Board minutes

[Matthew Turner]

Good people who want to do something positive for chess shy away from the ECF because the ECF is institutionally organised to make doing constructive things very difficult, if not impossible. The situation with the minutes is a case in point - why on earth should be the ECF publish board minutes? Decision need to be announced in the appropriate way and Directors need to have a record of discussions, but we don't. So why not make a decision now that minutes won't be published; Well because the ECF as an organisation prefers to spend time arguing over minutes rather than promoting chess. Pretty much every new Director wants to change this mentality, but very quickly the institutional failings overwhelm these good intentions.

[Roger de Coverly]

So why not make a decision now that minutes won't be published

That was the position until around January 2012, rather a summary of decisions and discussions was published.

I think the decision to publish redacted Minutes was in response to the wave of criticism, the then Board of Directors had incurred by repeatedly "forgetting" to mention the CAS action against FIDE on the Vice-Presidency issue. The summaries were totally silent, leading to the suggestion that the then President had acted on his own initiative without necessarily having the agreement of the whole Board. Even a redacted copy of the Minutes for that period has never been published.

But it would be better for a summary to be published promptly than Minutes with a half year delay or more.

In the days of the BCF, there was a much larger Board with a number of people essentially there as observers. As a consequence there was usually an independent witness report made available. Perhaps it's well against management theory, but is there any particular reason why the non-Execs should not report to the voting and non-voting members as well as the wider chess public, what the ECF are supposedly deciding?

[JustinHorton]

why on earth should be the ECF publish board minutes? Decision need to be announced in the appropriate way and Directors need to have a record of discussions, but we don't.

Why "don't" we? Board members represent us: they take decisions on our behalf. There's no reason why we shouldn't know what they're discussing and it's helpful that we do know when it comes to evaluating the performance of our representatives.

What causes the sort of big and bitter arguments that might deter people from taking positions isn't openness with the members. This is a myth - as big a myth as the one that says this forum puts off sponsors. Characteristically, the rows occur when controversial decisions are made secretly and/or without adequate consultation.

[JustinHorton]

Problem is, chess organisations seem to like secrecy

Given some of the decisions they make, not surprised

This is the problem, unfortunately. If the performance of the organisation (or of any organisation) was first-rate, there'd be a lot less concern with how decisions were come to or even what precise decisions were made.

Unfortunately, this isn't the case with the ECF. Eecent examples are legion. Now we could pretend that what causes the problems isn't the decisions themselves, but public scrutiny of those decisions, and a fair few people do pretend this, but it's absurd.

Actuall the current topic of discussion serves as a useful example. The current ECF CEO lacks the basic competence to have minutes properly produced and approved. How do we know this? Because it's been the custom over recent years to publish the minutes, and so their non-appearance causes a kerfuffle. As it should.

[Matthew Turner]

I think you are confusing two issues here. Forget about the ECF for a moment and just think about a Board or Directors.
They should a) Announce decisions in an appropriate and timely way b) Explain why they reached particularly contentious decision

It doesn't seem good practise to publish details of discussions that have taken place to reach decisions. What organisations publish board minutes?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I think you are confusing two issues here. Forget about the ECF for a moment and just think about a Board or Directors.
They should a) Announce decisions in an appropriate and timely way b) Explain why they reached particularly contentious decision

It doesn't seem good practise to publish details of discussions that have taken place to reach decisions. What organisations publish board minutes?

Public authorities are required to publish minutes under Freedom of Information guidelines:

http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/gui ... ENDAS.ashx

Not sure about charities. Companies limited by public guarantee? No idea (probably not).

[JustinHorton]

Trades unions for instance (at various levels from branch upwards). Voluntary organisations may also do so. Basically subs-paying affairs.

[Michael Farthing]

Well the Houses of Parliament for a start.
That's because they recognise that MPs represent an electorate, just as 'Board' officials represent the members of the ECF.

