ECF AGM 2021

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
Matthew Turner
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by Matthew Turner » Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:28 pm

I think one should also note that the Bronze Reps, Aga Milewska and Chris Skulte, vote for the NEDs report.

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Carl Hibbard
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by Carl Hibbard » Mon Oct 18, 2021 5:37 pm

Angus French wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:22 pm
The result of the card vote on whether to accept the Non-executive directors' report is now available. Looks like nearly all the votes against were cast by Rob Willmoth, Tim Wall and Chris Fegan. Malcolm Pein (as Director of International Chess) also voted against, as did Lorin D'Costa (as a Gold members' rep).
All Malcolm team yes?
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JustinHorton
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Oct 18, 2021 5:46 pm

J T Melsom wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:01 pm
I think the only political question is why anybody considered unrelenting negative campaigning to be a productive way to present a case to Council?
This has been baffling me too and I can't think of any explanation other than the one provided by the punchline in the fable of the scorpion and the frog.
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PeterFarr
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by PeterFarr » Mon Oct 18, 2021 6:34 pm

Matthew Turner wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:28 pm
I think one should also note that the Bronze Reps, Aga Milewska and Chris Skulte, vote for the NEDs report.
Well yes.
JustinHorton wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 5:46 pm
J T Melsom wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:01 pm
I think the only political question is why anybody considered unrelenting negative campaigning to be a productive way to present a case to Council?
This has been baffling me too and I can't think of any explanation other than the one provided by the punchline in the fable of the scorpion and the frog.
Aga Milewska was associated with Malcolm Pein's team, but won her (ok uncontested) election by 323-16. I suspect this means most or all of the Board voted for her. As far as I have seen she ran a positive campaign, and at the meeting on Saturday she gave a clear and calm presentation. For that matter Shohreh Bayat also gave an excellent, positive presentation and got a vote of 343-0. So it can be done. I think it can be forgotten that most members of council (at least by head count rather than weight of votes) are not insiders, or factionally aligned. They will maybe respond better to a clear, simple and positive case, than to arguments that depend on what A said to B about C, however unfair that may be.

Paul Cooksey
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by Paul Cooksey » Mon Oct 18, 2021 6:46 pm

JustinHorton wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 5:46 pm
J T Melsom wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:01 pm
I think the only political question is why anybody considered unrelenting negative campaigning to be a productive way to present a case to Council?
This has been baffling me too and I can't think of any explanation other than the one provided by the punchline in the fable of the scorpion and the frog.
There are people who are prepared to lose if they think they have a just cause. Of course agreement on the justness of causes varies.

So, for those interested in the actual dispute, this place at the heart of Chris's complaint. Although he acknowledged he had broken board rules by posting here, his defence is that it was necessary for him to act as a whistle-blower given wrong doing on the board was being hidden. His reference to a Kangaroo court is that he did not have chance to make that defence since the governance committee convicted him without a fair hearing.

Robert Stern rejected that allegation. He stated that the Governance Committee had only drawn the attention of the Chair of the Board to the posts. Furthermore since the Governance Committee did not impose any sanction and has no power to do so it was wrong to treat it as a judicial body.

The Chair - Julian Clissold - maintained that he asked Chris to explain his behaviour and received no satisfactory response. Chris maintained he responded in detail, and that Julian would only consider his resignation an adequate response. Both sides said they were willing to publish the emails if the other agreed.

So, for my part. In terms of the election for Governance Committee, nothing I felt Robert could or should have done differently. I also felt like I was the only person in the room who had not seen the emails and that largely because I tend to decline offers of information not in the public domain. So it would have been hard for me to judge if Julian had convicted Chris without due process.

I'm a bit cynical about the whole thing, it felt to me a lot like the complaint and subsequent breach of confidentiality were part of the election campaign. But I've no proof of that, so those involved would be entitled to call it groundless speculation.

(edit - some of the more egregious grammatical errors corrected)
Last edited by Paul Cooksey on Mon Oct 18, 2021 7:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by Paul Cooksey » Mon Oct 18, 2021 6:49 pm

PeterFarr wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 6:34 pm
I think it can be forgotten that most members of council (at least by head count rather than weight of votes) are not insiders, or factionally aligned. They will maybe respond better to a clear, simple and positive case, than to arguments that depend on what A said to B about C, however unfair that may be.
I think we have it proven that roughly a third of votes would have voted for a donkey with Malcolm's rosette on it. I think maybe more than a third would have voted for Mike's donkey but that not tested. But I might be deluding myself that the non-aligned hold the balance of power.

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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by PeterFarr » Mon Oct 18, 2021 6:53 pm

Yeah that's a fair correction I should think. At least we're talking donkeys rather than asses.

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John Upham
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by John Upham » Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:22 pm

Is it a matter of ECF record how the holders of multiple votes distributed their votes?

How accountable is the voting system in these terms?
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John Reyes
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by John Reyes » Tue Oct 19, 2021 8:00 am

John Upham wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:22 pm
Is it a matter of ECF record how the holders of multiple votes distributed their votes?

