Minutes of the meeting of the Policy Committee held on Monday 14 August 2006 at Syston

Present: Jim Bingham (President, JTB), Graham Booley (GB), John Dawkins (JVD), Sean Hewitt (SH), Cyril Johnson (CFWJ), Julie Johnson (JJ), Alan Jex (AJ), Jim Miller (JNM).

1. Apologies

Peter Harrison.  JNM agreed to act as minutes secretary.

2. Minutes

The minutes of the previous meeting, held on 3 July 2006, were agreed, subject to the following changes to Minute 2.  The last sentence of this minute should be altered to read "... meetings of all committees could, on occasion, be held with less than 7 days notice, provided that all the members of that committee agreed."

3. Matter Arising

3.1 JVD asked that, since the amounts did not appear in the discussion paper or the minutes of the previous meeting, the PC should confirm that the fees charged annually for LRCF-ECF membership would be £10, or £5 for juniors.  This was agreed unanimously.

3.2 SH reported that he had received £500 from the Treasurer in respect of the Congress, and had used it appropriately (see Minute 4.6).

4. Officers' Reports

4.1 The President had nothing to report and the Secretary was not present.

4.2 CFWJ reported that a new Congress account would be set up at NatWest, with the necessary forms to be signed by the President and Secretary.  The account name would "Leicester Chess Congress" or similar.  SH said that this was urgent as he had cheques waiting to be paid in.  [ACTION: CFWJ]

4.3 GB reported that the Open county team had lost to Surrey by 10-6 in the semi-final of the Minor Counties event: he indicated that this score was rather flattering to Surrey!  The County Teams Committee had not yet met, so he had provisionally entered a U-175 team and two U-100 teams.

4.4 JNM reported smooth progress in all the summer cup competitions, and also that the League fixture list for 2006-7 had been completed by Mike Thornton, subject to some fairly minor corrections and changes.

4.5 CFWJ reported several welcome Junior Chess initiatives with Leicester City Council, including their purchase of 200 sets and boards.  He promised to pass on to JNM details of advertisements that might be placed in the League Handbook for 2006-7.  [ACTION: CFWJ]

4.6 SH reported that the Congress venue had been paid for (see Minute 3.2), and that 11 entries, several of them gratifyingly for the under-200 section, had already been received: he expected most of the entries would materialise in the two weeks immediately preceding the Congress.  He also noted that county championship events were proceeding smoothly.

4.7 JJ drew attention to the new MCCU Web site, being developed by SH.  It was also reported that the minute book (1897-1928) of the old Midlands Chess Association had turned up – this would be of great historical interest.

4.8 CFWJ reported that a recent ECF Board meeting had agreed that ECF arbiters must be ECF members; that several Directors of the Federation had recently resigned, with replacements being sought; and that nominations for the President's award for [administrative] services to the game were also needed.  He drew attention to the draft of an agreement that would have to be signed by players seeking direct membership of the ECF.  JVD commented that there was a need for proper definitions of the term "member" as used in different parts of the document – such definitions should perhaps be given at the beginning of the paper.  JNM drew attention to the proposed Clause 4 [!] of the agreement, which implied that even members of overseas Federations recognised by FIDE would become ECF members – was this intended?  CFWJ thanked colleagues for these comments and promised to consider them in later drafts.  CFWJ noted that moves of other counties towards the membership scheme were patchy.

5. LRCA-ECF Membership Scheme (MS)

SH presented a set of Powerpoint slides that might form the basis of a similar presentation to the proposed EGM fixed for 13 September.  (It was agreed that this meeting should be at The Plough Inn at Littlethorpe, where a large screen would be available in the skittle alley).  The slides would explain the MS to club delegates clearly and simply, showing its benefits and giving examples.

There was much detailed discussion and many suggestions on the content of the slides, and on the issues they raised.  Amongst the points made were:

1. It should be crystal clear from the start that the scheme was an individual MS, although each club might seek to adopt a policy covering some or all of its members.  It should also be made clear that the benefits in terms of grading details and a newsletter would be provided in electronic form only.
2. There was some uncertainty over the use of a single club (Loughborough, though individual details might be converted into anonymous form) as an example, as other clubs might feel that their structures were very different.  It was suggested that too much financial detail should not be presented.
3. It was noted that the discussion on the present uses of League Entry fees might reveal more clearly to clubs the extent to which these fees were used to subsidise county matches.  CFWJ and JJ pointed out that the current system for financing county events had been developed about 20 years ago, and arose because significant numbers of players were reluctant to play in away matches because of the travel costs: they felt that in any case quite a high proportion of LRCA members played for one or more county teams at least occasionally, so some subsidy was reasonable.  However it was argued that compared with 20 years ago county teams were now smaller, more people had cars, and that there remained a feeling that there were too many teams.  It was suggested that, rather than being regarded as an honour to be invited to play for the county, the current situation was that captains often struggled to raise full teams.  GB and SH as captains noted that a number of their players always refused to accept any payment for acting as drivers, so the true cost of the matches was possibly higher than the accounts suggested.  It was agreed that for technical reasons the matter of county team finances was separate from the MS issues to be brought before the EGM, and that the PC should therefore return to this aspect of the finances, with the aim of putting a possibly different system to the 2007 AGM.
4. There were questions about the practical implementation of the MS system in terms of its effects on the finances of the LRCA and of the clubs.  It was agreed that the main motion to be put to the EGM would have the effect of separating a League entry fee from the game fees, and that the League entry fees should be £21 and £17 for 5- and 4-player teams respectively.  The effect of this would be that these would be the only [League] fees to be paid by clubs whose members were all ECF members.  There would also be reduced fees for the summer cups, via the abolition of either the basic entry fee or the per-round fees.  Bearing in mind that the closing date for the MS would be 31 October, and the closing date for submitting League Fees is 30 November, it was agreed that in practice the clubs should receive a refund of £7 per player for each proven ECF member.  Any additional refunds for clubs – only calculable at the end of the League season when the numbers of games played by individuals was finalised – would be paid by 15 June each year.  Details would be presented to the EGM.
5. JNM suggested that the exact wording of the EGM motion, to reflect the above principles, should be drawn up by the President.  CFWJ moved a vote of thanks to SH for his work on the presentation.  Both these proposals were agreed with acclamation.

6. Other Business

6.1 JNM proposed that it might be possible to include advertising on the LRCA Web site: SH agreed and also drew attention to the possibility of LRCA becoming an Amazon associate member.  This would provide income for LRCA from every Amazon purchase made via the LRCA Web site link.

6.2 CFWJ proposed, and JNM seconded, that LRCA should propose SH for the post of the ECF Director of Home Chess.  This was agreed nem con.  The proposal would be forwarded to the ECF [ACTION: CFWJ].

6.3 JTB reminded the Treasurer that following the June PC meeting, there was an action on him (Minute 4.3 of that meeting) to e-mail PC members to confirm that the 2005-6 accounts had been verified [ACTION: CFWJ].

7. Date of Next Meeting

Monday 6 November 2006 at Syston.

JNM – 15 August 2006