CAS case clarification required

[Roger de Coverly]

I nominate RDdC for Director of Membership and Marketing: do I have a seconder?

You know what the manifesto is. Any compulsion at the level of an individual, whether directly or indirectly to become an ECF member to take part in competitive chess to be abolished.

[Angus French]

I nominate RDdC for Director of Membership and Marketing: do I have a seconder?

You know what the manifesto is. Any compulsion at the level of an individual, whether directly or indirectly to become an ECF member to take part in competitive chess to be abolished.

The votes are clocking up faster than John's software can count them.

[John Upham]

You know what the manifesto is. Any compulsion at the level of an individual, whether directly or indirectly to become an ECF member to take part in competitive chess to be abolished.

I assume that this person might be your main supporter:

[Ian Kingston]

You know what the manifesto is. Any compulsion at the level of an individual, whether directly or indirectly to become an ECF member to take part in competitive chess to be abolished.

I assume that this person might be your main supporter:

Unfortunately, being dead, Lord Sutch is unable to second the nomination. Or do the relevant regulations not cover that?

Can dead people join the ECF? Why hasn't this been disclosed to this forum? What is the Board trying to hide?

[John Upham]

Unfortunately, being dead, Lord Sutch is unable to second the nomination.

This is a minor (but possibly relevant) detail.

In view of this bombshell I can reveal that RDdCs running "mate" could reasonably be:

lord_bath_tortoise.jpg

This image is especially welcome since it completes the circle connecting chess and tortoises.

[John Philpott]

Ian Kingston wrote:

Unfortunately, being dead, Lord Sutch is unable to second the nomination. Or do the relevant regulations not cover that?

Can dead people join the ECF? Why hasn't this been disclosed to this forum? What is the Board trying to hide?

If Lord Sutch proved to be the representative member of an organisation affiliated to the ECF I can see no constitutional reason why a seance should not be organised to ascertain whether he wishes to support the candidate. The real problem here lies with John Upham, as unless his circumstances have recently changed, I do not believe that he has the standing to make a nomination in the first place.

[Mike Truran]

The real problem here lies with John Upham, as unless his circumstances have recently changed, I do not believe that he has the standing to make a nomination in the first place.

Why has this not been disclosed on the forum before now? I very much fear that this is just yet one more example of the ECF board's failure to embrace transparency. But thanks to the ever vigilant forumites we can hopefully look forward to a full enquiry (unless they are too busy preparing their election manifestos).

[John Upham]

The real problem here lies with John Upham,

I agree and thanks for pointing this out. For some silly reason I thought that this forum was the mouthpiece/soapbox of ECF Council!

I will recommend to my various ECF Delegates that Lord David Sutch be nominated and see if they wish to carry that forward.

[Alex Holowczak]

Ian Kingston wrote:

Unfortunately, being dead, Lord Sutch is unable to second the nomination. Or do the relevant regulations not cover that?

Can dead people join the ECF? Why hasn't this been disclosed to this forum? What is the Board trying to hide?

If Lord Sutch proved to be the representative member of an organisation affiliated to the ECF I can see no constitutional reason why a seance should not be organised to ascertain whether he wishes to support the candidate. The real problem here lies with John Upham, as unless his circumstances have recently changed, I do not believe that he has the standing to make a nomination in the first place.

That's it!

In the thread about marketing the 100th British Championship in Torquay, Stewart Reuben suggested a seance at, I think number 61.

It seems to me there's a major conspiracy here, with Upham, Reuben and de Coverly in on the act of trying to get Roger elected as the Director of Membership and Marketing, using themselves and Lord Sutch as the nominating parties.

And if it weren't for this forum, we'd never have found about it!

Now that this has been rumbled, perhaps the parties could answer the following questions for us:
(1) Do you think the forum should discuss this action?
(2) What will you do differently next time you attempt to do this?

