SHROPSHIRE CHESS ASSOCIATION AGM held Tuesday July 4th, 2017
at Wrekin Housing Trust.
Attendance, Francis Best, Glyn Pugh, Roger Brown, Gary White, Alf Evans, Richard Thompson, Nick Rutter, Nathanael Paul, Chris Paul , Christopher Lewis, Toby Neal, Joe Watson, Dennis Bonner, Mark Smith, Ivor Salter .
1. Apologies for absence.
Received from Matthew Clarke, Steve Rooney, Keith Tabner and Graham Ives
Francis Best opened the meeting and thanked everyone for arriving promptly and those who had brought back the trophies.
2. Minutes of 2016 AGM. These had been available on the website and were accepted.
3. President’s Report. Francis Best had nothing to add that wouldn’t be covered in the congress reports or other items later.
Officers Reports
General Secretary: Nothing to report as items were on the agenda.
League Controller: Nathanael Paul reported Church Stretton B had to withdraw and Telepost E had formed a team in division 3.
Church Stretton A had to fold with the loss of their venue and although they had been removed from the table along with their matches the results were kept for grading purposes. Ludlow had been able to field the two Arkell’s grandmaster Keith and his brother Nick in match 3. Newport A led the race for the title comfortably until their loss to Ludlow enabled Telepost A to catch them up. This set up the final match of the season between closest rivals Newport A and Telepost A. A drawn match result, enabled Newport A to take the title on goal difference. Newport B lost all their matches despite some good individual results in every match.
In the second division Wellington A had convincingly won the title but second place was a tight fight between Telford A and Shrewsbury B with the former achieving second place. During the season there had been a controversial matter when M Morrison had been ineligible to play for Telford B due to playing for a higher team too many times and a GAME point had been deducted. Newport juniors had managed to survive in division 2 and Telepost just managed to keep one of their two teams in division 2.
The third division was the most exciting with most of the teams chasing promotion. Three teams ended with 14pts with Priorslee Lions B winning the title from Wellington B, second, and Telepost D third, on goal difference. There had to be one postponed match Oswestry v Telepost due to illness and Telepost were unable to win by a large enough margin to take second place.
The trophies available were then presented. Division 1 to Nathanael Paul of Newport A and division 2 to Toby Neal of Wellington A. Division 3 not presented.
Francis thanked Nathanael for running the league.
Treasurer’s Report – Alf Evans presented his report
The receipts were split so that ECF membership receipts and club fees could be seen separately.
Depreciation was large and reflects the policy of write off actual assets quickly and is good practice.
The accounts are awaiting the last bill concerning the 4NCL.
Game fees are being tightly monitored by the ECF who are sending emails around re membership.
Richard Thompson the auditor said - The treasurer puts a lot of work in especially around the congress which as usual is the main item in the accounts.
Francis thanked Alf for all his work.
Grading officer: Nick Rutter again reported that all the games for grading had been sent off and grades should be out 25th July. The cut off point for submission being 1st June, to enable grades to be published on time.
County individual: Nick Rutter made a brief report saying that he had won with Nigel Ferrington second, and Athar Ansari third, G Viszokai scored 4/7 and won the U140, and E Raby the U120.
Nick said he would get a new band for the trophy along with the engraving.
Cox & Minor: Keith Tabner sent in a report congratulating all the teams who took part and thanking Francis for arranging the internet broadcast of the finals from Wrekin Housing Trust. In the Cox trophy final Newport a faced Telepost A, whilst in the Minor knockout final Telford A were up against Telepost B. The two Telepost teams were out graded on seven of the eight boards and so started both as underdogs.
In the Cox trophy a top board win for Trevor Brotherton eventually proved decisive as the match was drawn 2-2 with Telepost winning on board count.
In the Minor a win by Richard Thompson gave Telford the early lead but draws on boards 2 and 4 left the match depending on top board. With seconds remaining Mark Keady finally resigned to Keith Tabner leaving another 2-2 result which also went to Telepost on board count.
