English Chess Forum

Anyone live reporting?

I thought this was going to be an announcement that the forum would be shutting down during the AGM as a mark of respect.

Jonathan Bryant wrote:I thought this was going to be an announcement that the forum would be shutting down during the AGM as a mark of respect.

Some interest this year but all depends where these large block votes go.

Carl Hibbard wrote: Some interest this year but all depends where these large block votes go.

The Paulson issue seems to be resolving into whether the voters believe he is independent of Kirsan, rather than whether the extravagant objectives have any hop of realisation. Ironically his highest profile backer, namely Malcolm Pein, has done as much as anyone to market to otherwise unconcerned British players, the notion that Kirsan = FIDE = evil.

It's a topic for another day, but with a reasonable number of votes derived from participants in the supporting events at the London Chess Classic, is it thought the CSC votes committed to AP should or do in any way represent the views of those taking part in those events?

For those who follow English chess politics it's going to be an interesting day. That said today is also the second round of the Yorkshire League and I suspect the majority of players taking part in that will NOT be sneaking off with their phones to check on the progress of the meeting. I'm captaining Harrogate C against Sheffield F so will be keeping an eye on things; I was actually approached to represent the YCA today but decided I needed to give my club priority.

Obviously there are a lot of people who will be giving up other commitments today to travel to the meeting and many of these will be the most committed volunteers chess has.

Roger de Coverly wrote:The Paulson issue seems to be resolving into whether the voters believe he is independent of Kirsan, rather than whether the extravagant objectives have any hop of realisation.

I dunno - I think there's a certain amount of interest in the credibility question.

Roger de Coverly wrote:It's a topic for another day, but with a reasonable number of votes derived from participants in the supporting events at the London Chess Classic, is it thought the CSC votes committed to AP should or do in any way represent the views of those taking part in those events?

It's an issue for all votes, not only for the LCC ones. Players and ECF members have no say in the ECF elections. As an example, I'm a gold member, I play in a couple of leagues and the LCC... I really feel that nobody voting today cares about my opinion in any way. I tried emailing one of the gold member representative at the address posted on this forum but I did not get any acknoledge or any indication that that email has been even read (let alone influenced a tiny vote already).
Why LCC and CSC participants should be treated any better than anyone else?

Paolo Casaschi wrote:

Roger de Coverly wrote:It's a topic for another day, but with a reasonable number of votes derived from participants in the supporting events at the London Chess Classic, is it thought the CSC votes committed to AP should or do in any way represent the views of those taking part in those events?

It's an issue for all votes, not only for the LCC ones. Players and ECF members have no say in the ECF elections. As an example, I'm a gold member, I play in a couple of leagues and the LCC... I really feel that nobody voting today cares about my opinion in any way. I tried emailing one of the gold member representative at the address posted on this forum but I did not get any acknoledge or any indication that that email has been even read (let alone influenced a tiny vote already).
Why LCC and CSC participants should be treated any better than anyone else?

The Gold member representatives are elected so in that respect there is a solution - ie have them challenged and replaced. Obviously that's not much use for today. The same is true of local league representatives, proxy votes for events have a much less obvious constituency.

The problem is that if there was an angry mob calling for voting reform then board and council would probably listen. Unfortunately at present the mob have better things to do with their time.

Andrew Zigmond wrote:For those who follow English chess politics

Andrew Zigmond wrote:The Gold member representatives are elected so in that respect there is a solution - ie have them challenged and replaced. Obviously that's not much use for today. The same is true of local league representatives, proxy votes for events have a much less obvious constituency.

The problem is that if there was an angry mob calling for voting reform then board and council would probably listen. Unfortunately at present the mob have better things to do with their time.

I was just pointing out that this year I tried working according to the current system and I realized I have no representation.

As far as changing the system, Sean Hewitt has a proposal for a "one man one vote" scheme, we'll see today if the council is so keen to listen. I seriously doubt it, in this respect the ECF council looks to me pretty much like the FIDE congress, I see very unlikely the delegates voting to take away their privileges; I hope I'm wrong though.

Paolo Casaschi wrote: As far as changing the system, Sean Hewitt has a proposal for a "one man one vote" scheme, we'll see today if the council is so keen to listen.

It's not exactly a scheme, rather an instruction to the Board that they should attempt to devise such a scheme and put it forward for discussion and ratification.

One relatively simple possibility would be to change the voting process so that the non-Exec positions, namely the President, the Chairman when there is one and the two Non-Execs are elected wholly or partly by individuals.

Roger de Coverly wrote:
One relatively simple possibility would be to change the voting process so that the non-Exec positions, namely the President, the Chairman when there is one and the two Non-Execs are elected wholly or partly by individuals.

I would not call that simple in any way, but I'm sure if you give enough time to a committee, they will certainly come up with something as convoluted as you describe.

The current system at least has the illusion that current council members are supposed to ultimately represent the players of their organizations. In my view, a system where official are elected "partly by individuals" and partly on god given rights would only make the lack of representation official.

I look forward to reading how things turn out in the meeting.

Please please keep information coming.

Carl Hibbard wrote

Anyone live reporting?

I can report that the WiFi is working at the Euston Square Hotel.

John et al

Have fun