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updated 16.8.08
ECF NEWS
ECF EXTRAORDINARY COUNCIL MEETING
26.7.08 in Birmingham
was held, as everyone knows, to discuss arrangements - largely financial - for the Chess For Schools project. (Didn't know? Look at the ECF announcement, with Robert Richmond's paper, on the ECF website.)
     29 attended, which wasn't bad for an Extraordinary meeting starting at noon (why?) with essentially only one thing on the agenda. Your Webmaster arrived 25 minutes late, as befits the world's second-worst solo navigator of inner cities, and doesn't know how much he missed. But here is what he got out of the meeting, updated in places by inquiries made since.
(1) Distribution of sets and boards. The intention remains to distribute 10 sets and boards to each of the 25,000 schools in England. 25,000 is said to be a roughly accurate figure. We - if we may slip into our comfortable Editorial plural - assume it means state schools, though independent schools are not excluded if they express an interest.
     How many schools have expressed an interest? There have - had - been about 9000 emails, but the number of schools will be higher. So a lot of schools will be getting unsolicited surprises? No, because the scheme will have the backing of the local authorities who will have told them what to expect. (How true is this? We don't know, but we understand that some local authorities, at least, have come out very strongly in favour of the scheme. There certainly also seems to be high-level political support.)
     How many schools have received sets and boards so far? Three. The distribution proper will start in September with the new school term, and is expected to take about 15 months.
     Are the sets actually in production? No. The tools have been received from Chinese suppliers whom Holloid use regularly, but production so far is more or less limited to the 30 sets distributed. When distribution is under way, production will be at the rate of 6,000 - 7,000 per weekend. [rjh: - This seems to outstrip distribution.] Later (12th August): we hear that limited production is in progress already.
     What about distribution? Ah. This isn't entirely sorted. A major national haulage company has agreed to pick sets up from Holloid and distribute them to collection points from which local distributors (perhaps five in number so not so local) will take them to the schools. At the time of the meeting the ECF was still in negotiations with potential local distributors. It had been hoped we would have some responses from them a day or two before the meeting, but they had not materialised yet. This worried us a bit because it was exactly the answer the Board got when it met early in June. But we have heard since that two rather large local distributors are in place. Or four, if a different source is right. A significant problem, obviously, has been this year's fuel-price crisis.
     How about storage at the collection points? We're not sure anyone raised it at the meeting, but we gather the cost is to be borne by the local distributors. We're not very clear about this.
     It was stressed at the meeting that all distribution agreements would need to be formally set out in writing.
(2) The follow-up (and its concomitant expenditure) would require this meeting's permission. Briefly:
     School Package. Schools would be offered a package (price £35) comprising, among other things: a Bronze Level booklet covering, basically, a knowledge of the rules; a Bronze Level test paper (with answers) plus 20 Certificates of Excellence; a DVD covering Bronze, Silver and Gold; a subscription to ChessMoves; and a book relating chess to curriculum subjects.
     The Certificate of Excellence aroused comment. Some accused it of dumbing down. It is certainly true that the package is to be heavily geared to Bronze Level in the first year. (Gold Level, at a later date, is to be about grade 70.) But the possibility of taking tests over the internet also raised eyebrows. Others wondered why Peter Turner, whom one tends to associate with Certificates of Excellence, had not been involved or consulted. We don't think anyone answered this.
     Academies. On the function of these, we can't do better than refer you to Robert Richmond's paper. A number of local organisations had expressed concern that the ECF proposed muscling in on their activities. Reassurance was given that this was not the case.
(3) Money. Initial financing would come from the John Robinson Trust, in the form of a loan at interest of 6% per annum to be repaid over a period to be negotiated. The loan would be serviced by sales of packages to schools. The projected break-even point in the first year (but not allowing for interest) is sales to 1000 schools. This includes one-off startup costs; subsequent years would be in profit. That is for 1000 schools; beyond that things only get better. There will also, of course, be further sales to come at Silver and Gold Levels. On 5000 schools we would be looking at a profit of maybe £40,000 or £50,000 a year.
