Worcestershire Chess Association
Worcestershire Chess Association |
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Published 9 May 2009
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Nigel Short wins hard fought election and CJ de Mooi is new ECF President18 Oct report from Ray CollettAt a well attended Finance Council Meeting of the English Chess Federation held in London, Lawrence Cooper (Staffs) is the new Director for International Chess, Adam Raoof, a respected organiser of congresses in the home counties, is the new Director for the Home Chess. In the contested positions CJ de Mooi, member of the BBC Eggheads team, is the new ECF President and could bring a higher profile for the game in the broadcast media. GM Nigel Short narrowly beat Gerry Walsh to become the ECF delegate to the World Chess Federation and the European Chess Union. Nigel's world class play and robust comments about the international scene are sure to create waves. The other news from the meeting was mixed. On the positive side, the first genuine truck load of 1,000 chess sets from Holloid Plastics has been delivered to schools in East Sussex and Andrew Martin has successfully trialled the Chess for Schools support package. On the negative side is the poor financial state of the ECF. The deficit from the 2008 British Championships held in Liverpool has turned out worse than expected. This loss and other budget over-runs mean that ECF reserves are now so low that they will have to be topped up from invested funds. Adding to these difficulties, the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) has suspended payment of the grant that is equivalent to over half the income the Federation receives from game and membership fees. DCMS require a viable financial recovery programme to be in place before further public funds are given for chess. In spite of these problems it must be stressed that the ECF is far from broke because there are reserves that could sustain both the current year's deficit and loss of public funding for several years. A former member of the Board stated that the threatened loss of public funding was not new and the organisation should not panic. Nevertheless, the position is serious and the Federation will have to appoint a Director of Finance, a currently vacant post. Already the likely out-turn of the 2009 British Championships at Torquay is near break even so the 2008-9 deficit will be significantly less than for the accounting year 2007-8 and the report to DCMS will be able to point to significant improvements even if nothing else were done. Amid this financial gloom, I perceived that at last Council members and the ECF Board recognise they need to stand together and avoid the constant bickering that has bedevilled the ECF in recent years. On a local note, Andrew Farthing (Worcester City) can chalk one up. His work in preparing the ECF's Long-Term Strategic Plan was formally adopted as policy without dissent. Elected Posts and results in detail. None of these appointments is a paid post and all are volunteers.
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