ECF Junior Public Relations Officer

[John Upham]

I note that there exists a role described as Junior Public Relations Officer and this role is filled by David Bentley.

I'm guessing that David is related to The World U-11 Girls Champion, Emma Bentley but maybe I am mistaken?

I am confident that David is doing an excellent, behind the scenes job, of fulfilling this role.

Do we know what this role entails and what has been achieved by it in, say, the last 12 months?

[Peter Turner]

Yes Emma is David's daughter. David is a fantastic publicist for his daughter, I was hoping he would do a similar job for English junior chess. See: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Everyone-Raymon ... B001HRG5RW for an example of his work!! Rather strangely Emma is now registered with FIDE for Canada.

[Peter Turner]

Appologies to Emma, I see she is now registered for England.

[John Upham]

Peter,

I looked at http://www.jazzbentley.com/ and had to reach for my sunglasses and a packet of paracetamol!

Has there been publicity work not related to EB?

[Ben Purton]

Perhaps lose the skull and crossbones at the top?

[Peter Turner]

Peter,

I looked at http://www.jazzbentley.com/ and had to reach for my sunglasses and a packet of paracetamol!

Has there been publicity work not related to EB?

I've been waiting for over a year to see non Emma publicity!!

[Peter Sowray]

John / Peter,

Others can update you better than I about David's publicity work. I can tell you that David was extremely helpful to me when I was International Director. He used his business contacts to negotiate a greatly reduced price on the travel for the England team to Crete in 2007. Without his support, the ECF may not have been able to send the team it did.

Best regards,

Peter

[Peter Turner]

Peter

Thank you for sharing that information about David's help. I know how expensive it can be organising foreign group travel.

[David Bentley]

Please go to

http://uk.geocities.com/emmabentleychess then scroll down the page for my comments.

Kind regards,

David Bentley

[Matthew Turner]

David,
I don't think anyone here meant any malice towards you, but it is very confusing when we see very little good publicity coming out of the ECF and then your name is down as ECF Junior Publicity Officer. Amazing that the ECF website is 6 months out of date (well perhaps we should expect this by now!)
It was an amazing coup for you to get Mickey Adams to do a simul at the Dover Chess Festival, how did you manage it? and why do you think there wasn't more publicity for it?

[John Upham]

Quite by coincidence, the ECF list of officials has been updated and the role of Junior Public Relations Officer appears to be extinct, Dodo like. Its not even labelled as "Vacant" (which occurs three times elsewhere in the same list).

Does this mean that this role has been deprecated?

I wonder if the office staff use this forum to help remind them of tasks that need completing?

Shall we make further suggestions?

[Matthew Turner]

John,
You cannot possibly expect the Office to kept the website up to date every second of the day. After all they only have a skeleton staff, perhaps things will be better after their new appointment, Christine Carcas.

[Peter Turner]

I think there is 'tidying up' on the Junior Officers - 8 Jan 2009 ... Junior Chess Officers. Junior Public Relations Officer: David Bentley ... ECF Squad International Tournament Co-ordinator: Krishna Parmar ... Krishna (and the position) has been removed.

[Claire Summerscale]

In fairness to the office, they would remove an officer/manager if told to do so by the relevant director or manager. I don't think it would be within their remit simply to delete people from the website.

Claire

[David Bentley]

I called the office yesterday and mentioned that my name was still on the officers list. I was assured it would be removed straight away.
The staff at the office have always been very prompt and thorough with anything I have been involved with or asked them to do.