     The ECF will need to provide startup grants to Academies (which are thereafter expected to be self-supporting). The startup figures provided were speculative, but might come to £130,000 in the first two years.
     "What is the risk, if things go wrong?" About £1500 in interest, if we borrow £20-odd thousand and manage to do nothing with it in a year. (rjh: - How about the cost of holding this meeting?)      "But why could the Robinson Trust not finance the scheme directly? What is the sense in our paying interest to ourself?" Your Webmaster is unable to work up much passion over this, but his understanding from the meeting is that both courses were possible. One was on the Council agenda.
(4) The Decision. The Finance Director and Board were strongly in favour. The Finance Committee thought it was an opportunity we must grasp with both hands. Council supported all the proposals (look them up) very heavily. Votes against were consistently 2 from members present, but varied from 1 to 7 in the Postals. We just thought we'd mention it.
     Perhaps we should have said that the Money proposal set a limit on the amount which the Federation could borrow from the Trust. £100,000. The Finance Director said we wouldn't spend (or, presumably, borrow) it all at once.
     There was a feeling that we were embarking on something momentous. Someone said, from the top table: "If we foul up on this no one will ever trust us to do anything again."

The meeting concluded at 2.30 pm. There was then, after a 20-minute interlude, a

BCF COUNCIL MEETING
(26 attended)
which approved the loan aforesaid. Laudably it spent only 17 minutes revisiting things visited already, and the afternoon's proceedings concluded at 3.07 pm. Well, a Board meeting followed. Perhaps that was why we started at noon.

ECF COUNCIL MEETING
26.4.08 in London
duly took place, chaired by Martin Regan in the President's absence officiating abroad. 31 attended. Before proceedings began, the meeting stood in silence in memory of John Dunleavy.
(1) Matters Arising! Yes, two were actually on the agenda.
      (a) Reporting of Union-Stage County Matches. You will recall (or not: it's a couple of Reports down if you don't) that this came up at the October meeting. We weren't sure at the time, but it seems Council urged the Counties to send results to the Office for inclusion on the ECF website. Someone remarked, this time round, that it doesn't work. The ECF webmaster has not time to publish results promptly. It was suggested that a more efficient procedure might be to link to those Union sites that publish match results.
      (b) Grading Adjustments. Chris Majer gave a progress update and answered questions. As far as progress was concerned, things had gone more slowly than he had hoped but we were on track for the 2008 list. The bulk of the work had been done by Howard Grist, the author of the ECF's central grading software.
      Question one: why has the thing been undertaken without asking Council? Should we, perhaps, put it to Council in October and postpone the adjustments for a year? The answer, or part of it, was that old and new grades will be published side by side for a year, so that effectively the adjustments are postponed for a year if people want to go on using old grades. We don't know if this satisfied the questioner, but he did not press the point. It was then agreed that Old Grades would be the official currency in the first year, with New Grades published only for information (though, obviously, people could use them if they wanted). More than one person was concerned that the existence simultaneously of two different grades would cause confusion. They knew the grades would not be radically different in appearance, because they had been reading ahead and had seen the answers to the Other Questions. Someone suggested a special identifier, eg "N", to mark the new grades.
     It was decided after the meeting, but we'll say it here, that New Grades would appear only on the website and not in the traditional printed list. Much to the relief of the person who produces the printed list, and you'll know why if you've got a copy.
      Other questions:
• Will the traditional method of calculation (opponent's grade plus 50 for a win, and so on) be retained? Yes. Only the grades will change.
• How will the grades change? Generally speaking, upwards (and the lower you are, the more you'll go up) until about the 220 mark, at which point grades will be on average unchanged. The biggest increase, at the bottom end, might be 40 or 50 points but we're guessing. (No, it wasn't said at the meeting.) Grandmasters may come down by a point or two (and neither was that).
• Will there be a simple formula relating New Grade to Old? No. Different players will be affected differently.
• Will different areas of England be affected differently? Yes, if they are currently out of step. The adjustment will tend to correct regional imbalances.
     Finally it was remarked, by people who understand these things, that the revision would make statistical analysis more meaningful.
