ECF Board Meeting, Birmingham 13th March 2010

[Adam Raoof]

This is not a report, just some quick observations about the meeting and some of the more exciting bits. OK, maybe not that exciting...

Present; Adam Raoof, Andrew Farthing, Gareth Caller, John Paines in the chair, Chris Majer, John Wickham, Lawrence Cooper, Alan Martin, Stewart Reuben and also (before the break for lunch) Alex Holowczak.

Alex was there at our invitation to talk about the recent BUCA Championships in Oxford, and the Agenda was therefor rejigged to take all confidential items after the break. We started at 11am, and it took most of the first part of the meeting just to get through the actions arising from the previous meeting. Then Alex gave us his report, and the Board roundly congratulated him on organising a successful event at such short notice, and made various commitments to supporting BUCA. By that stage I think Alex had probably had quite enough and went home.

My report covered a wide range of areas.
- As you all know, Jack Rudd had to step back from his role as Controller of the Counties and Sean Hewitt kindly volunteered to help out by seeing the season through. I recommended him to the Board and he was formally appointed as Acting Controller.
- I am looking into updating the 'ECF Rules for Events played under its Auspices' as and when I receive a copy of the existing rules, which is a direct response to a thread on this Forum.
- The Counties Championships rules will be examined and, if necessary, revised after this season finishes.
The Counties Rapidplay Championships are hopefully going to be revived in the Autumn by the good efforts of the SCCU. This, together with the announcement of the 4NCL event http://www.4nclrapidchess.tk in October and the possibility that someone may come forward to run the Handicap event is all good news.
- The Open section of the National Club needs some serious thought next season to either revive it, or perhaps, as some have suggested, just axe it. Personally I think we should try some new ideas out, or try harder to actually promote it? What do you think?

Other items;
- I am investigating library suppliers to distribute the ECF Yearbook directly to libraries,
- I wrote to correct the contact details for the ECF on the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme, and once the CoM site is live we can add those details. Thanks to Ray Cannon for pointing out that the scheme has a chess element!
- The grading team are working on the update to the database to enable members to log in and see various enhancements.
- The Master Points scheme has been revised and a new link http://www.ecfmasterpoints.tk registered to make it easier to find. A new category of National Master has been created and I was asked to look into the possibility of these titles appearing on the grading database.
- There are developments on the Prisons Chess front, but we still need a Manager in that role to take some national projects on.
- The University of the Third Age has been contacted regarding organising and promoting chess events during the day.
- CJ and I will be attending the British Rapidplay Championships in November to present the prizes. I have warned them that, of course, we may not be in post by then and that I am happy if they have to subsequently withdraw my invitation
- I am writing a leaflet 'How to Start a Chess Club' for the office to distribute to enquirers.
- The long list of officers of the ECF has been updated, but you are all invited to make corrections and amendments where necessary by emailing me.
- Official ECF Facebook and Twitter pages are being regularly updated and are attracting a lot of interest.
A new Manager for Women's Chess was appointed after discussion. The Manager is to report to the Home Chess Director... but probably won't have a budget to work with.

Gareth presented several papers on the finance of the ECF and a range of options for the future. I won't attempt to summarise that right now as I am still recovering from another 7 hour epic, but my feeling was that we reached a turning point in the fortunes of the Federation, and I am confident that we have some really excellent and exciting developments ahead. All I can say is that we are lucky to have him on our team, and we will squeeze as much out of him as we can

Later we discussed the grading list and it was decided to introduce Print on Demand to make the January update available to anyone who was interested in it via a site such as Lulu.com but to continue printing the September list, as it makes a small profit. However the actual printing of this and the Yearbook would be put under scrutiny as it was felt a more competitive price could be achieved.

We also decided to stop sending out Congress Information Packs and instead make them available on the website.

A number of direct questions were asked about the CfS situation and other matters, on behalf of readers of this forum who contacted me publicly and privately.

Q: 'How many sets have been distributed so far?'
A: 'Ask the CfS Administrator, she'll have exact numbers' - so I will do that and report back here.

Q: 'What are the ongoing costs of the CfS Scheme?'
A: 'The salary of the CfS Administrator'

Q: 'Was a finders free paid in respect of the LV= sponsorship?'
A: 'No'

Q: 'Are ECF Office staff permitted to engage on the Forum?'
A: 'Yes'

[Alex Holowczak]

By that stage I think Alex had probably had quite enough and went home.

I had a letter to the BDCL Rules Committee to write!

The highlight of the meeting was, for me, John Paines' inability to open the bottle top for the provided water bottle, despite his Mensa credentials.

We also decided to stop sending out Congress Information Packs and instead make them available on the website.

Good. I still have one in almost pristine condition here if the ECF want it back?

[Adam Raoof]

Q: 'How many sets have been distributed so far?'
A: 'Ask the CfS Administrator, she'll have exact numbers' - so I will do that and report back here.'

