Candidates for office

[Roger de Coverly]

The section for Council papers at the ECF site now has an almost complete list of candidate statements.
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/about/ec ... and-board/

Is there an expectation that candidates will be open to questions, either here or on the official site?

For most of us, we don't have a vote. For those with a vote, are they prepared to question the candidates ahead of the election, and are the candidates prepared to respond?

One point caught my eye

C21.10.7.4 – David Robertson election address (awaited)

Nominees for membership of the Governance or the Finance Committees are not usually expected to submit an election address. But if there's something worth saying, or contrary to received wisdom, perhaps.

[Carl Hibbard]

Not that it matters that much but should Phil Ehr be declaring his thoughts on best candidates in his election address?

[LawrenceCooper]

Not that it matters that much but should Phil Ehr be declaring his thoughts on best candidates in his election address?

It worked well for him last year: " I endorse Andrew Paulson for President, his team, and Claire Summerscale, followed by Kurt Moreby, as Director of Junior Chess and Education."

[David Robertson]

One point caught my eye

C21.10.7.4 – David Robertson election address (awaited)

Nominees for membership of the Governance or the Finance Committees are not usually expected to submit an election address. But if there's something worth saying, or contrary to received wisdom, perhaps.

My address has been submitted, and will doubtless appear in due course. It did seem to me 'odd' that I, alone, was asked to provide a statement. But no worries: I'm happy to do so. But a sense of 'oddness' remains.

I'm also happy to take questions on this forum. I'm currently not registered in the 'other place', but that may (need to) change.

"Contrary to received wisdom"? You judge.

[Michael Farthing]

I'm also happy to take questions on this forum. I'm currently not registered in the 'other place', but that may (need to) change.

You might well consider it sensible to register there.

You should not feel compelled to: it is inappropriate for the Board to instruct directly elected officials of the Council how they should behave. That is a matter for Council and Council alone. The Board is always the servant of the Council and cannot instruct its master. It acknowledges that it cannot remove a non-Board Council member from office. I find it surprising that it thinks it can displace a Board member.

[John Philpott]

David Robertson wrote

My address has been submitted, and will doubtless appear in due course.

It has appeared.

[Roger de Coverly]

It has appeared.

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... ddress.pdf

Those with a sense of history might wish to challenge the assertion in the final paragraph. Not that chess is danger returning to the 1950s in terms of numbers but that chess then was

largely a pastime of the privately educated from London & SE

A look at the participants in the Counties Championship, the British Championships, the Sunday Times schools and leagues in general should confirm or deny this. In terms of religious and cultural minorities, those of a Jewish and East European background have always been over-represented and the 1950s were no exception.

[John Saunders]

Your selective quotation suggests to me that you may have misunderstood. What he actually wrote was...

We can do better than this. Indeed, we have to do better because, if nothing changes, competitive chess as we know it will, within the next two decades, have returned to a state of affairs last observed up to the 1950s.

I have emboldened the key phrase. I think he means 'up to but not including'. David will no doubt clarify what he meant himself but I took his reference to the 'privately educated from London & SE' to refer to players who were active in the 1930s and the immediate post-war period. I'm sure we can think of some non-privately educated or working-class players who came through at that time (e.g. Frank Parr) but I sense David is right and there were relatively few of them compared with the 1950s and beyond.

I don't think David was referring to a younger generation of players, born in the mid to late 1930s, which included people from aspirational working-class families who benefited from the 1944 Education Act and received good quality secondary education. From about 1950 onwards the latter group made up a significant part of the chess-playing population. Indeed we could say that the seeds of the 1970s English Chess Explosion were sown by the legislators in 1944.

[Roger de Coverly]

David will no doubt clarify what he meant himself but I took his reference to the 'privately educated from London & SE' to refer to players who were active in the 1930s and the immediate post-war period.

Looking at the history of County Championship winners, there's a long duopoly of Middlesex and Lancashire (not in the SE) through the 1930s and post war 1940s, broken only by the victory of Leonard Barden's university team of 1951. You would have to look at the names and background of the players and presumably the London and Manchester Leagues they were drawn from. You've got Sir George Thomas and the upper class Marxist Winter, but what of the rest in the 1930s? Intellectual elites rather than social elites I would have thought, hence the reason so many of them turned up at Bletchley Park.

Something for which the ECF only has reliable counts for about the last twenty years is the number of players and number of games in its grading system. Trying to go back further would give some insight into the number participating. You could infer a count for those of school age by summing the number of entries to the Sunday Times.

[John Saunders]

You may be right to challenge David on the matter of chess activity being largely confined to London and the South-East in the period he seems to be referring to. Another clue is that both major magazine titles were founded outside that area and remained there for many decades before moving to London in the 1990s. They both reflected the breadth of chess being played up and down Britain (and Ireland, and elsewhere). My wider reading of chess history prior to 1950 doesn't give me the impression of a marked 'London-centricity': there seemed to quite a lot of chess activity in most of Britain's big cities. Any extra level of chess activity perceivable in London was probably a simple reflection of its much larger population.

The 'privately-educated' generality feels more valid, though very difficult to prove either way without a great deal of research. We have to bear in mind that many grammar schools (which we post-war pupils remember as non-fee-paying) charged pupils for education before the war, so might fall under David's heading. Also, there existed posh clubs such as the City of London Chess Club, where the door might have been open to the not so posh if they happened to be exceptionally good players but less talented chess players from similar backgrounds might not have found them so welcoming.

[Mike Truran]

Well, I'm sure that David will do a great job regardless.

[Roger de Coverly]

The 'privately-educated' generality feels more valid, though very difficult to prove either way without a great deal of research.

Local authority support for pupils at otherwise fee paying schools was in place before the 1944 Act. Those selected by academic ability for scholarships seem likely to have become chess players as well. So intellectual elite rather than social elite.

Reading contemporary reports doesn't give an indication of a London and South East bias. The tournament with a number of past and future World champions was in Nottingham.

By virtue of the ECF's constitution, the voters with the power to elect and remove Directors are the ECF Council, mostly of County, League and Congress representatives. Are they likely to endorse removal of their powers?

There was next to no discussion of Phil Ehr's April paper.
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... mation.pdf

It's a little worrying that his election address wants to work towards the structure in that paper.
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... t-2014.pdf
Whilst collective responsibility is all very well, should not high profile ECF activities such as the British Championship Congress, the grading system and fielding of International teams have a named individual responsible at director level?

[John Saunders]

Well, I'm sure that David will do a great job regardless.

Amen to that. Apologies for ignoring the substance and nit-picking over minutiae in the statement. I had some time on my hands, and felt bored/pernickety. And, of course, in a mood like that the only thing to do is post something on the forum...

[Carl Hibbard]

Any news on Angus French as of late and his AGM statement?

[Stewart Reuben]

Carl Hibbard >Not that it matters that much but should Phil Ehr be declaring his thoughts on best candidates in his election address?<

I think it matters a great deal, as do Lara Barnes and David Levens. Phil is not only the Executive Director, he is also currently Chairman of the Board. He has declared a partial slate of candidates. What if he is elected and a candidate for Junior Director or FIDE Delegate is elected other than his nominees? That will possibly immediately lead to confrontational politics within the ECF Board in a manner which Lara and I have, completely separately, expressed distaste for in the future relationship with FIDE.
It is perfectly clear Phil has sought to belittle me, failing totally to mention that I am Manager for Senior Chess and have effectively held that post since 2001.