Minutes AGM September 2022
2022-10-12
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of Chess Edinburgh held at Slateford Bowling Club, Edinburgh, on Thursday 22nd September 2022 at 19:30.
Present.
Voting members: David Stewart (Bank of Scotland), Dave Watson (Corstorphine), Jim Wallace (Pentland Hills), Crawford Macnab (Edinburgh Civil Service), Stewart Good (Gorgie/Dalry), Neil Farrell (Edinburgh West) and Jim O’Neil (Wandering Dragons).
Clubs not represented: Sandy Bells, Badgers Brook, Edinburgh, Musselburgh, Edinburgh University and Dunbar.
1. Apologies for Absence
Jenny Wilson and Martin Robinson
2. Minutes of 2019 AGM
The Secretary apologised for the poor quality of the minutes of the previous Annual General Meeting, held on 23rd May 2019, which he thought had been intended as a first draft but never upgraded.
The Minutes were accepted – proposed by David Stewart and seconded by Stewart Good.
3. Matters Arising
There were no matters arising.
4. President’s Report
President David Stewart reported that:
1.Due to the pandemic there had been a two-and-a-half-year break in normal chess activities and clubs had operated in a variety of ways. The first meeting of the Council since early 2020 was held on 18th August 2022 with a view to restarting the Leagues and other Chess Edinburgh events.
2. Chess in the Park had resumed in September 2021 for two months and then restarted in May 2022. It has continued to be very popular with both local players and tourists. Unfortunately, the cafe suffered a fire in June and all of the chess equipment was destroyed. However, due to the support of players there was no interruption to the regular Thursday and Sunday sessions. It will close for the winter when the clocks go back in October.
3.The Chess Edinburgh website was kept under continual review. The website contains up to date Rules for all Chess Edinburgh events. It is intended to provide a full League and Allegro League results service, with regular updates. Team Captains are able to submit results via the Website, by e mail or by post. It is intended that the playing pools of each team in the Leagues will be displayed, which should be useful when playing a match to see if a player is registered. Entry Forms to congresses should be available to download. Thanks to Bill Marshall for all his work on the website.
4. Jim Wallace is standing down from his role as Vice-President of the Association and from the Council and David said that both he and the Association were indebted to Jim for his 30 years’ service to chess in Edinburgh and the Lothians, He had been heavily involved in the running of many events including the British Championships, Scottish Championships, Edinburgh Congress, Lothians Congress, Lothians Allegro and most recently the Allegro League. You will be greatly missed.
5. He paid tribute to Hugh Flockhart, who has sadly passed away. Hugh did a great deal of work behind the scenes for chess in Edinburgh and the Lothians including bringing the British Championships to Edinburgh.
6. Thank you to all the Council Members for their hard work over this difficult period and to Gerry Brown (Auditor).
5. Competition Reports Season 2019/2020
(a) Edinburgh and Lothians Chess League
The season started with 33 teams, an increase of two from the previous season, competing in four divisions. Due to the pandemic, play was suspended in March 2020 and the Council meeting on 18th August 2022 decided that outstanding matches would be ignored and that the positions at the end of February 2020 would be final. The winners of each division will be offered promotion to the division above and, if they accept, the bottom club in that division will be relegated but there will be no play-offs.
The results of each division were:
Winners
Premier League Edinburgh 1
Division 1 Bank of Scotland
Division 2 Edinburgh University 2
Division 3 Bank of Scotland 3
(b) Allegro League
The entry was 16 teams, two up from the previous season. The format remained at six monthly meetings held at Slateford Bowling Club. The competition was completed before lockdown was imposed and was won by Bank of Scotland. Maurice Kelly organised the league and Crawford Macnab was responsible for the grading of results.
(c) Lothians Championship
This started in November but was halted when lockdown was imposed. The Council decided to abandon the 2019/2020 competition and that the money collected will be rolled over to next season’s event.
(d) Lothians Allegro
This was held on 12th January 2020 at Bainfield Bowling Club and was a very successful event directed by Martin Robinson.
(e) Edinburgh Congress
Jim O’Neil, who had taken over as Director of the Congress, reported that a number of entries had been received before the Congress was cancelled due to the pandemic and that all entry fees were returned. The online entry system and use of PayPal for entry fees had worked very well.
(f) Summer Cup and Plate
No competitions were held.
(g) This trophy, which is awarded to the adult player from a Chess Edinburgh Member Club with the greatest grading improvement, was won by Douglas Heatlie of Civil Service who increased his grade by 81 points from 1418 – 1499,
(h) The Balerno Trophy
This trophy, which is awarded to the junior player from a Chess Edinburgh Member Club with the greatest grading improvement, was won by Freddie Gordon of Edinburgh, who increased his grade by 607 points from 1516 to 2123.
(i) Primary Schools & Secondary Schools
Stewart Good reported that the Lothians Junior Chess committee was largely unchanged from pre-covid and that the association was in a healthy financial position. However, it s finding it difficult to get suitable venues.
