Stockport and District Chess League AGM 2019 Minutes

The 2019 Annual General Meeting of Stockport and District Chess League was held on Wednesday May 22^nd. 2019 at the Ladybrook Hotel, Fir Lane, Bramhall 

1. Attendance and apologies (2018-19 Offices in brackets)

Present (23) were:

Officers and Officials:

• Glenn Trueman (Chair, President, Stockport)

• Neil Dainty (Minutes, Secretary, Marple)

• Reg Clucas (Website Manager, Altrincham)

• Mike Tunstall (Treasurer, Stockport)

Altrincham: Mark Hann

Ashton: Denzel Supatan, Tyrone Supatan

Chorlton: David Kierman, Dennis Owen

Holmes Chapel: Michael Lee

Macclesfield: Phil Cattermole

Marple and District: Terry Cowling, Tony Doust

Sale: John Hennessy, Eddie Hunt, Neil Oddie, Khalid Khokhar, Liam Lougheed

Stockport: Peter Taylor, Andy Reeve, Ian Anderson

Urmston: John Reyes

Wilmslow: Colin Mills

Apologies were received from Geoff Laurence, Fixtures Secretary, Macclesfield; Keith Hodgson, David Harris, East Cheshire; Damiem McElvenny, Worsley; David Holt, Denton; John Turner, Ian Bates, Holmes Chapel; Tim Plunkett, Urmston

2. Minutes of the 2018 AGM

The minutes were accepted as a true record

3. Matters Arising

There were no matters arising.

4. Officers’ Reports

4.1 President (G Trueman)

The President thanked the Officers and members for a successful season.

4.2 Fixtures Secretary (G. Laurence) read by Glenn Trueman

The winners of the first division were Chorlton for the second time. East Cheshire A are relegated. Division two was won by Stockport B with Denton relegated; division three by Worsley in their first season. Stockport won the limit league, and also both the Charnley and President's Cups

No disputes came to my attention this season - the only disappointment was that 4 matches were defaulted - one by Denton in division 2, two by Urmston in div 3 and one by Altrincham in the limit league. Individual board defaults were otherwise few and far between which was pleasing.

The vast majority of captains submitted results promptly for which I am grateful.

4.3 Website and Grading Officer

Website Manager's report

Nothing to report, except to say that I echo Geoff's thanks to the team captains for getting the results to him so quickly – this in turn enables the website to be updated quickly.

Registration Secretary's report

There were a few issues when the ECF introduced the new online membership renewal portal, as some players were given a duplicate grading reference when they renewed. These are hopefully now all resolved.

Another minor problem was that the ECF's membership list was not available in the first half of the season, due to GDPR. This meant that I could not run my program which checks for non-members who have played more than the permitted 3 games. However the ECF have now made the list available to organisers, so this is now resolved. I am pleased to report that no non-member played more than 3 games, so the League should not receive any game fee bill with respect to Standard play games.

I hope to update my checking program to take account of the Summer Rapidplay League, as these games too can potentially attract game fees.

Grading Officer's report

This season 216 players played a total of 787 games, which will be submitted to the ECF for inclusion in the July grading list. (Of course, games played before Christmas have already been included in the January list).

4.4 Treasurer

Income and Expenditure were pretty consistent year on year with an income of £125 from subscriptions and a similar amount spent on trophies and engraving. He recommended that team and player fees remain unchanged (see below). A copy of the accounts is attached.

4.5 ECF representative

John Reyes had attended the ECF AGM in October at which significant increases in members’ fees were agreed. Proposals for monthly changes in grading are unlikely to be seen before 2021. Replying to a request from Andy Reeve, John agreed to discuss voting matters with all members rather than just officials.

5. Team Fees

The treasurer said there was no need for any fees to be charged due to the healthy state of the bank balance. This was agreed unanimously.

Dave Kierman suggested that the winner of the Eric Harrison trophy also be given a trophy to keep. It was agreed this be forwarded to the Fixtures meeting.

6. Presentation of trophies

Trophies were presented to:

Division 1 Champions: Chorlton

Division 2 Champions: Stockport B

Division 3 Champions: Worsley

Limit League Champions: Stockport

Charnley Cup Winners: Stockport

President’s Cup: Stockport

Vic Knox Trophy: Roger Fairfield (Stockport;100%, P7, W7).

Eric Harrison Cup: Denzel Supatan (Ashton)

7. Election of Officers and Auditor

The current officers were re-elected en bloc.

8. Election of Disputes Committee.

The current officers were re-elected en bloc.

9. Proposals for rule amendments:

Proposed changes:

Rule 16C - Replace “mobile phone” to read “mobile phone or any other electronic device”

Rule 17A - Reg outlined the reasons behind his proposal: competitions worldwide are moving to increments so that the game is decided on the board not the clock.

Andy Reeve said that Stockport had discussed this at length and whilst they agreed in principle, 10 seconds was too short and he therefore proposed 20 second increments.

There was significant opposition to this and Andy agreed to support a change to 15 seconds. This was voted on and passed. (12 in favour, 4 against)

David Kierman asked Reg to put clock instructions on the website.

Rule 34 - Current wording - If a club has more than one team in a division these teams shall play all the matches between themselves by December 31st and complete them by January 14th.

Proposed new wording - delete everything after December 31st

Rule 36 B Dates for each round (G.L)

Current wording - The completion dates for each round are as follows: round 1 before 1st November, the quarter final before 25th December, the semi-final before 1st March and the final before 30th April.

Proposed new wording: - replace 30th April with “by end of season"

Rule 36 C - Method for determining venue after first round

Current wording:

For the fixtures after the initial draw the Fixtures Secretary shall determine the home team so as to minimise the occurrence of sequences of home venues in successive rounds or of away venues in successive rounds accruing to teams. Where both teams are eligible for a home draw in a subsequent round, the team drawn out of the hat first when the initial draw was made shall be the home team.

Proposed new wording:

For fixtures after the original draw. the first drawn team will be the home team unless they have already played more home ties in the competition than their opponents, in which case the Fixtures Secretary will reverse the venues.

Rationale:

It's simple and reflects the original intention.

The President closed the meeting.