Paul Cooksey wrote: ↑Sun Jul 11, 2021 1:08 pm
I think if John was standing for Membership Director he should say he is a vendor of LMS software without putting an onus on Council members to find out by searching the internet. It might influence peoples decision to vote for him either positively or negatively.
But lets say I ran my own coaching business and I felt that it was not fairly considered by the Junior Director because of his role in the UKCC. Or if I felt the International Director was unfairly overlooking me for International selection because I own a rival book store. What should I do? Contact the governance committee?
Conflicts of interest aren't, of course, unique to chess. Contacting the governance committee probably isn't a solution because, other than in cases where someone's decision has been blatantly influenced by other interests, people can generally find arguments to justify their decisions. Conflicts of interest can, moreover, work in both directions. Consider a selector who has to choose between two juniors with more or less identical records, one of whom he knows personally. S/he has to make a choice but, if that choice is the junior whom s/he knows, there's the risk of being accused of being unduly influenced by this - but it's equally 'unfair' to reverse the process and choose the other junior instead.
More broadly, I would suggest there are sufficiently few chess players prepared to step up and do some work so that, if one eliminated everyone who could be said to have a conflict of interests, many posts would be left unfilled and many activities would abruptly cease.