April 2009 Council Meeting : Details

[Mike Truran]

What does that mean??!!

[Mike Gunn]

To quote David Robertson from a post on the British Championships thread (19th May 2008): "Whatever other problems beyond my reach have befallen the British Championships, the supply of St George's Hall as a fabulous playing venue is not one of them. I have secured that without cost to the ECF, as agreed; it remains secured. The ECF needs to sign a formal contract simply, as far as I'm aware, to confirm details on opening hours and the like. Stewart Reuben now has that in hand."

So, what went wrong?

[Sean Hewitt]

To quote David Robertson from a post on the British Championships thread (19th May 2008): "Whatever other problems beyond my reach have befallen the British Championships, the supply of St George's Hall as a fabulous playing venue is not one of them. I have secured that without cost to the ECF, as agreed; it remains secured. The ECF needs to sign a formal contract simply, as far as I'm aware, to confirm details on opening hours and the like. Stewart Reuben now has that in hand."

So, what went wrong?

According to the report given at the meeting there was a change of personnel at the City of Culture organisation (the people who were essentially funding the provision of the playing hall) and they decided that the "free" venue was no longer to be provided free. The ECF were faced with paying this hire charge, or cancelling the event. The other big problem was that there was apparently insufficient lighting in the St Georges Hall in order to play chess, so that they had to hire event lighting to bring it up to scratch. That wasn't cheap either.

[Steve Rooney]

Sean,
In the scheme of things the county match grading limits are a minor issue compared to the ones already discussed, but was a decision taken on the proposals?

[Carl Hibbard]

Sean,
In the scheme of things the county match grading limits are a minor issue compared to the ones already discussed, but was a decision taken on the proposals?

Accepted according to Richard here:-

http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/new.htm

[Sean Hewitt]

Sean,
In the scheme of things the county match grading limits are a minor issue compared to the ones already discussed, but was a decision taken on the proposals?

Yes, the SCCU proposals of Open, U180, U160, U140, U120 and U100 were passed and the Directors proposal of Open, U175, U150, U125 and U100 was defeated.

[Matthew Turner]

I have been away for some time, but I would have some observations on this very interesting thread.

1. I think Ben Purton is saying that in general when taxes rise this doesn't necessarily increase the tax take because of the effect the tax rise has on economic activity - Correct! Does this happen with Game Fee? Well, Yep it sure does. However, the game fee system also suffers from another problem, tournament organisers are effectively unpaid tax collectors. There is really no incentive for them to collect money on behalf of the ECF and as organisers stop paying game fee, the fees have to rise and this creates a vicious circle. Organisers want players to be graded, but there is no need for them to pay for it (the free-rider problem). Eventually this means that the game fee system is doomed to fail and needs to be replaced by a membership scheme where those paying receive the benefit (having a grade, being able to play etc.)

2. It is outrageous that St. George's Hall has cost £8,500 when it was supposed to be free. Someone needs to be held to account - David Robertson or David Welch?

3. The government grant is £60,000 and I guess game might gross £60,000 before (non -office) administrative fees are taken in account, so perhaps it could raise a net of £50,000. That looks like the main sources of income for the ECF raise £110,000 and the Office costs in excess of £100,000, even when John Philpott's offsetting incomes are taken account of. Well it is not hard to see why the ECF might be in trouble.

4. I am not sure how many members the ECF has, but I think it used to be about a thousand, so in these time of quantitive easing perhaps we should consider the following. The Office is closed, but a note is written to all ECF members explaining that there will be no diary or yearbook this year, but please spend the enclose £100 cheque on Chess. I think this might provide a much needed boost for English Chess, but even if it didn't it would save the ECF £10,000 (in year 1!)

[Ian Kingston]

Sean,
In the scheme of things the county match grading limits are a minor issue compared to the ones already discussed, but was a decision taken on the proposals?

Yes, the SCCU proposals of Open, U180, U160, U140, U120 and U100 were passed and the Directors proposal of Open, U175, U150, U125 and U100 was defeated.

Maybe I'm a little slow on the uptake, but I completely missed that the SCCU proposal would create an extra competition - I just assumed that the bands would be shifted to take account of the new grades.

Given that the number of players in each county won't magically increase by 20%, where will the players and captains for an extra team in each county come from?

I confess to being completely baffled by this.

[Mike Gunn]

The extra players come from a group which is currently not taking part in County chess - those graded (currently) U75 - but next year U100. In fact the SCCU did run an U75 section this year and three counties took part - proving that there is some demand for representative chess at this level.

[Ian Kingston]

OK - I see how this might work in the SCCU, which has just six counties, most with large populations.

It's less clear how successful this will be in other unions. The MCCU, for instance, has 11 counties and the region's population is far smaller than that of the SCCU. Two MCCU counties fielded no teams at all in the current season. Only one (Warwickshire) competed in in each section. Six counties entered teams in the U100 (Staffordshire entered two teams, one of which was a junior team I think).

This doesn't suggest to me that there is significant latent demand in the Midlands for an extra competition.

