong that other teams had been allowed to break it. The competition had suffered from the lack of a central organiser. This ought not to happen next year, because
(5) SCCU Junior Organiser
After a season with no Organiser, we now had a volunteer. He is Graham Snow of Middx. He had already sought a job description from the President. The Executive appointed him forthwith, and his details are in Who's Who?
(6) Non-County Members and SCCU Competitions
The Constitution gives no rights to NCMs beyond votes at meetings. (They also get a free Bulletin, and reduced rates on circulation of congress leaflets with it.) This year the question of further rights has come up, in relation to juniors as it happens.
     It's fairly clear that the adult County leagues are for Member Counties only, not that anyone else has ever tried to get in. But there are other events. Specifically, Hampshire have affiliated and played in the U14/90, and the Middx Girls Chess Association have played in the U18 Jamboree this year (Match, sorry) without being a Member at all. It was time we sorted this out, even without pressure from the MGCA to do so. Yes, there's been pressure.
     The events in question seem to be the U14/90, the U18 Jamborees, and the (adult) U180 Jamboree; plus other events which the Union may run from time to time. A number of Hampshire people, for example, played in the Herts v SCCU Centenary Match this year. We should also, perhaps, consider the eligibility of the NCMs' members for SCCU individual titles. That hasn't been very clear-cut this year, with Hampshire players, and the Executive has not so far addressed it.
    Decisions will be for Council, not the Executive, but the Executive thrashed out some proposals which, after suitable drafting and re-drafting and haggling, are likely to go to Council this year as amendments to the Constitution. Current proposals, informally expressed:
     (1) A Non-County Member, once in, is in for life until it fails to pay its dues or is blackballed under (5) below.
     (2) Any organisation may apply for Non-County Membership. Applications go to Council, which will approve them (or not) by a two-thirds majority of votes cast. (One or two people wanted a right of veto, but this was not agreed. Others, or it may have been the same ones, suggested 75% or 80% majorities.)
     (3) All applications to be noted by the May Executive meeting following the 8th-May deadline for applications. This is so that potential objectors will know who's applying and can prepare their objections for the Council meeting.
     (4) All paid-up NCMs to be eligible to enter the U14/90, U18 Jamborees, and U180 Jamboree.
     (5) Any NCM can be expelled from the Union by Council, after due notice given, by a two-thirds majority of votes cast.
(7) SCCU Junior Individual Championships 2001-2
It was agreed to go ahead as before with the LJCC events, unless the new Junior Organiser had serious objections or counter-proposals.
(8) SCCU Championship 2001-2 and BCQ places
Next year's SCCU Championship will be with the Southend Easter Congress. Applications for our two other BCQ places have been received from the Hitchin and Ilford congresses, but no decision will be made on this until the May meeting. Other applications are hereby invited. Applications to the Union Secretary, Richard Haddrell at rjh@sccu.ndo.co.uk, by 20th April 2001.
(9) SCCU County Matches: Regional splits
The County Match Controller had had very little detailed feedback on this, except from Berks who favoured an East/West split in the Open. The President said he had done a "scientific" analysis of possibilities in the Open, and got nowhere to speak of. For the Open, since time pressed and no one but Berkshire had objected, we would stay with the current arrangements. We would have anoher look at the lower divisions next time. Even there, no one had suggested possible benefits of splitting unless it brought extra teams in.
(10) SCCU Constitution
Changes were already envisaged under (6) above. But it was also agreed to insert a definition of the financial year, and to include the due date for payment of Union dues.
(11) SCCU Deputy President
This is a Website, not a Minute Book. But a prospective candidate exists and will be invited to attend the Executive's May meeting. It is not likely that he would take over as President before the season 2002-3.
(12) BCF Matters
There was an MB meeting next day. Apparently the only things in the offing (apart from Money which looked pretty good) were a Membership Scheme and a proposal to charge Game Fee for junior events. Plus, of course, an SCCU proposal on Grading noted under (2) above. It was understood that Gamesparlor, hope spelt right, had paid the BCF $4000 to use its services and not yet provided any services. This sounded like a good deal.
The meeting closed at 10.40 pm, much later than the last one or two but still comfortably in time for your Webmaster to catch his last train home.

HERTS CENTENARY MATCH
took place on the 30th September 2000 and was nearly a draw. The details are in a page of their own.

