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FIDE membership
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 4:38 pm
by Roger de Coverly
There is a proposal (discussion really at this stage) to spilt the ECF into a "professional" arm which would handle issues which could involve professional players and a charitable arm which handles the rest.
Given that usually FIDE only recognises one chess federation per territory, which one will it be? Presumably the professional one as that's where the titled players will be and the invitations to play in Olympiads etc. come from. So if the ECF retains its fiction that individual membership is a FIDE requirement, internationally rated players would have to be members of both bodies.
Re: FIDE membership
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 4:42 pm
by David Sedgwick
I may be wrong, but I think the intention is that the Gold subscription rate of £25 would give rise to membership of both the new companies.
Re: FIDE membership
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 5:05 pm
by Roger de Coverly
David Sedgwick wrote:I may be wrong, but I think the intention is that the Gold subscription rate of £25 would give rise to membership of both the new companies.
You might be presuming both to be CLGs. When the use of The Chess Centre was proposed three years ago, this would have been a company limited by shares.
Why would a county association want or need to be a member of the "professional" ECF? You might say voting rights, but if you give the charity ECF OMOV, the voters could take that in any direction they wanted regardless of the voting in the "professional" ECF.
The only membership needed by "professional" ECF is internationally rated players , events with international rating and interested parties like the Chess Arbiters Association. Competitors at British Championships as well if it runs the entire event.
Re: FIDE membership
Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:15 pm
by Roger de Coverly
Background to this from the June 2011 ECF Board meeting
Report on ECF Board meeting wrote:3. Charitable Status
The Board discussed three specific points from a paper circulated by AF prior to the meeting:
i. What are the Board’s initial thoughts on voting rights in the new charity? Bear in mind that it will probably be a membership organisation, i.e. all graded players should be members.
Following discussion, AF requested a straw poll of Board members’ views with regard to OMOV (One Member, One Vote). The result was 6 in favour, with two abstentions.
ii. What about voting rights in the non-charitable organisation?
The Board’s preference was that there should be no change from the current arrangements, in order to simplify the process of obtaining agreement for reorganisation.
iii. How much overlap should there be in the Boards of the charity and the ECF?
It was suggested that the Manager of the British Championships should be on the Board of the ECF (i.e. the non-charity).
Overall, the preference was for substantial overlap, in order to keep things simple. AF indicated that there was a case for not having an International Director on the charity (which would not deal with international chess), which would open up the possibility of one individual holding both this post and a different directorship on the Board of the charity.
One Board member felt that the liaison between the two organisations should be “written in stoneâ€. AF took note of this but made the point that it would be important for the separateness of the two organisations to be both real and demonstrable to HMRC and the Charity Commission.