Published 20 August 2009

Annual General Meeting 2009 - Unofficial Report by Ray Collett

Introduction

The meeting was held Saturday, 16 May at Claines Church Institute, Worcester. The meeting was ably chaired by President, Peter Kitson This report is unofficial and Maurice Bissell, the honorary General Secretary, keeps the formal record of the business of the meeting. Attendance was low, but included delegates from most affiliated clubs. There were several major areas of business: internal administrative reports, which include financial matters; reports of internal competitions; reports from county team captains; reports from delegates representing Worcestershire to outside bodies; presentation of trophies; a proposed league rule change; and election of officers for the new season.

Visit the news page to see pictures from this meeting.

Finance and Administration

Bert Foord, honorary Treasurer, presented an audited statement of accounts showing a healthy reserve and an overall annual surplus. The meeting agreed the budget for the forthcoming year so there are no changes in fees and, to encourage juniors to play in county matches, the county home match board fee was abolished for junior players.

Internal Reports

The Worcestershire League competition. There was a smaller Division 1 where teams played home and away, but a larger entry for Division 2. Matches were played broadly within the planned schedule, but some difficulties had been encountered in reporting the results of adjourned matches to Derek Digger, the Competitions Secretary and Grading Officer.
The Knock Out Cup competition. Laurence Wheatley, Controller, reported that the handicap system seemed to work well because most matches produced close results. There had been a delay in arranging some of the early round matches and the semi-finals had yet to be played. Laurence asked clubs to reserve a date at the fixtures meeting for playing the first round to avoid this difficulty next year.
Worcestershire First Team. Maurice Bissell, match secretary, reported that match results were closer than in previous years now that Worcestershire play in the Minor Counties competition. He thanked Dave Scriven for helping and for players' support. Maurice said he would step down this year and anyone who would like to take up the role should contact him.
Worcestershire under-125 Team. Captain Giles Stanton reported that Worcestershire's team had again got as far as the National stages, but failed to get to the finals losing against Lancashire. In the MCCU Semi-finals Worcs lost narrowly to Notts.
Worcestershire under-100 Team. The team won 3 and lost three matches and were placed 4th out of 7. Worcs just missed out on the national stages because of a lower game score than Warwickshire.
Worcestershire Correspondence Teams (Sinclair and Brown-Pond Trophies). Jim Keene, Captain, said few games were yet complete, but early results were not encouraging for the county. Jim reported that Eric Horwill was retiring after representing Worcestershire for 50 years.
Worcestershire MCCU Correspondence Team. Tony West's report was given for him because he was recovering from an operation. The county would again need new players for the 2009/10 season and asked for interested players to contact him.

Junior Chess

Andy Moore was unable to come to the meeting, but Ray Collett said Worcestershire Junior Chess Academy continued to attract 20 to 30 young players each Saturday morning. The club had won the Junior Midlands Chess League and most players had progressed to the Worcestershire Megafinal of UK Chess Challenge. Andy is taking up postgraduate studies next year and hopes that parents and CRB cleared senior players will be able to run the club when he is away. Ray Collett, organiser of the Megafinal, said that Worcestershire entries were 30% up on last year.

Reports from Delegates

English Chess Federation. Ray Collett presented a written report. ECF Officers are now much more hopeful that Holloid Plastics will complete sponsorship for the free chess sets for schools initiative. The adjustments to the grading system to get rid of systemic deflation will come into force in August and be applied next year. As a consequence, the grading limits for inter-county competitions were altered. A motion to reduce the budget for the ECF headquarters was lost. at Andrew Farthing, Worcester City, had been appointed as ECF Strategic Planning Officer.
Midland Counties Chess Union. Andrew Farthing distributed a written report. Andrew described the debate on how the MCCU should nominate a player for a place in the British Championship and county teams for the three places in the national stages of the inter-county competitions. The operation of the MCCU Grand Prix was also debated.
Worcester & District Chess League. Maurice Bissell reported the state of their competitions. See results for 2008/9 in links from the bottom of this page.
Dudley & District Chess League. No delegate was present. Competition results are available from the Midlands Chess link at the bottom of this page .

Proposed League Rule Change

Ray Collett proposed a motion to do away with adjudication in the Worcestershire Chess League. There was detailed discussion, but a clear majority of members voted to continue with the present system. Members asked the League Controller to enforce the rule requiring the second session to be played within 14 day of the first. The rules for 2009/10 therefore allow a player to continue into a second playing session when the opponent would prefer adjudication providing that the player is willing to travel to the opponent's venue within 14 days.

Election of Officers

Personnel remain unchanged except there is now a vacancy for the role of First Team Captain.

Presentation of Trophies

Members welcomed GM Keith Arkell, English Chess Champion and former Droitwich team member, to present the League trophies. Geoff Herbert received the League Champion's rosebowl on behalf of Malvern and the Division 2 trophy to Peter Keate of Hagley.