How accountable is the voting system in these terms?
The tellers will have that but it won't be showing

I'm Happy to tell people how i voted and will be sending it to the league etc that i'm involve as well as the proxy as one person told me to abstain and to vote for chris fegan as well
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by Angus French » Tue Oct 19, 2021 1:34 pm

PeterFarr wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 6:34 pm
Matthew Turner wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:28 pm
I think one should also note that the Bronze Reps, Aga Milewska and Chris Skulte, vote for the NEDs report.
Well yes.
JustinHorton wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 5:46 pm
J T Melsom wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:01 pm
I think the only political question is why anybody considered unrelenting negative campaigning to be a productive way to present a case to Council?
This has been baffling me too and I can't think of any explanation other than the one provided by the punchline in the fable of the scorpion and the frog.
Aga Milewska was associated with Malcolm Pein's team, but won her (ok uncontested) election by 323-16. I suspect this means most or all of the Board voted for her. As far as I have seen she ran a positive campaign, and at the meeting on Saturday she gave a clear and calm presentation. For that matter Shohreh Bayat also gave an excellent, positive presentation and got a vote of 343-0. So it can be done. I think it can be forgotten that most members of council (at least by head count rather than weight of votes) are not insiders, or factionally aligned. They will maybe respond better to a clear, simple and positive case, than to arguments that depend on what A said to B about C, however unfair that may be.
I see Aga used her Bronze members' rep votes to vote against the report of the Governance Committee. I wonder on what basis? Certainly it was against my wishes as a Bronze member... I wonder, will she be stepping down as a members' rep now that she's a director?
Last edited by Angus French on Tue Oct 19, 2021 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Michael Farthing
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by Michael Farthing » Tue Oct 19, 2021 1:36 pm

For Information:

Details of both card votes are new on the ECF website.
The voting in card vote 2 was reported (provisionally) in the meeting as 254 to 55 in favour. The published results are 251 to 55.

Paul Cooksey
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by Paul Cooksey » Tue Oct 19, 2021 6:06 pm

Angus French wrote:
Tue Oct 19, 2021 1:34 pm
I see Aga used her Bronze members' rep votes to vote against the report of the Governance Committee. I wonder on what basis? Certainly it was against my wishes as a Bronze member... I wonder, will she be stepping down as a members' rep now that she's a director?
It seems very unlikely. She was asked a question about it (probably by David Gilbert, although from memory since not in my notes). The questioner said he could only vote for her if she committed to resigning as bronze members rep due to the conflict of interest. She conveyed, as much by an expression of extreme bafflement as words, that she did not see an issue with conflict of interest.

Tim Wall stepped in to try to deflect the question on procedural grounds, to more general bafflement. In fairness to Tim, when he is representing 15 organisations he tries to be as involved as 15 separate reps would be.

Member rep conflict of interest doesn't bother me too much. I don't think we need to assume the members are hostile to the executive. But if members reps are already involved in the ECF Council or even Board in other capacities it does raise some questions about whether the members rep system is working as envisaged. But I'll take that to the Council reform thread.

In passing Chris Goodall noted some time ago that it was unfortunate that the circumstances of Fenella's withdrawal would diminish Aga's mandate. In the event, I don't think the case at all, and the votes reflect that she was a strong candidate Council hopes will succeed.

Roger Lancaster
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by Roger Lancaster » Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:12 am

The italicised passage below comes from today's BBC News website. Anything vaguely familiar?

"Self-obsessed, selfish and not very bright" councillors are costing Middlesbrough Council dear because they keep complaining about each other, the town's mayor has said.

Complaints among council members have risen to 12 this year, compared with just four in 2020 and nine in 2019.

Middlesbrough's mayor Andy Preston said probing complaints was too costly.

The council's standards committee said it needed to tackle a "low tolerance to the cut and thrust of debate".

John Reyes
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by John Reyes » Sat Oct 23, 2021 8:19 pm

This was the Nccu report that was sent to me as I was the proxy for the cheshire and north Wales rep

Report on English Chess Federation AGM, 16 October 2021
This year’s ECF AGM (held for the first time as a hybrid meeting – at the Hellenic Centre in central London, and on Zoom) came at a challenging time for English chess, with clubs, leagues and congresses still struggling somewhat with the return to over-the-board chess amid a continuing Covid pandemic.
The AGM also came after a period of serious policy differences between various members of the ECF Board, which resulted in two candidates being nominated for the post of Chief Executive. Incumbent Mike Truran was being challenged by Malcolm Pein, the International Director, but Malcolm withdrew from the election a few days before the meeting after the two candidates reached an agreement on the way forward for the ECF.
The various steps agreed to can be viewed here.
As a consequence of this agreement, Mike Truran was re-elected unopposed with 243 votes in favour. However, there were 98 votes for ‘not this candidate,’ reflecting a strong residual support for Malcolm’s candidacy – although he made it clear he was voting for Mike.
In the days leading up to the AGM, and during the AGM itself, Mike refrained from commenting at all about the reforms in the agreement – except on the issue of tidying up the BCF Legacy Funds. In his election speech to the AGM, Mike focused entirely on the transfer of the legacy funds to the Chess Trust charity, and said nothing about external fundraising or the goal of more actively pursuing development.
In view of Mike’s reticence to endorse the policy shift, in line with the wishes of the NCCU Council I felt our preference for Malcolm’s candidacy would be best expressed by voting for ‘Not this candidate.’
This, in my view, would serve two purposes:
1) Express a degree of scepticism that Mike was as yet fully committed to the change in policy he had agreed with Malcolm; and
2) Hold Mike to account in implementing the deal.
In the elections debate, I urged Mike to overcome his philosophical objections to a more pro- active ECF role in developing chess, and give the agreement with Malcolm his full support.
Significantly, no one at the AGM raised any objections to the Pein-Truran agreement, and the clearly amicable relations between the two of them during the meeting gave me hope that there could be very positive progress at the next Board meeting and in the months to come.
Election results
Given the polarising effect of the CEO election campaign in recent weeks, it was perhaps inevitable that the other elections would witness a knock-on effect, even for some of the uncontested posts.
The votes were as follows:
Board Position Candidate For Against