There seems to be a view being presented that because the ECF is legally a company it is legitimate for it to behave in the way that profit-making commercial enterprises behave. But it is not a profit making commercial enterprise. Its job is to provide for the good of chess . A commercial organisation way often have secrets because it is in competition with other similar enterprises: there is very little need for any secrecy about chess matters, except to cover up attempted actions that are likely not to command the support of the wider membership. That is not a good reason for secrecy.

A more precise reason to present minutes is because, as has been made clear above, the Board will not command any respect if it does not. And if it doesn't command respect then eventually things will fall apart. However, the issue is far deeper than this because it is clear that the Board is not producing meetings even for its own use and this has clearly caused a failure of the Board to act appropriately - but perhaps that should not be a concern of the membership?

[Mick Norris]

The MCF is pretty open - we publish minutes of Council meetings

http://www.manchesterchessfederation.co.uk/page62.html

and the AGM minutes are available on the left hand side here
http://www.manchesterchessfederation.co.uk/page3.html

As I have said, these don't record all information discussed, as some is confidential, nor does it carry a full flavour of the discussions (as some individuals/clubs really don't like each other)

We have been elected, and our members (clubs in our case) can find out what is going on

I'm in favour of transparency and democracy (although I don't always like the results )

[John Upham]

The Surrey Border League, Chiltern League and Berkshire Chess Association all publish their AGM minutes on their respective web sites. Of course AGMs are general meetings rather than board meetings.

[Matthew Turner]

"Well the Houses of Parliament for a start.
That's because they recognise that MPs represent an electorate, just as 'Board' officials represent the members of the ECF."

The Houses are the equivalent of the ECF AGM - often quite literally. The board should be like the Cabinet. If the Cabinet tried to publish minutes of meeting the result would be very similar to the one achieved by the ECF. Nobody would find anything out about policy, but the Ministers/Directors would spending all their time arguing over who had called who what.

[benedgell]

Assuming I've read David Eustace's post at the other Forum correctly, it would appear that there isn't just a problem with deciding what parts of the minutes to publish online but in producing the minutes in any form. The minutes from March, June, July, and September aren't available for the Directors to view at the moment. How anyone on the ECF Board (David aside) thought this was an acceptable situation and let it drag on as long as it has done I'll never know.

I would be happy for a summary of meetings to be published, as opposed to full minutes, going forward. Nevertheless, at the AGM Phil apologised for the lack of minutes for several previous meetings, stated the board was going to bring them up to date and publish them, and several Directors took responsibility for doing so. If they had wanted to change to publishing a summary of the outstanding meetings, they could have stated it then. The board felt it was something that should be done, and I think they should stick to that commitment for the outstanding meetings.

[John Upham]

Do the officers responsible for corporate goverence have a view on this debacle or is this matter not subject to their remit?

[Matthew Turner]

Ben,
I am sure you are right that the current problem is producing minutes whether they be publicly published or not. However, I was kind of assuming that the arguments over what the minutes should say would be much reduced if the minutes had a more limited distribution. That might be wrong.

[Michael Farthing]

My impression over the last year is that when minutes have appeared they have tended to assuage tension rather than the reverse. Silence from the board is disconcerting and leaves us feeling disconnected. An honest statement of difficulties is sometimes by far the best course. I'm thinking particularly of the spate of minutes over the summer and the immediate reaction of posters on here along the lines of, "Well we can see what the problems were now". An open board may still attract criticism, but even very robust criticism of their decisions is a lot less painful and divisive than criticism of the process by which the decisions are made and communicated (or not). As others have said, we should not be too hung up on the word 'minutes'. The essence is being told what's happening and having a sense that what the membership thinks is being taken into account.

Did Brian Valentine face criticism for his handling of this January's grading changes? - not more than a tiny bit here and there was a lot of appreciation. He had canvassed for views, considered them, made changes, and reported back the changes with an explanation, and all done in a timely fashion. Of course - his area is dead simple so he has an advantage. The only problems he faces are the mathematical and statistical intractabilities and the fact that this is an area that affects members most directly and about which they feel more engaged and up tight than anything else the ECF does.