The two counties in which I play take a different approach to county chess. Derbyshire enters just the Open and U125 competitions, whereas Nottinghamshire - a somewhat larger association - competed this year in every section except the Open. In Derbyshire the two playing squads barely overlap, if at all. Nottinghamshire's squads have significant overlap. It would be ironic if the addition of a competition were to prompt Nottinghamshire to reduce the number of teams so as to have three non-overlapping squads in, say, the U180, U140 and U100 competitions. It would certainly make life easier, but I doubt that's what the Council's decision is trying to achieve.

[Sean Hewitt]

I dont doubt that these changes are good for the Southern Counties, who mobilised their votes well.

But I equally don't doubt that they're bad for everyone else. There will be less entrants to the Counties Championships nationally, that's for sure.

I've already had emails from NCCU and MCCU counties suggesting that these unions should operate seperate competitions along the lines of the old grading limits. I think that this would be devisive, but I can understand the sentiment.

[Mick Norris]

Ian

Which begs the question, why did anyone from the MCCU vote for it, especially when the county captains were against it?

The MCF & Bury votes were against, so I'm asking the question elsewhere within the MCCU

[Ian Kingston]

Ian

Which begs the question, why did anyone from the MCCU vote for it, especially when the county captains were against it?

The MCF & Bury votes were against, so I'm asking the question elsewhere within the MCCU

Search me. Some persuasive argument was put forward at the meeting, perhaps?

Lest anyone should think otherwise, I'm not criticising the SCCU. I'm just puzzled why anyone outside that union would think that adding an extra tier would make any sense.

[Stewart Reuben]

If an extra tier of a counties championship under 100 (new) is unsuccessful, nothing will have been lost. If it eventually becomes a success - and I guess this will take 2-3 years, we will have another competition.
What puzzled me is that 180-160 (new) is such a narrow band. Since that event is not very successful, why is it not 185-160?
I was quite shocked that so many people distrust the new grades (including the Director responsible) but gave no cogent reason. If the work done is correct, then there should be a change in the bands for next season, not wait until 2010-2011.

I was mystifed that the EACU wanted to change the ECF Grading numbering system, but seemed not to realise that this can be simply achieved by going to the 4 figure Elo numbers. A grade of 0 would approximate to 600 for example so there would be more 'room' for very weak players.
There is only one federation in the world that does not use the Elo numbers. That is a pity. Sir Richard Clarke had the right idea. At that time 3 numbers was cheaper than 4 as less print was involved. A 4 figure number gives the impression that 2100 is different from 2101.
It is possible to explain the grading system to a 10 year old and very difficult to explain the FIDE System to anybody. The ECF system is linear and Jeff Sonas has said this is statistically sounder than the FIDE curve.
Stewart Reuben

[David Sedgwick]

I don't think that anyone has yet mentioned that the voting figures on the main SCCU motion were 107 in favour and 65 against.

..... good for the Southern Counties, who mobilised their votes well.

Really?

The three people holding the largest numbers of votes at the Council Meeting were John Turnock (NCCU President), John Wickham (EACU Delegate) and a certain Sean Hewitt (MCCU County Match Controller).

The day before the Meeting I wrote to SCCU President Tim Thurstan apologising for not having found the time to do much to canvass support for the SCCU proposals. I'd had to deal with other matters, for instance preparing documentation to support nominations for the ECF and FIDE Arbiter Titles.

In the event Tim Thurstan himself was at the last moment unable to attend the Meeting. This had the unfortunate but ultimately irrelevant consequence that the SCCU was unable to cast its own votes in support of its motions.

There was very little discussion of the matter at the Meeting. I formed the impression that nearly all the delegates had considered the matter carefully beforehand. A significant number appeared to have obtained mandates from the organisations which they represented - something which posters on this Forum have suggested doesn't often happen.

I'm sure that this process was assisted by the many thoughtful posts on the thread started by Sean Hewitt and I'd like to thank everyone who contributed.

I've already had emails from NCCU and MCCU counties suggesting that these unions should operate seperate competitions along the lines of the old grading limits.

It's entirely a matter for the NCCU and the MCCU how they wish to organise their Union Stage competitions. But it would be a pity if history were to repeat itself in this way.

When the grading limited competitions replaced the former structure in the early 1990s, the WECU decided not to follow suit. It continued for some years to organise its Union Stage events on the old First and Second Teams basis. Not surprisingly, this hampered its ability to make nominations for the National Stages. No-one suffered except the WECU Counties.

The MCCU in particular now stands to lose several National Stage nominations if it declines to organise its Union Stage events on the basis of the Council decision. The SCCU proposal would not have gained the number of votes which it did but for substantial support from counties and other organisations in the MCCU area.

Had the vote gone the other way, I'm in little doubt that the SCCU would have accepted the decision and organised its Union Stage competitions on the basis of what would have been the nominally unchanged grading limits. However, this was almost certainly have resulted in the disappearance of between three and five of the current thirty SCCU teams.

I see no reason why any teams should disappear anywhere as a result of the decisions actually taken. If you look at the SCCU paper, you'll see that approximately the same number of players will be available for each existing team in 2009-10 as was the case in 2008-09.