They ran a number of online tournaments during lockdown, but with a reduced number of schools and players taking part.
They resumed over the board competitions in May 2022 and organised several competitions:
1. The UK Chess Challenge Mega Final was held at Edinburgh Academy. Numbers were down by about,50%.
Freddie Gordon became the first Scottish player to to win a section at the UK finals.
2. The Scottish Girls Championship was held at St Georges School with the highest entry for many years.
3. The Lothian Junior Championships were held at St Georges. Only 52 players took part compared with 110 in
the previous competition but it was pleasing that girls were a significantly higher percentage of the entrants
than previously.
6. Proposals for Season 2022/2003
(a) Edinburgh and Lothians Chess League
With uncertainty over the position clubs are in to restart league chess the Council decided that David Stewart would write to all clubs asking how many teams they would propose entering and in which divisions and that a special meeting of the Council would be held on 29th September to make any restructuring of the leagues that may be necessary The Fixtures meeting will be held at 7:30pm at Slateford Bowling Club on Monday10th October.
There was some discussion about reducing the number of players in a team but the meeting decided to retain the status quo. Calum McGillivray will continue as League Secretary.
(b) Allegro League
Maurice Kelly has resigned as organiser and there has been no response to an appeal by the President to all clubs for someone to take over.
Slateford Bowling Club would again be the venue and, in anticipation of an increase in the cost, it was decided that the entry fee should be increased from £15 to £20,
However, if no-one comes forward to organise it the league will not run.
(c) Lothians Championship
This will run using the usual format and Calum McGillivray will continue to organise it.
(d) Lothians Allegro
It is proposed to hold the Congress on Sunday 15th January 2023 at Bainfield Bowling Club with Martin Robinson as the Tournament Director.
(e) Edinburgh Congress
The Council fixed a provisional date of 31st March-2nd April with Martin Robinson as the Tournament Director. A decision on a venue has not yet been made.
(f) Summer Cup and Plate
It is intended to run these using the current format
(g) Primary Schools & Secondary Schools
Lothians Junior Chess hope to run a full programme of three team events, two individual events and the Chess Challenge.
7. Treasurer’s Report
Jim O’Neil, who took over from Eddie Gillespie in 2019, circulated a financial report.*
The Association roughly broke even over the three year period since the last accounts. However the Treasurer made historical catch ups totaling just under £2,000 leaving us with £16,631 in the bank.
He is changing the financial year to run from 1st July to 30th June (previously 1st May to 30th April) and will use electronic banking as much as possible.
The accounts for 2019-2020 have been audited by Gerry Brown and the meeting voted to accept the Treasurer’s report, proposed by Neil Farrell, seconded by Dave Watson.
8. League Subscriptions for 2022/2023
The meeting accepted the Council’s proposals that the fee for the League remains at £30 and that for the Allegro League is increased from £15 to £20
9. Presentation of Trophies
This was postponed to the Fixtures Meeting
10. Election of Office-Bearers
The following office bearers were elected en bloc to serve for the forthcoming year proposed by Neil Farrell and seconded by Jim Wallace.
President David Stewart
Vice-President
General Secretary Dave Watson
Treasurer Jim O’Neil
League Secretary Calum McGillivray
Minutes Secretary Dave Watson
Congress Director Martin Robinson
Tournaments Secretary Martin Robinson
Primary Schools Representative Stewart Good
Secondary Schools Representative Jenny Wilson
Webmaster Bill Marshall
Council Member Crawford Macnab
Council Member Chihon Ley
Council Member Vacant
Council Member Vacant
Council Member Vacant
Auditor Gerry Brown***
Child Abuse Contact Vacant
*** The Honorary President, Auditor and Child Abuse Contact are not members of the Chess Edinburgh Council
The Council will look for a new Vice President and the President appealed to clubs not represented on the Council to try and fill the vacant Member positions.
11. Amendment to the Constitution
Jim O’Neil explained the reasons for wishing to change the date of the AGM from May to September. After a short discussion the amendment was approved by five votes to two, meeting the requirement for a two-thirds majority.
11. AOCB
(a)) Jim O’Neil raised his concern that there was no backup in place for the website should anything happen to Bill Marshall. This has been raised with Bill on several occasions, but it has not been resolved and Jim suggested that the Council should look into paying for a professional design and support service for the site. The meeting agreed to leave this to the Council
(b) Jim O’Neil raised the “ownership” of Chess in the Park. He pointed out that the equipment is the property of the cafe and although we support it, Chess in the Park is not an official Chess Edinburgh event
The meeting closed at 9:35 with a vote of thanks to David Marshall for his work.
Dave Watson 28/9/2022
*Anyone wishing a copy of the full President’s and/or Treasurer’s Report should contact the Secretary, Dave Watson
email stillgamedave70@gmail.com
Tel. 0131 334 1062.