Finance Council meeting

[Carl Hibbard]

After David Eustace's slide-assisted budget presentation, there was an adjournment, and the BCF meeting was held, with all motions being approved in short order. For the resumed ECF meeting, I will confine myself to the main decisions taken, adopting the agenda numbering.

11. The proposal to narrow the gap between silver and bronze was lost decisively on a show of hands.

12. The proposed membership fee increases were the subject of the only two card votes of the day. An amendment proposed by John Reyes to reduce the increases proposed by the Board to £2 for Gold and £1 for Silver and Bronze was lost on the first of these. The substantive motion with the Board's proposals of £4 for Gold, £3 for Silver and £2 for Bronze was carried on the second of these but very narrowly.

13. The minimum membership fee for an organisation was increased from £58 to £60.

14. The Game Fee increases proposed by the Board were approved on a show of hands.

15. The "pay to play" concept for FIDE-rated standardplay events was not approved, although it was agreed to discontinue the policy of asking FIDE to delist ENG non-Gold players participating in such events.

16. The budget for 2015/16 was approved.

17. The Olympiad budget for 2016/17 was approved.

18. The amendments to the Procedural Byelaws, including the reduction in the prescribed time for publication of Council minutes on the website, were agreed.

20. The proposal to discontinue the Yearbook proved controversial, and a decision was deferred to the AGM. The decision to discontinue the diary was approved.

The meeting stood in memory of IM Colin Crouch, whose death had been announced earlier in the day.

A vote of thanks to David Anderton, who had announced his intention to stand down later in the year as the Federation's pro-bono legal adviser and a John Robinson trustee, was passed by acclamation.

Rubber stamped.

[Roger de Coverly]

Rubber stamped.

But very narrowly. Let's not forget that at least some of the representatives of Counties and Leagues will now have to face their local AGMs and explain the increases. The voting membership, or those who could be bothered to attend or appoint a proxy, doesn't seem to have entirely bought in to the Board's financial strategy.

[benedgell]

I cast 17 votes in favour, 11 against. Don't ask me to recall which way specific organisations asked me to vote!

[Angus French]

Rubber stamped.

But very narrowly. Let's not forget that at least some of the representatives of Counties and Leagues will now have to face their local AGMs and explain the increases. The voting membership, or those who could be bothered to attend or appoint a proxy, doesn't seem to have entirely bought in to the Board's financial strategy.

Quite so. I am dismayed that Surrey County Chess Association in whose league I play supported the increase in membership fees without consulting its clubs.

[Roger de Coverly]

Quite so. I am dismayed that Surrey County Chess Association in whose league I play supported the increase in membership fees without consulting its clubs.

According to the updated voting register at
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... -final.pdf
the Surrey representative didn't actually show up, but did appoint a proxy. Is the Surrey post directly elected or an appointee of the management committee (or however it styles itself)?

There were hints that the assembled voting membership might have been given some insight into the direction and tentative conclusions of the constitutional review. Did this actually happen?

[Mike Gunn]

To answer Angus and Roger's points.

This is the first time for several years that Surrey hasn't been directly represented at an ECF Council meeting. Unfortunately the three people who were considered (Peter Lawrence, myself and David Sedgwick) as representatives were all abroad yesterday and so we asked Julie Denning to act as our proxy and she was given instructions on how to vote.

The SCCA Board gave preliminary consideration to the council agenda at its meeting on March 27th. Because the supporting papers were not available then we postponed decisions on most of the financial matters including the membership fee and game fee increases until later. Subsequently when these supporting papers were available (and in the light of the discussions at the SCCU Executive on April 10th) I sought the views of Surrey Board members by email. We decided to support the membership fee increases on the broad grounds of the "sound finances" argument put forward by David Eustace in his paper to Council. We opposed the game fee increases mainly on the basis of keeping administration of this (at club level) straight forward. I agree it would have been better to have had more time and a wider consultation on these matters and perhaps the ECF Board can consider themselves lucky that they got their proposals accepted.

[Julie Denning]

I confirm that I cast the Surrey proxy votes entrusted to me in accordance with their instructions. On membership fees I voted in favour in both hand and card votes. On game fee I voted against in the hand vote. There was no card vote. I considered attempting to call for one, but the hand vote was clearly in favour so did not. I was rather surprised by the favourable vote on game fee. I'm sure that at least some delegates felt that as the membership fees were going up it was only right to increase game fees as well. Conversely, the % increase in game fees was significantly greater than for membership fees, the extra amount raised will be small compared to membership fee and those who pay game fees rather than becoming members are probably at the lower end of grass roots chess and are those most likely to be dissuaded from participation in the game by increased cost. I think the Board should consider themselves lucky to have got approval on this point and would be wise to avoid any further increases in game fees for quite a few years to come.

