Staffs ECF AGM report

Staffordshire County and Leagues ECF Report

AGM Saturday 17th October. This is a brief report about the elections.

Most of the first part of the meeting was about the reports. 2 were unusual and between them dominated the whole meeting.

The CEO’s report was very long and answered Council’s repeated demands for more information, the key part was paragraph 2 of the Executive Summary:

The Board, however, was strained to the point of breaking. The strain was due to divergent views about standards and strategy, in both form and substance. The Board’s decision to publish internal tensions was an exasperated plea for change made in the best interest of the Federation.1 Council now has the opportunity to elect a set of directors who share enough commonality to accelerate change in one way or another. The President concluded his report with the crux of the matter, “…petty divisions and arguments within the ECF do nothing to help those of us who are attempting to persuade the government and sporting authorities that chess should be given enhanced status.” Council’s choice is as significant as the 2008 watershed. It will set the Federation’s course for the better part of the next decade.

The Chair of the Governance Committee Report

It seems plain that we cannot re-elect the same team as they seem to be incapable of working with each other. The Board seems to be forever arguing amongst themselves as witnessed by a foolish Board motion by one Director directed at another. Management of the Board agenda and time is poor. I think that the drawbacks from the lack of a Chairman been amply demonstrated and I intend to bring proposals to a future Council meeting to reinstate the post.

This was a veiled attack on the CEO by Chris Majer. During the election addresses he told council that if we re-elected Phil Ehr, he, Chris would resign.

I was one of the tellers, and we were under time pressure to count all the results. We made it at 6.25, 5 minutes before the 6.30 deadline. We were unable to go recount or check our figures.

The key Election Results ( after all the results were checked again): In bold the successful.

Chief Executive: Phil Ehr* – 121 in favour, 173 not this candidate~, 15 abstentions NOT Elected

Director of Home Chess: 247 Alex Holowczak#~, 49 John Foley*, 3 neither, 10 abstentions Alex Elected

Director of International Chess: 164 Malcolm Pein*, 142 David Openshaw#~, 3 abstentions Malcolm elected

Commercial Director: 68 Bob Kane*, 214 not this candidate, 27 abstentions~ NOT Elected
Chairman of the G C : 221 Chris Majer#~, 63 not this candidate, 25 abstentions.

So we have no CEO nor Commercial Director. Phil was voted out as were 2 of his supporters.

The rest of the Results. Notes: * = CEO ‘s side, # = other side. ~ How I voted. ^ = not in attendance.

President: Dominic Lawson~^ – 293 in favour, 16 abstentions
Finance Director: David Eustace~ – 285 in favour, 17 not this candidate, 7 abstentions
2 Non-Executive Directors: 280 Julian Clissold~, 292 Julie Denning~, 23 Jack Rudd, 1 none, 21 abstained
Director of Junior Chess & Education: 295 Traci Whitfield~, 14 abstentions
Director of Membership: 296 David Thomas~, 1 Not this candidate. 12 abstentions
FIDE Delegate: 271 Malcolm Pein*, 22 not this candidate, 16 abstentions~
Chairman of the Finance Committee: 290 Mike Truran~, 2 not this candidate, 17 abstentions
Members of the Finance Committee: 301 Ray Clark~, 8 abstentions; 301 Ian Reynolds~, 8 abstentions
Members of the Governance Committee: 295 Mike Gunn^~, 1 not this candidate, 13 abstentions;
243 Richard Haddrell, 33 not this candidate, 33 abstentions: 261 Andrew Leadbetter, 11 not this candidate, 37 abstentions~; 260 David Robertson*~, 36 not this candidate, 13 abstentions. David has since resigned.

Posted on behalf of Andrew Leadbetter, Staffs ECF representative