(2) An honour. Council elected Chris Majer an Honorary Life Vice-President of the ECF.
(3) Holloid Plastics: Sets for Schools. Arising out of something or other (we know what, but you don't want to) it was confirmed that the sets are not, as originally announced, restricted to state schools.
(4) Chess Centre Ltd and other things. For Other Things read "charitable status". The 2006 Charities Act makes it possible for the ECF to achieve charitable status, with the earliest possible date looking to be 1st May 2009. But professional sport is not a charitable activity. Some of the Federation's activities - Olympiad entry, say, or the British Championship - involve payments to professional players, or prizes of sufficient magnitude to attract professional players; and these would need to find a home outside the charitable ECF. Cue the Chess Centre Ltd.
      The Chess Centre Ltd was set up in 1939 for the purpose of creating a national Chess Centre (a purpose never achieved and no longer aspired to). Its funds today, including accumulated interest and dividends, amount to some £7000 associated with the Golombek book fund and £24,000 from the sale of BCM. The Chess Centre is controlled by two Directors who are answerable to the Trustees of the Permanent Invested Fund. Who, in turn, are the legal owners of the Chess Centre's assets. The Board's contention, in the words of the Finance Director, was that the Centre was "a Company with investments but no function". Its proposal was to give the Centre a function as repository of funds for the ECF's non-charitable activities. "To get its hands on the Centre's money" might be the non-charitable way of putting it. Council was asked to "approve the plans of the Board to work with the Trustees of the PIF and the Directors of CCL to bring CCL within the day-to-day control of the ECF". In practice this would mean that the Trustees appointed additional CCL Directors from the current ECF Board. There seemed grounds for hoping they would agree to this.
      The ECF Finance Committee, which includes both CCL Directors, had reservations. One CCL Director told the meeting that he saw this as a raid on PIF money, which he would rather see invested than frittered away. He explained that by "frittering" he meant long-term deficit budgets.
      After discussion it was thought necessary to amend the motion by adding the words "provided that the assets of CCL have first been transferred to the PIF". It is not entirely clear to your Webmaster what difference this makes, but he is known for a financial idiot. The Finance Director supported it. In its amended form the motion was carried very heavily.
      The Finance Director hoped to come back to Council in October with more detail. He said he would ring-fence the book fund and not fritter.
(5) Member Organisations: notice date. You don't really want to know this unless you're an MO. But the existing deadline for notice of termination was 1st March, which seems odd when the fees are set in April. The new deadline is 31st May.
(6) Finance Director's Report & Budget. The forecast deficit for 2007-8 was £9000, an improvement on the budgeted £12,000. The Finance Director answered a number of questions of detail. His proposed budget 2008-9 was for a smaller deficit of £2800. International and the British Championship Congress remained the problem areas. The Congress has used up all but £4000 of its accumulated surplus from previous years, and £2800 of that is earmarked for this year. It is not planned to pay attendance money unless sponsorship is obtained. International at £25,000 is much the biggest net spender, Management Services aside, and likely to go up quite a lot in 2009-10 (so expect chunky Game Fee and Membership increases in a year's time?).
      Approval of the Budget came some way further down the proceedings, but we'll do it here. Discussion centred on International. Someone asked why it should be so heavily subsidised by other activities. "We have little choice, because our DCMS grant is more or less dependent on our competing as best we can in international events." (This may not have been intended as the whole answer. Whole or not, we don't think it was original.) It was remarked that previous years had benefited from hidden subsidies, not now available, which had not gone through the ECF's books. "They should have," people said, "if only as donations, to reflect the true cost of activities." However this may be, the Budget was agreed nem con.
(7) Direct Membership Fees from 1st September 2008. The Board proposed increasing Basic Members' fees (Junior included) by 50p. "Why just Basic Members?" Because it's felt that the differential between Basic and the rest is excessive. "Why are we faffing around with 50p increases?" (Answer not noted.) The proposal was agreed with 1 dissenting vote.
(8) Minimum Fee for Member Organisations to remain at £50. Agreed with 1 dissenting vote (a different one).