Rapid Play: With Church Stretton withdrawing this left five teams in the division. Brewood unfortunately lost all of their matches. With Telepost losing a few in the earlier rounds they were never able to catch up with a dominant Newport A team.
In Division 2 11/12 points from the first two matches for Priorslee B put them in the driving seat. Shrewsbury were deducted 1 pt for defaulting the matches on the first night. In a subsequent round the match between Shrewsbury A and Priorslee B involved a disputed result with the appeal being held after all the matches were finished. The interpretation of FIDE rules meant Shrewsbury A managed to slip past Priorslee for the title.
Quick play: Toby Neal gave a brief report of the event being held at the Wrekin Housing Trust with six teams playing. Newport who actually fielded three teams won easily with their A team despite a strong Telepost team. The trophy was awarded to N. Paul.
Publicity officer: Toby Neal said thanks for the snippets and in particular for the disputes which gave him interesting news to report. Most of the comments came via website. Radio Shropshire had been at the Shropshire congress with comments from Steve Rooney.
Website editor: Nothing to report just thanks for help on the maintenance.
Congress organiser: Francis reported that Steve Rooney does all the donkey work, dealing with online payments, organising sponsorship which attracts the titled players and publicising the event.
Francis was disappointed the numbers in the open were down but amazed that the broadcast of the top boards were picked up on the Play Chess server and broadcast all around the world.
It had been interesting to see some exciting chess play by the winner of the Open section, Alan Merry.
Francis commented on expanding the space at the venue and may have to split the weekend or get space elsewhere in the building.
The congress provides a great boost to the county’s finances.
The top players including Alan Merry had said it was one of the best congresses in the country.
County junior organiser – There was no report from Simon Maydew who was standing down.
4NCL Team – The first team had a good season and were fourth in the group and so were put in the promotional pool but had finished bottom of that group. The team had a few draws against IM rated players.
The second team had finished ninth in the final table with C Higgie playing well on board 1.
The team had been opened up to a few none Shropshire residents to enable them to get players.
The team were going to play in the North Division next year mainly around the Bolton area as it was thought to be nearer. Nathanael thanked Chris Lewis for his work and Keith Tabner and Toby Neal for the publicity.
MCCU delegates: Nothing to report
ECF delegate: Nothing to report
4. ELECTION OF OFFICERS
Elected enbloc with the exception of Simon Maydew, who did not wish to continue as Junior organiser, proposed by Richard Thompson seconded by Mark Smith. The post of Junior organiser was left vacant, with anyone interested asked to contact Francis Best.
It was said that there needs to be changes and a few new faces were wanted. G Pugh said it would be his last year of being secretary.
N Paul wanted dates that clubs cannot play to avoid any clashes and he would be doing fixtures in the second week of August.
6. Time control – a short discussion took place with comments that chess was played in a social atmosphere and did not always start on time. Clubs had to consider the long distances and kids playing in the league. Richard Thompson said it should start on time and need to get to venue early. Alf Evans commented that at the start of the season it is fine but starting times deteriorate as the season goes on. There is no penalty for late starting of either home or away team. Joe Watson from Ludlow said he aims for his team to arrive for away matches by 7.15 and is often at venue before the home team, and gives some leeway at home by starting clocks at 7.45.
It was agreed that there should be more discipline and clocks can start at 7.30. There was no vote on the proposed time control.
7. Cup Competitions -A short discussion took place about whether players playing in cup competitions should be cup tied because some players had played for two teams in the same competition. This had resulted in one of the semi finals being defaulted when the two teams were due to play each other. A request would be made to the organiser to look at the rules concerning this.
5. Proposals from the restructuring meeting 9 May 17
For full proposal details see Resolutions of meeting below is summary
1. add to rule 5 Nominated players must play for their team at least four times in a season with a penalty of one match point per player per game.