The figure is 436 schools, which have all received 10 sets each, which is 4360 sets. Figures still coming in. Whichever way you look at it, this is a lot of sets. I certainly appreciate that we have to look at the cost to the Federation, and I am sure that will be raised in April.

[Sean Hewitt]

Q: 'How many sets have been distributed so far?'
A: 'Ask the CfS Administrator, she'll have exact numbers' - so I will do that and report back here.'

The figure is 436 schools, which have all received 10 sets each, which is 4360 sets. Figures still coming in. Whichever way you look at it, this is a lot of sets. I certainly appreciate that we have to look at the cost to the Federation, and I am sure that will be raised in April.

Thanks for this Adam. I have a couple of questions

(i) Do we have a total running cost to the Federation of this initiative, both year to date and in total? It will be interesting to calculate the cost of each of these 4360 sets so far given that decent quality tournament sets can be purchased wholesale for around £3 per set.

(ii) Do we have the number of sets delivered each month? The total figure is interesting, but the monthly figure would give us much more information to work with, including whether we are steadily increasing deliveries as one would expect with a maturing project.

And I have an observation:-

I understand that the Federation has ongoing costs of the scheme administrators salary. I don't know how much the lady in question earns but including NI and other costs it must be safe to assume the cost to the ECF is at least £1,500 per month. This means that we need to deliver 500 sets per month to make this "free offer" a better deal than simply buying the sets at cost and giving them to schools.

[David Sedgwick]

The figure is 436 schools, which have all received 10 sets each, which is 4360 sets. Figures still coming in. Whichever way you look at it, this is a lot of sets.

Don't forget that we were told not that long ago that Phase 1, involving the distribution of 80,000 sets, would be completed by the end of July 2010.

At the current rate of progress it will take 13-14 years to complete Phase 1. By a neat coincidence, that is the total length of time that a typical child is at school.

However, many thanks to you for obtaining and publishing the information. It's good that there's at least one ECF Director who wants to end the conspiracy of silence over this project.

[Adam Raoof]

Sean - your maths is sound, and your logic too. I know the approximate answers to those questions, but it will be better, and probably fairer, if the questions are raised in April's meeting.

[Sean Hewitt]

Sean - your maths is sound, and your logic too. I know the approximate answers to those questions, but it will be better, and probably fairer, if the questions are raised in April's meeting.

Adam - have no fear, my train ticket is booked already!

[Carl Hibbard]

However, many thanks to you for obtaining and publishing the information. It's good that there's at least one ECF Director who wants to end the conspiracy of silence over this project.

Yes thank you Adam, it's taken a while but we have the detail we were expecting

[David Lettington]

A new Manager for Women's Chess was appointed after discussion.

Adam, are you able to tell us who the appointee is?

Many thanks for the time taken to report back on the issues discussed.

[Adam Raoof]

Hi David - yes, the appointee was Ljubica Lazarevic, and I am sure she will be posting here soon about her plans. One thing I was not able to do was secure a budget for her, but we'll work on that.

[Matthew Turner]

I just find this a bit odd. This is somebody who has not had a grade since 2006. If you cannot find time to play chess why do you suddenly find time to be an ECF Manager?

[Alex Holowczak]

I was there at the time of this discussion.

The board were aware (or made aware) of her previous experience of being involved in the organisation of tournaments. The people on the board who knew her seemed confident in her ability to do the job.

[LozCooper]

I just find this a bit odd. This is somebody who has not had a grade since 2006. If you cannot find time to play chess why do you suddenly find time to be an ECF Manager?

Let's try and be a bit more positive about the appointment. Just because someone doesn't play the required number of games in a season to be graded it doesn't mean they can't bring enthusiasm and new ideas to a post that had been empty for six months. From memory she played and defeated Megan Owens in the 4NCL last year and it's more the cost of playing rather than not having the time that has limited her activity. Like many other players her chess playing has been mainly restricted to ICC in recent years.

Personally, I'm thankful the post has been filled and she co-organised and was the arbiter at four British Blitz events from 2003-2006 so she has experience of organising high profile events. Let's reserve our judgement until she's been in the post for longer than two and a half days.

[Matthew Turner]

Loz,
You cannot afford to play chess, but you would like to be an ECF Manager for a post that doesn't have a budget. I can see a potential problem.
As with anybody who tries to do something with the ECF I wish Ljubica the very best of luck.

[LozCooper]

Loz,
You cannot afford to play chess, but you would like to be an ECF Manager for a post that doesn't have a budget. I can see a potential problem.
As with anybody who tries to do something with the ECF I wish Ljubica the very best of luck.

As far as I'm aware the budget hasn't been removed and even if that were the case there's still scope for organising events that break even or make a profit. I view it as a very important job so I think it's important we give her every encouragement. We have some promising young girls so it's important they are given support and a contact that can help and advise. Although Adam and myself are new to the board I'd like to think that there's worse people she could turn to if she needs any assistance.