(9) Game Fee. The Board recommended 48p (an increase of 2p). On the traditional card vote the figures were
     £1            4
     50p          5
     48p       111
     47p          4
     46p        20
     45p          9
Game Fee from 1st September 2008 is thus 48p. The reduced rates were not mentioned so follow the usual rule.
(10) Directors' Responsibilities. The Board proposed (essentially) that responsibility for the ECF Office be transferred from the President to the CEO. Someone asked straight away if the Board's decision to propose this had been amicable, and the response was a sort of guarded "Yes, mainly". What occasioned the proposal we couldn't say. It was carried heavily, but not without discussion. It was noted that the printing of the ECF Yearbook had been done at favourable rates thanks to contacts of Martin Regan. People recalled a time, nine years ago, when outsourcing to Coulsdon had been proposed and rejected. We don't know that the case is similar. However, things were said again about hidden subsidies.
(11) Membership Issues. Oh dear. See the Council Preview below. The Chairman, glancing at his watch, informed Council that we had 15 minutes left for this. If only. He had misread his watch, and we had an hour and 15 minutes. We used about an hour.
     Do not mistake us. We like to talk, in a structured debate. Perhaps the first thing to establish was the distinction between the two different kinds of Universal Membership: the one posited below, with *** grades; and the one that won't let you play in graded events at all if you aren't a member. Someone drew this distinction at once, and we were quite encouraged.
      For a while. Martin Regan said he had no preference between them. Chris Majer said the risk, with either sort, was people pulling out and doing their own thing. Martin Regan: "But we're getting lost in practicalities!" Chris Majer again: "There is real concern among the graders that it isn't practicable." Martin Regan: "But I'm asking Council to provide the VISION."
     Everyone knows that a part of Martin's vision is OMOV (One Man One Vote). A Midlands delegate asked, "How would you operate OMOV?" Martin Regan: "But you're again talking practicalities!"
     The Board had come to Council with a vague enough proposition in all conscience, but somehow one had expected to be talking practicalities part of the time. To take the Board's core aspirations: OMOV was little discussed, though someone observed that the grass-roots player will not always take the widest view. Council was not asked its view. People made the expected noises about Universal Membership and Game Fee. Council was asked, "Who prefers Game Fee?". There was no count, but a lot of hands went up. Perhaps you'd expect that, in a meeting held in London. Yes, good question. Of the 31 in attendance: SCCU persons 16, MCCU 7, NCCU 4, WECU 3, EACU 0, Unknown (to your Webmaster) 1. That's residence, not allegiance necessarily.
     It sometimes seemed that the chairman's real question was, "What do you want us to do?" Indeed, other things were talked about. Coaching, for example, and publicity, and club membership fees. But all of them briefly and in pretty general terms, and we won't go into them.
     We don't know if the Board still intends proposals in October.
(12) ECF Counties Draw. Martin Regan said this had come up at the morning's Board meeting. He apologised for the inadequate handling of this year's draw and said steps had been taken to ensure it would not recur.
(13) World Youth Championships? Stewart Reuben, under Matters Arising, raised the possibility of hosting the World Youth Championships in London in 2012 (but not to actually clash with the Olympics, for obvious reasons). It would be very expensive - perhaps £1M or £1.5M - and would require a major sponsor. There should be something on the ECF website shortly.

The meeting closed at 5.55 pm
rjh 1.5.08, amended 2.5.08, 3.5.08
It has been in some ways a difficult meeting to report. We will no doubt go on amending for a while, and we invite readers to point out any errors or omissions.

But why did they go? Not for anything that came out of this meeting, surely. Item 4 may have raised the odd hackle, but the Board got what it wanted. The same might be said of Item 10. As for Item 11, it can't have been seriously supposed that Council - especially in London! - would suddenly swing 100% behind a mandatory membership scheme. Martin Regan's letter of resignation cites the fact that a minority at this meeting "had little intention of grasping the opportunity for debate". But he makes it clear that the problem went deeper. He has not had the whole-hearted support of all the Board in the fundamental changes he believes to be necessary. Even allowing for the element of code in this, it seems to raise more questions than it answers.
rjh 1.5.08

ECF COUNCIL PREVIEW
meeting 26.4.08 in London
The papers arrived today 27.3.08 and we have not had time to read them thoroughly. But three things strike us as noteworthy.