Uncontested elections:
President
CEO
Junior & Education Women’s Chess Events
Council Chair
FIDE Delegate Contested Election: Chair of Governance
Dominic Lawson Mike Truran
Alex Holowczak Agnieszka Milewska Shohreh Bayat Michael Farthing Malcolm Pein
338 2 243 98 283 61 323 16 343 0 312 32 337 6
Robert Stern 225
Chris Fegan 119
On the positive side, the elections gave a resounding welcome to two new female members of the Board, Shohreh Bayat (Director of Events) and Agnieszka Milewska (Director of Women’s Chess). Together with Non-Executive Director Natasha Regan, this brings the number of female Board members to three (out of a total of 12) – the highest proportion in the ECF’s history – and rightly reflects an increased focus on women’s and girls’ chess, particularly given the ‘Queen’s Gambit’-fuelled online boom.
The election for the Chair of the Governance Committee can perhaps only be fully understood with a knowledge of the background leading up to it. As Director of Women’s Chess since 2018, Chris Fegan set various targets, including to increase the ECF’s budget for Women’s Chess, to increase participation from female players – and to find a female successor to take over the role in 2021. By these yardsticks, Chris has succeeded brilliantly in his role, but judging by his contributions at the AGM he felt that he was unfairly ostracised and excluded by some Board members, who he said also repeatedly tried to get him to resign.
Some of those Board members targeted Chris in the Non-Executive Directors’ report, criticising him for eventually (in August this year) taking his grievances public on social media (via https://www.ecforum.org.uk/ ). Reading between the lines, the NED report (presumably prepared in the weeks before election nominations were announced) may have been in part a pre-emptive strike against Chris, in case he decided to run for CEO.
(As a side comment, it was particularly noticeable at the AGM that Chris and Natasha Regan were on the friendliest of terms, suggesting that the criticism of him came instead from the other two non-executive directors.)
In their election speeches, Chris Fegan and Robert Stern engaged in vigorous but civilised debate, with Chris making an impassioned plea for greater transparency in the ECF and a whistle-blowing system for members to register complaints. Chris also made the case for ‘One Member One Vote,’ arguing that members of the ECF should have direct input into decision-making.
I took part in this debate, calling on the Governance Committee to focus on finding solutions to systemic problems rather than directing complainants to Regulation No. 5, which in my view tends to personalise complaints and only allows complainants to blame an individual

ECF official for “maladministration.”
Reports Passed
The only reports to attract any debate or controversy were the Non-Executive Directors’ and Governance Committee’s reports. They were passed, albeit with opposition. Normally these reports are passed unanimously.
The votes were: NED Report Governance Report
Motions Passed
For Against 254 82
251 55
With Malcolm Pein and Mike Truran in broad agreement on the mechanisms to transfer BCF Legacy Funds to the Chess Trust, and Malcolm likely to join the Chess Trust as a trustee soon, it was unsurprising that the two resolutions proposed by Malcolm on these issues were withdrawn, with a view to the Board preparing proposals for the Finance Council to consider in April 2022.
The other motions – one (under Agenda Item 12)
developing the game in England” – and another, proposed from the floor at the AGM,
that instructed the Board to “attempt to
engage with government to secure recognition of the game as well as funding, with a view to
congratulating ECF President Dominic Lawson on his efforts to lobby for chess with the
government, were passed with no opposition.
At the end of the meeting, under Any Other Business, there was some discussion about
broadcasting Council meetings live on the Internet. It was decided that a proposal would be
allowed on this at the start of the April Council meeting.
Conclusion
Tim Wall, NCCU Delegate
21/10/21
Overall, even though the AGM saw robust debate, there was a general feeling of relief that
the agreement between Malcolm Pein and Mike Truran could lead to positive progress (and
greater cooperation on the Board) in future
Any postings on here represent my personal views only and also Dyslexia as well

John Swain
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Re: ECF AGM 2021

Post by John Swain » Fri Mar 04, 2022 1:57 pm

The draft minutes have been published:

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-cont ... 2021.3.pdf

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