SCCU EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
met on Friday 8th September 2000 at the Exmouth Arms, London NW1 (7 pm). 10 attended. Main items, in more or less chronological order:
(1) SCCU Individual Championship 2000-1 and Surrey Congress. It is currently uncertain whether the Surrey Congress will happen next year. The Coulsdon people do not wish to renew the arrangement by which they ran it on the Association's behalf last time. Maybe somebody else will take it on. If not, Coulsdon will probably do a (private) 6-round event on a smaller scale over two days. For the moment, the SCCU title is on hold.
(2) British Chess Educational Trust Awards 2000. It was confirmed that both of the SCCU's nominations had been successful, so we'll tell you who they were. Northbridge House School NW1, and Kings College School Wimbledon. A third award went to a northern school. The awards will be formally made at the forthcoming BCF Council meeting.
(3) Counties Championships: Runners-up. We have taken this up with the BCF, as resolved at the AGM (item 2), and Cyril Johnson has agreed to do it.
(4) Grading. It was agreed that we would use the second version of the printed list (expected 18.9.00) for SCCU eligibility purposes this season. In the unlikely event of a Corrected List appearing later, as last year, we would not use it. If you really didn't know they were re-printing the List, have a look at the Grading page.
     There was some discussion of the shortcomings of the BCF system. Someone mentioned confusion over a cheque sent for Game Fee (though this would not, in practice, have affected the grading). It was noted that for next season the Federation had invited tenders for most of the work, to free the Director from an intolerable burden, and had received two tenders one of which had been recommended to the Management Board. Decision 23.9.00.
     It was also noted that the Director wished to "go back to the old system". To several people's relief, it was explained that this did not mean throwing away the new system in its entirety. In particular, any changes made would be invisible to the local grader. There were local graders present who would have resigned otherwise.
(5) Herts Centenary Match 30.9.00 (see item below). Some arrangements were made, and it's all in hand.
(6) SCCU U180 Jamboree 1999-2000 (yes, it's last season's) will be at Coulsdon on the 28th October 2000.
(7) SCCU County Matches: regional splits. This arose out of the AGM (item 8c). A fair amount of time was spent on it, but in rather a vacuum since we had no indication of what the Counties wanted. What opinions were expressed were strongly against splitting. The Tournament Controller assumed, though others didn't, that we could only be talking about the Open. He could see no natural way of splitting the Open in two. However, he will seek the Counties' views, Open and otherwise. If you have ideas in the meantime, Open Forum will be happy to hear them. (There was talk of incorporating the Chiltern League in a Western section, but we don't know what the Chiltern League would have to say about that.)
(8) Juniors
(a) Junior Organiser. We still hadn't got one, despite cajoling in various quarters. For the moment, things were left as follows.
     SCCU Individual Championships. The Secretary to contact the organisers of the London Junior Chess Championships to see if they would be willing to host all the SCCU titles this year.
     Counties U14/U90 Championship. It appeared that one or more of the local groups were more or less sorted for this year, but details were vague. Liaison and investigations are in hand. [Update 10.9.00. One group is organised, and the other two are expected to follow. It emerges that the one that's organised has Hampshire in it. Their standing is yet to be determined, but they would be happy to pay £15 to become a Non-County Member with full eligibility to win the title.]
     U18 Jamboree. Herts, the hosts, would look after this. It is likely to be in January.
(b) Trophies. Demis Hassabis has just donated £150 for a new U18 Trophy, and it will be purchased with minimum delay. It will be engraved with the names of this year's and last year's winners before presentation to the current Champion.
     John Philpott had previously offered an U18 Trophy, but has agreed to transfer his offer to the U14. He's being very forbearing. His offer, originally for the U14/U90, had already been diverted once at the Union's request.
(9) BCF Counties Rapidplay Championship 2001. This was the SCCU's if we wanted it. Herts expressed an interest, and the Union will ensure that the BCF are informed.
(10) BCF Council meeting 23.9.00. The Executive spent quite a while on this, but added little to what the (SCCU) AGM had already decided. We need to muster votes against the proposals for a new management structure (see AGM below, item 10).
(11) Future meetings.
Executive: Fridays 9th March, 11th May 2001
AGM: Saturday 30th June 2001
(12) UK Chess Challenge. This goes back to an item raised on the 13th May 2000 (see SCCU page in the 1999-2000 Archive). The Coulsdon people are putting out a petition. If you want details, you'll have to ask them.

The meeting closed at an incredibly early 9.40 pm, and your Webmaster caught his last train but two.

Earlier material is in the Archive.