(1) Game Fee. The Board recommends an increase of 2p from 46p to 48p.
(2) Direct Membership Fee. The Board recommends an increase of 50p (or ½p if you believe another page, but we think that's an accident) in the Basic Member's fee; and no change otherwise.
(3) Membership Issues. That's what the papers call it, and we can only do them justice by quoting them verbatim.
     "The Board has become convinced that the future of the ECF depends on a Universal Membership Scheme and gives Council notice that it will present such a scheme for consideration to the AGM in October. The Board also believes that such a scheme should carry some element of direct empowerment - ie an element of One Man One Vote. Both clearly carry major policy issues so the CEO takes the opportunity to give Council the chance to discuss the principles behind the concept and for members to take soundings from their constituents."
     What is a Universal Membership Scheme? You may well ask. Our private unofficial information is that it means grades are calculated for everyone, but the grades of non-Members are replaced by *** in the published grading list. We've met this scheme before somewhere. But our information may be wrong. The Board's intention will emerge when they tell us it.
     So, we must hope, will their understanding of "an element of one man one vote". May we delay our soundings till informed?
rjh 27.3.08

BCF COUNCIL MEETING
20.10.07 in Sheffield
It was the disgusting map's fault. Actually it wasn't, because our road atlas had a better one, but even then the ECF's directions didn't seem to fit it. The venue when you get there has no entrance, but one appears if you walk one and a half times round the building. From there it can't have taken us more than five minutes to find the concealed meeting room.
      We were on time because we'd set out at dawn, but the Quorum (it is 20) had not shown this foresight. Someone remarked that the quorum should be smaller. Someone else said we had the same problem a year ago at Bristol, and this page confirms it if you care to scroll down.
      Never mind. The meeting became quorate about 1.21 pm, 21 minutes late, and concluded its business in approximately four (4) minutes. The business of BCF AGMs is to approve BCF Accounts. They are circulated in advance and go through on the nod if not challenged, and these were not. This was lucky, because an

ECF COUNCIL MEETING
20.10.07 in Sheffield
was due at 1.30 pm. It started prompt and quorate. We made it 24 people present, but a voting figure quoted further down suggests a larger number or malpractice. The larger number must be probable. But, either way, it was the smallest ECF attendance we remember. Apologies for absence far exceeded the number present, and some of the absentees' proxy-holders weren't there.
     Gerry Walsh in the Chair asked the meeting to stand in silence for one minute in memory of Chess people lately departed. He specially mentioned Peter Morrish and Roy Heppinstall.
      Main items, in more or less chronological order -
(1) Money. Well, the Accounts were adopted. They showed a deficit of £338. The Finance Director expected next year to follow broadly the same pattern, with an overspend on International offset by savings elsewhere.
(2) Home affairs. The meeting spent quite a lot of time on questions raised by the outgoing Home Director. He made no proposals, but sought Council's views on various things which the Counties, or the Unions, or it may have been individuals, had put to him.
     (a) The timing of ECF-Stage County matches. There was some support for playing the Finals one week earlier, so last weekend in June. If a reason was given we missed it. There was SCCU opposition to having the Prelims in the fourth weekend of March (see Executive Report 5.10.07 in the SCCU page). This appeared to elicit surprise. We don't know why, but then we don't know where these suggestions came from.
     We learned one thing. The NCCU play their County matches on Sundays.
     (b) Two games instead of one? In an ECF-Stage match you understand, and on all boards we think. Support was limited. Some took it as a proposal for the Union stage, which transparently it was not.
     (c) Definition of "Order of Strength"? The Rules stipulate that players shall play in order of "current playing strength". "Known current playing strength" might have been more precise. But did we want formal guidelines about how far you can outgrade someone and still play below them? We fancy the consensus (correctly) was No.
     (d) Identification of new players. Should the rules say match captains have to give full grader-friendly details of their new players, forenames included, when seeking permission for them to play? No, of course they shouldn't. Some things go without saying. Oh, sorry, that is your Webmaster's opinion. He is unsure what Council's was.