[Matthew Turner]

Just to remind people amongst all the hilarity from ECF officials that this thread is about the $1m court case the ECF undertook with the primary purpose of restricting funds for chess in developing nations. Somehow that sounds less funny.

[Roger de Coverly]

Now that this has been rumbled, perhaps the parties could answer the following questions for us:
(1) Do you think the forum should discuss this action?
(2) What will you do differently next time you attempt to do this?

I don't see why not. I would however prefer a return to the issue of why there was a Board majority in favour of an action that more than one director appears opposed to. Could it have been, as indirectly alleged by Alex McF, because they had a (valid) concern that if they pulled the plug on the CAS thing, this would have a detrimental effect on the funding and promotion of the 2011 British Championships?

You've got the experience of the April Council meeting. If there are to be questions asked, is it not better to raise them prior to a Council meeting with a long agenda?

[JustinHorton]

Just to remind people amongst all the hilarity from ECF officials that this thread is about the $1m court case the ECF undertook with the primary purpose of restricting funds for chess in developing nations. Somehow that sounds less funny.

Is it now accepted that this was the primary purpose? I've seen various suggestions (from supporters of the action as well as sceptics) that this was the general idea, but it's not been clear to be that it's been said overtly.

[David Sedgwick]

Just to remind people amongst all the hilarity from ECF officials that this thread is about the $1m court case the ECF undertook with the primary purpose of restricting funds for chess in developing nations. Somehow that sounds less funny.

Is it now accepted that this was the primary purpose? I've seen various suggestions (from supporters of the action as well as sceptics) that this was the general idea, but it's not been clear to be that it's been said overtly.

For what it's worth, I don't for one moment believe that that was the motivation of the ECF Board.

[Paul McKeown]

I thought this thread had ended with an injection of humour.

I was mistaken.

For pity's sake! There are about five obsessives who just go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

No one else could give a Friar Tuck.

The board did something it was entitled to do. Some people don't like that. Big deal, the board is there to take decisions, some it gets right, some its got wrong. If the general view is that it made more and bigger mistakes than is acceptable, then the board can be voted out at an AGM. The rest of this pish about "transparency" is just a polite way of saying that someone lied. They didn't, there was some confused communication, nothing unusual. Basically some people don't like Nigel Short and CJ de Mooi; this thread is just their way of undermining them, and they don't care (or don't think) what the collateral damage is.

I'm sorry to see Andrew Farthing go. He is an open honest man, who tried to change the ECF for the better under difficult circumstances. We weren't worthy of his good services, if this is how we treat him.

Of course, it wasn't just the obsessives on this forum, it was also Steve Giddins and his continual "Aintwortha" name calling. His hatred of de Mooi has long been clear and he willingly joined in this witch hunt. I'm told he is now shedding crocodile tears about Andrew Farthing's departure.

Justin, Roger, etc., why not just give it a rest?

[Andrew Zigmond]

For the record, I would not have voted to take legal action (in practice I did not cast a vote), and I would have liked the responsibility for the decision to take this action to be explicitly removed from the hands of the ECF Board by the constitution. I know that there was no real enthusiasm amongst Directors to pursue this action, and in practice I recognise that we have to work within FIDE to effect change. The only people who win in cases like these are lawyers.

I wasn't planning to post again as I feel this thread has run its course - if people weren't going to agree ten pages ago they're not going to agree now.

However I think Mr Raoof's post is the most significant to be posted on this forum for some time and it surprises me that it's elicited no comment. If there was `no real enthusiasm amongst Directors` are we able to ask a) who was enthusiastic (if anybody) and b) whether they could come and share their enthusiasm on here?

As a minor point one poster compared this forum to the Daily Mail which is the UK's second most widely read daily publication. A better comparison (although slightly unfair the other way) might be the Morning Star which sells to people of a certain viewpoint but rarely interests anybody outside of its core readership.

Carl - is there an argument for deleting the Screaming Lord Sutch posts (and any references to it)? I can think of at least one person who's going to have a field day with it.