Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑Fri Oct 15, 2021 2:44 pm
To the extent that Tim is heaping more coals on the fire of the Truran/Pein debate, I really don't feel that he does English chess any favours. I can see there's an argument, in chess as in life, for the command-and-control model but my own preference for the 'enabling' model is reinforced by the knowledge that the alternative would result in one person, assisted by his disciples, having near-total control of English chess. I acknowledge that it's perfectly possible that this would be beneficial but it might equally well be detrimental. Continuing this argument seems to me counter-productive when there are other matters, and the much-debated issue of development officers is one example, where constructive discussion might actually be useful.
i just seen this on one of tim comment on Chess.com from Angus that quote this
Tim has also written for Malcolm's Chess magazine and he accompanied Malcolm to the 2018 FIDE elections in Batumi where Malcolm was the running mate of Georgios Makropoulos.
Chris Fegan, whose candidacy Tim supports, is a full-time employee at Malcolm's CSC organisation. Tim says the Non-executive Directors' report to the ECF AGM is partisan and constitutes a personal attack on Chris. I don't see it that way. Rather, it seems to me that the NEDs have quite rightly highlighted that bad relations within the Board have impacted on its operation. The NED report is here:
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-cont ... l-2021.pdf. The NEDs also reported strained relations between Board members in their report to last year's AGM:
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-cont ... ectors.pdf. The NEDs referred to the appointment of a Development Officer being central to the friction. Tim Wall, the author of the above piece, applied for the Development Officer position but the post was awarded to someone else. Almost immediately this happened, Chris Fegan, as Director of Women's Chess, appointed Tim to to a new position, Women's Recruitment Officer, which hadn't been advertised. The Women's Recruitment Officer role cut across the role of the Development Officer and was cited as one of the reasons for the resignation of the Development Officer. Statement here:
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/develop ... signation/.
but also this was more shocking
How much paid work have you done for the guy you are recommending we vote for? You seem to have forgotten to mention your conflict of interest here.'
Actually, Justin, I tend to do more work for the English Chess Federation than for Chess in Schools and Communities. Since 2017, when I started working full-time as a chess teacher, coach, organiser, and chess journalist, I have been an England coach at 1 World Schools Championship (Turkey, 2019) and 2 European Schools Championships (Poland, 2018, and Romania, 2019). In 2020, I worked directly for Mike Truran organising the England leg of the European Online Youth Championships (a hybrid event where the England teams gathered, socially distanced, at a venue in the Midlands).
I have also been a regular coach at ECF Academy training weekends since 2017, a
nd wrote dozens of articles for the ECF newsletter extolling the virtues of developing grassroots chess in England until Mike Truran ordered the editor of the newsletter to fire me for the 'crime' of constructively criticising his work in a blog on Chess.com.
For the record, I have also worked as press officer for CSC at the London Chess Classic in 2018 and 2019, and as a promotions officer for CSC during ChessFest in July 2021.
You can check all this information with the ECF and CSC. Of course, like many volunteers in English chess, I also do lots (probably too much) of unpaid work for chess clubs, congresses and local county associations.
I know i'm not as Articulated at Tim, but maybe that the reason why he don't like Mike