Regarding the meeting generally, I was disappointed by the low attendance. I made it 13 on the top table, including Gary Willson as Office Manager / Minutes Secretary and only 22 other voting delegates (plus Gareth Pearce to discuss the constitutional and governance review). The venue (returning to the Ibis, rather than the Malmaison used for the AGM) was much better, but we rather rattled around in such an oversized room compared to number present.

[Roger de Coverly]

those who pay game fees rather than becoming members are probably at the lower end of grass roots chess and are those most likely to be dissuaded from participation in the game by increased cost.

Whilst I would agree with you on this, is it not the case that the Board and at least some of your fellow voting membership refuse to accept this argument as valid? Indeed they would rather give away the income from membership than accept it . (I am assuming the free one year membership for new juniors remains in place).

I haven't seen it mentioned, but did the three year deals, the discount for on line membership and the commission to local "framework organisations" survive the price increases?

[Julie Denning]

Roger,

Nothing at yesterday's meeting, as far as I can recall, affected any aspects of membership or game fees other than the prices, as set out in the meeting agenda.

[benedgell]

Regarding the meeting generally, I was disappointed by the low attendance. I made it 13 on the top table, including Gary Willson as Office Manager / Minutes Secretary and only 22 other voting delegates (plus Gareth Pearce to discuss the constitutional and governance review). The venue (returning to the Ibis, rather than the Malmaison used for the AGM) was much better, but we rather rattled around in such an oversized room compared to number present.

I agree with this. I wonder of the non- attendees how many appointed proxies/ voted by email? My suspicion is that if every delegate had cast their votes then the membership proposal may well have been defeated. On a different note, I was impressed by how much consultation the Bronze/ Silver Members' Reps (Angus French/ John Wickham) had done prior to the meeting, and thought both represented their members well.

[Mick Norris]

So, the voting register shows 319 votes available, and only 207 were cast on the membership fee vote - were there any abstentions, or are there Council members not bothering, as previously suggested, either to attend or appoint a proxy?

On the game fee issue, previously break even (for making membership more cost effective) was 6 games, and now it is also 6 games, so that makes sense

[Angus French]

those who pay game fees rather than becoming members are probably at the lower end of grass roots chess and are those most likely to be dissuaded from participation in the game by increased cost.

Whilst I would agree with you on this, is it not the case that the Board and at least some of your fellow voting membership refuse to accept this argument as valid? Indeed they would rather give away the income from membership than accept it . (I am assuming the free one year membership for new juniors remains in place).

I haven't seen it mentioned, but did the three year deals, the discount for on line membership and the commission to local "framework organisations" survive the price increases?

I made the point at the meeting that, for 2013/14, income from membership fees and game fees [£130, 756 from the the FD's Detailed Forecast and Budget spreadsheet] divided by the number of graded half games (by which I meant standardplay games or their equivalent in rapidplay games) [261,393 for 2013 from the the SCCU grading page] produced an effective cost per player per game of 50p and that at £2, standard game fee was already four times this!

I also pointed out that there were 5,000 game fee payers [the number of people playing at least one graded game, again from the SCCU grading page, less the number of members] and asked whether the ECF wanted to encourage people to play chess.

David Eustace, the Finance Director, agreed that he wanted to coerce game fee payers into becoming members. Andrew Leadbetter told the meeting it had made a shameful decision. I agree.

[Angus French]

Regarding the meeting generally, I was disappointed by the low attendance. I made it 13 on the top table, including Gary Willson as Office Manager / Minutes Secretary and only 22 other voting delegates (plus Gareth Pearce to discuss the constitutional and governance review). The venue (returning to the Ibis, rather than the Malmaison used for the AGM) was much better, but we rather rattled around in such an oversized room compared to number present.

I agree with this. I wonder of the non- attendees how many appointed proxies/ voted by email? My suspicion is that if every delegate had cast their votes then the membership proposal may well have been defeated. On a different note, I was impressed by how much consultation the Bronze/ Silver Members' Reps (Angus French/ John Wickham) had done prior to the meeting, and thought both represented their members well.

Thanks Ben. The Direct Members' Representatives have one vote each.

[Angus French]

So, the voting register shows 319 votes available, and only 207 were cast on the membership fee vote - were there any abstentions, or are there Council members not bothering, as previously suggested, either to attend or appoint a proxy?

Good point. FWIW, I did notice Sean Hewitt wasn't at the meeting.

[Mick Norris]

I notice from the revised voting register that it was 317 votes in total available, but my point remains - I haven't done any analysis to see if there are repeat offenders as far as not bothering, I fully appreciate there can be good reasons why someone can miss a meeting and not be able to appoint a proxy