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1) Apologies
Roy Woodcock, Bruce Holland, David Pardoe, Graham Humphries, Peter Gibbs
2) Minutes of the 2006 AGM
2.1) Accuracy - minutes accepted
2.2) Matters Arising. – Neil
Graham passed on his thanks regarding
his expenses claim.
3) President's Address
Roy is currently in hospital, preventing him from providing a report.
4) Reports
4.1)
Chief Executive – written
report received
4.2) Finance
Director - the first
part of year sees little activity.
An application had been received
for donation relating to the Braille
Chess Championships to be held in
England, it was agreed to donate £40.
4.3) Junior Chess – Graham
Humphries wife is still ill, but he has
recently secured some assistance with
her care.
4.4) Events:
4.4.1) Midland Individual
4.4.2) Midland Open
Previously comment has indicated
little support for the MCCU to attempt
to run these events.
4.5) Public Relations – The
CEO continues to produce the Newsletter.
4.6) Grading – Only
one request had been received for
a small number of hardcopy grading
books. It was clearly not viable
to produce small numbers.
4.7) County
Teams – The U175
Jamboree was set up for Blackfords
Club near Cannock, with 3 teams entered.
The meeting agreed that should any
of the teams withdraw they will still
be responsible for 1/3rd of the costs.
Some discussion ensued concerning
team numbers in the graded sections,
with suggestions that 12 a side would
perhaps make it easier for counties
to raise teams & thus provide
more entries. As the matter had not
been a specific agenda item the meeting
felt that no firm decision could be
made by the meeting.
It was pointed out that, although the
MCCU stage rules do not need to mirror
the ECF rules, the situation as ECF
level would be felt to be an important
factor. However, changes to the ECF
rules are made at the April Council
Meeting, because the AGM in October
takes place after the event starts.
Thus if the MCCU wished to make any
proposals relating to the 2007/8 competition,
they would have to be made at the April
2007 Council Meeting. The CEO expressed
doubts that any motion for a reduction
in team numbers at ECF level would
find majority support across the country.
It was agreed that –
Consultation should take place and
if there was support for a reduction
from 16 to 12 boards per county team
in the graded sections, a motion should
be put to the ECF Council Meeting April
2007 & to
the MCCU AGM.
The issue of qualification for the
Minor Counties at ECF level was raised.
The meeting felt that whether a team
competed in Div 1 or 2 should not determine
eligibility for the event. For the
current season existing arrangements
will need to be applied.
Going forward it was agreed that -
For the ECF Minor Championship the
1st place be offered to the highest
eligible team in Division 1 & 2nd
place be offered to teams in descending
finishing order.
4.8)
Correspondence Chess
4.8.1) Individual
4.8.2) Team
The CEO reported that there were problems
with both events. The Controller of the
Individual did not consider it part of
his remit to solicit entries for the
event. The CEO had been in contact with
counties but very few counties had nominated
players and it was not considered a viable
event. The meeting agreed that, rather
than limiting the event to a single nomination
from each county, the event could be
opened out to anyone within the MCCU.
Chris Lee had agreed to continue running
the team event, but no news of this had
been forthcoming.
4.9) Webmaster – Sean
reported that he was looking to provide
facilities to submit county match results
on line.
4.10) ECF – a
written report was provided. It was agreed
to support a proposal that –
It is recommended to the ECF that their
Council meetings are held in Greater Birmingham.
4.11)
Non-executives – nothing
to report.
5) Vacancies
At the time of the AGM
Cyril Johnson was Junior Director & acting
CEO of the ECF, due to the workload these
posts involved he was unwilling to
be nominated to be re-elected to the MCCU
Events post. As that situation has
changed he is available to work for the
MCCU and would be happy to take up the
Events reigns again.
The meeting agreed that Cyril resume
the post of Events Director.
6) Constitution
The CEO proposes that :-
that a sub-committee be set up to review
the current constitution. The terms
of reference of the committee “to review
the constitution, produce a new draft constitution
to be widely circulated across the MCCU,
to revise the content to take account of
feedback received, & to produce a final
draft for the 2007 AGM”.
This was agreed with the CEO, Finance
Director & Non-Executive
Director Gordon Christie to form
the committee.
6) County Team Rules –
The CEO proposes the insertion of
new clauses to the County team rules
as follows:-
i) Where a team finds itself unable
to fulfil a fixture the captain must
ensure he/she speaks to the opposing
captain in person. The sending of email
or text messages, or leaving messages
on a telephone answering service is
not sufficient. If the opposing captain
is not available, another officer of
that county must be made aware of the
situation.
ii) Where a team defaults or concedes
a fixture, that county will be responsible
for reimbursing the opposing county
for any reasonable expenses incurred.
There have been a number of instances
where matches have been called off
at short notice. In some cases the
opposing captain has been unaware of
the situation because the other captain
has not actual spoken to them & messages
sent by other means have not reached
them. Whilst the ECF rules cater for
reimbursement of reasonable expenses
incurred by the withdrawing/defaulting
team, the MCCU rules do not.
It was pointed out before the meeting
that the rules already provide for
part ii) thus it was withdrawn. Part
i) was agreed with the addition of
the following “A
fine of up to £50 may be imposed
for failure to do so”.
7) MCCU & ECF Membership Scheme
A report on the problems relating to the MCCU and the ECF membership scheme had been circulated prior to the meeting. The CEO provided a written update. Essentially the new ECF Board did not feel that the MCCU version of the scheme would meet the “best endeavours” requirement. The meeting felt quite strongly that this assertion was flawed and had more to do with the new Board attitude towards the MO scheme than any foundation in fact. They also felt that the MCCU had not been treated equitably in comparison to other scheme applications. The meeting agreed that the CEO make the Union feelings known to the ECF Board and left the wording of this to her.
8) AOB
none
9) Date & location of AGM
It si due
to be held in the West Midlands. The
GM was content for the AGM to be held
at the Erdington Conservative club, possibly
17th June.
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