A heated discussion took place where there were confessions that some clubs had nominated players without any expectation of them playing. Joe Watson wanted Ludlow to be exempt and asked for understanding as they had a large pool of players who did not all want to commit. N Rutter proposed amendment for registered players to two play at least two games- Vote result For 6 Against 7. N Paul proposed amendment to registered players to play three times G White seconded - vote For 11 Against 1.
A one point penalty per player would be applied – vote For 9 Against 4.
New rule5 -When registering its players with the league Controller at the start of each season, each club must nominate 4 players to each team other than in Division 3 where only 3 players need to be nominated. Players nominated to a higher team cannot play for a lower team. Penalties for breaches of the rule are stipulated at rule 28. Nominated players must play for their team at least three times in a season. If this proves impossible on account of unforeseen circumstances (e.g. the player moving away from the area), the League Controller has discretion to accept an alternative nominated player for the remainder of the season. Normally, the alternative nominated player will be expected to play for the balance of the four games not played by the original nominated player. Any appearances of the new nominated player for a lower team prior to acceptance by the league Controller shall be disregarded from the point of view of rule breaches specified in rule 28. A penalty of one Match point per player per game to encourage registered players being a true member of the team
2. Replace all penalties in rules 24 to 28 as a “game point” shall be changed to a match point penalty. Nat Paul said game point may not change result and only affects results at end of season on goal difference. There needs to be consistency. Vote for 12 against 2.
3. A player may only represent one club. G White and C Paul said they might vote differently dependant on proposal 4. This was voted on after proposal 4
For none 0 against 8 abstained 3. – This means a player can play for more than one club.
4. Grading limits should be changed concerning players playing for other clubs in different divisions to below 125 for Div2 and below 105 for Div3 in rule 8. For 10 against 1 abstained 2.
Rule8 becomes - A member of a club may only be nominated for one team for that club. If a player is a member of more than one club, he/she may only play for one club within a division. If a team in the second or third division uses a player who normally plays for another Shropshire club in a higher division during that season, then it is permitted only on condition that the player has a current summer grade of below 125 for Div 2 and below 105 for Div 3.
5 Change numbers of players in division 2 to 4, or amendment that all divisions are teams of 4.
Discussion centred on three points- more players would be available to all clubs, it is difficult to go from teams of four in one division to team of five in another. Everyone can fit in one car in a team of four. Some people felt it would make matches have more drawn games because of fear of losing affecting the match, others felt more games more likely to get a decisive match.
Vote - all divisions to have 4 players – for 5, against 6, abstention 3
Vote - division 2 to have 4 players – for 3, against 8
So this means there is no change, and in Divisions 1 & 2 a team consists of 5 players, while in Division 3 four players would make up a team.
6 Amend rule 9d concerning the number of times a player can substitute before being tied to higher team.
Main point is that some people believed there was too much flexibility at present and the rule needs tightening. It was noted that the result of proposal5, keeping same number of players in a team, may mean some clubs would be stretched. Francis said Shrewsbury would struggle. G White said clubs should be realistic in the number of teams they run. N Paul commented that the fourth time would be a third of the season and still gives flexibility. Francis believed there may be unintended consequences. Vote for 7 against 5
Rule 9 d becomes Where a player is used more than three times for a higher team, then (unless sub-paragraphs a, b or c apply) he / she becomes a member of the senior team on the fourth occasion for the remainder of the season. Where a reserve wins by default the result will count as an appearance for the senior team,
7 Add to rule 3 the league controller has discretion, after consultation, to specify the number of times teams shall play each other in a division.
This was a practical option depending on the number of teams in a division. Vote for All against none
8 A proposal that a separate individual competition for players under a certain grade.
Many players would like to play in an individual but felt the open individual was not for them. Chris Lewis was happy to organise this and a short discussion set a limit of U125. This would run alongside the main individual where all players could enter.
8. ANY OTHER BUSINESS
There was no other business
The meeting ended at 9:40pm
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