     (e) Reporting of Union-Stage County matches. Could Union organisers be asked to copy the results of County matches to the ECF for inclusion on the ECF website? Again we're not sure what Council's opinion was.
(3) Grading was not discussed, but the Home Director's written report said progress was being made on the famous Anomalies. He proposed to publish both old-style and adjusted grades in July 2008, as a one-year transitional arrangement. (Actually he did not name the year, but we're sure 2008 is intended.)
(4) Marketing. "What is it that you do?", someone said. We'll pick up one part of the answer. Talk to TV people. Not the ones that actually broadcast things, they don't want to know, but independent people who make programmes and would be interested in doing chess if anyone was prepared to buy it.
(5) Elections. Unusually, the elections were taken en bloc. Everyone got in. This included the chairmen and members of the two Committees.
(6) BCET Schools Awards. One recipient was the SCCU nominee, Southend High School for Boys. Schools now get not only an inscribed board and digital clock but also, we think for the first time, a wooden set so you can actually play a game with the Award.
(7) Representation of Constituent Units at Council meetings. This had been discussed by the SCCU Executive 5.10.07 (see SCCU page) and we won't repeat the proposal here. It generated much heat. Someone thought this a piecemeal and unsatisfactory attempt at reform. Someone else said the Unions were the backbone of English chess. (Discuss.)
     They wanted a card vote. Or poll, as the Articles oddly call it. But how do you call a card vote? Answer: one can be required by the chairman of the meeting, or called by not less than 20 persons qualified to vote and present in person or by proxy. Some thought the callers should be allowed to use their card-vote allowance. Amazingly there was a motion to send the proposal back to the shop so that this entirely unrelated rule could be written in. It came within a whisker (12 - 15 on a show of hands) of succeeding. Then there was a card vote anyway and the thing was carried by 142 votes to 32, easily satisfying the two-thirds requirement. Perhaps the 15 were sitting on a lot of card votes.
     We have said two-thirds because the papers of the meeting did, but we aren't convinced it's true. Any experts on company law out there? Our money's on three-quarters. But it got that as well.
     Later. The experts say three-quarters is right.
     It was now 3.20 and TEA TIME. Quite a good tea, and the meeting resumed at 3.40 with
(8) Some tidying up. We won't bother you with all of it, but an interesting point arose. They were trying to clarify Article 32, which regulates the amount of Game Fee payable for Standard, Rapid, Club Internal and Junior events. The ECF's draft made a fair old cods of it, in our opinion, but that isn't the interesting point. The interesting point is that the Articles define Junior as "under the age of 18 years" full stop. It's clear enough, if you believe it, but everyone knows that really the 1st September comes into it somewhere.
     The Articles don't say it. Well, no one could find the place where they do. The "clarification" was accepted overwhelmingly, but on the understanding that the Articles would be diligently searched and if they really didn't say it they would be amended so they did.
     Later. Diligent inquiry has revealed no mention of 1st September in the Articles. But a definition of "junior" in the Direct Members Bye Laws says, "aged under 18 on 1 September most recent". This is not quite in accordance with the grading rules as they relate to junior increments, but it may well (we don't know) be the usual understanding among organisers of junior events. It is, at least, carefully worded and your Webmaster would have no objection at all to its inclusion in the Articles.
(9) Future Council Venues. Earlier meetings have (informally) favoured a London - Birmingham rota, noting that SCCU and MCCU attendance is usually dominant and that the same people tend to come wherever the meeting is. One or three Yorkshire people said that, on the contrary, this was their first ever meeting. But it was resolved that until Council decided otherwise its meetings would be held as follows.
     In even-numbered years: Finance meeting London; AGM Birmingham
     In odd-numbered years: Finance meeting Birmingham; AGM London
Meetings 2008: Finance 26th April in London; AGM 18th October in Birmingham

And this concluded the meeting. It was 4.13 pm. That's early, but you knew.
rjh 23.10.07, revised 25.10.07 and 12.11.07

Earlier material is in the Archive.