EAST GLAMORGAN CHESS ASSOCIATION
The 65th AGM of the Association was held on 2 July 2019 at Ystradfechan Bowls Club, Taff Terrace Treorchy, CF42 6UG, home of the Rhondda Chess Club, starting at 7:30p.m.
Present: Bill Harle (Vice Chairman), Phil Jones (Executive Director), Martin Ricketts (Treasurer), Kevin Staveley (Rules Director), Anthony Williams, Dave Robinson (Bridgend), Martin Jones, John Thornton (Caerphilly), Chris Hooper (Cardiff), Simon Blackmore, Rob Dineen, Liam Penney (North Cardiff), Mike McGuire (Pentyrch), Dai James, Roy Thomas (Pontypridd), Edwin Allen, Gareth Harding, Andrew Moore (Rhondda).
AGENDA
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1. Apologies For Absence |
Anthony Baker, Pete Heaven, Stuart Hutchings and Peter Slater. |
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2. Minutes of the 2018 AGM |
Accepted as a true copy |
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3. Matters Arising |
There were no matters arising |
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4. Correspondence |
In the absence of the Zone Secretary none were reported |
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5. Presentation of reports of |
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No report presented.
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b. Treasurer |
The accounts were presented by Martin Ricketts (see Annex 1 below) The acting chairman thanked Martin for his report
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c. Executive Director |
The Executive Directors report was presented by Phil Jones (see Annex 2 below) The acting chairman thanked Phil for his report
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d. Match Captain |
No report presented
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e. Rating Officer |
The Rating Officers report was submitted by Pete Heaven (see Annex 3 below) |
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6. Reports of delegates to WCU |
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The Management Board Officer’s report was presented by John Thornton (see Annex 4 below) The acting chairman thanked John for his report
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Dai James reported that no formal meetings had been held. There had been informal discussions around the format/venues for the Welsh Premier League. The acting chairman thanked Dai for his report
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No report presented
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Dai James reported that no meetings had taken place as he was the only Publicity Office in the WCU The acting chairman thanked Dai for his support
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Stuart Hutchings was not present but a written report was presented (see Annex 5 below)
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The Junior Committee Officer’s report was presented by John Thornton (see Annex 4 below) The acting chairman thanked John for his report
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No report presented |
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7. Review of membership fees
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There was no formal proposal to amend our agreed subscriptions. The moratorium on fees was agreed for 1 year only so our fees will return to £3 for adults, £2 for juniors in addition to the WCU Fee with new players having their first season free. Note there is likely to be an increase in WCU fees in future. |
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8. Presentation of trophies for 2018-2019
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North Cardiff Woodpushers
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Cardiff Monarchs
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North Cardiff Titans
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Pentyrch C
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Kimberly Chong (Cardiff)
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Cardiff
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9. Election of officers for 2019-20:
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(a) Chairman Anthony Baker (b) Vice Chairman Bill Harle
(c) Secretary Vacant (d) Treasurer Martin Ricketts
(e) Ex.Dir Phil Jones (f) Rules Director Kevin Staveley |
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10. Election of delegates to WCU.
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(a) Management Board John Thornton (b) Home Committee Dai James
(c) Development Committee Vacant (d) Publicity Committee Dai James
(e) Junior Committee TBC John Thornton or Scott Beale
(f) International Committee Stuart Hutchings (g) Ladies’ Committee Vacant |
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11. Election of |
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(a) KO Cup Secretary Phil Jones (b) Match Captain(s) Vacant
(c) Rating Officer Edwin Allen (subsequently resigned)
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12. Election of |
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(a) Vice President to WCU Roy Thomas (b) Auditor Dai James |
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13. Arrangements for the EG Closed Tournament |
This event has not been held for many years |
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14. Junior Grant |
An amount of up to £300 has been agreed |
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15. Honoraria |
The meeting approved the Honoraria of £100 to the Ratings Officer, £125 to the Executive Director and £50 to the Treasurer |
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16 Proposals to change the rules |
All 4 proposals to amend the rules and constitution were agreed. In the case of Proposal 1 where there with 4 options, option (iii) was agreed (see Annex 6 below). |
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17 Any other business |
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· Martin Ricketts was appointed as the new Zonal Membership Secretary
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· Dai James asked if he could be added to the matchcard recipients. This would allow him to add match reports/results to the EGCA facebook page as this generates interest/comments. Agreed. ACTION a request has been made to Matthew Lunnon to added Dai’s name to the list
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· Dai James also agreed to put onto our facebook site a request for nominations foe the vacant roles of Secretary and Development Committee delegate.
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· Roy Thomas asked for the final date of submission of rule amendments as he is considering the wording to change our time limits to an incremental system. The deadline is 1st May with the proposal to be sent to the Secretary.
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The meeting closed at 9.15p.m. |
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Annex 1 East Glamorgan Chess Association |
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AUDITED Accounts 1st June 2018 - 31st May 2019 |
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Expenditure |
2015-16 |
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2016-17 |
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2017-18 |
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2018-19 |
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WCU |
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WCU Registration Fees |
£2,543.00 |
£2,464.00 |
£2,433.00 |
£2,606.00 |
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WCU Insurance |
£0.00 |
£0.00 |
£55.00 |
£45.00 |
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EGCA |
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Trophies |
£100.00 |
£100.00 |
£135.75 |
£100.00 |
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Engraving |
£0.00 |
£0.00 |
£55.00 |
£38.50 |
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Junior Chess |
£0.00 |
£75.00 |
£0.00 |
£0.00 |
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Website Domain Name |
£16.78 |
£0.00 |
£0.00 |
£0.00 |
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Honoraria |
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Executive Director |
£75.00 |
£125.00 |
£125.00 |
£125.00 |
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Ratings Officer |
£100.00 |
£100.00 |
£100.00 |
£100.00 |
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Treasurer |
£0.00 |
£0.00 |
£0.00 |
£50.00 |
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Website |
£0.00 |
£0.00 |
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£0.00 |
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£50.00 |
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Total Expenditure |
£2,834.78 |
£2,864.00 |
£2,903.75 |
£3,114.50 |
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Income |
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Club Registration Fees |
£3,290.10 |
£3,133.00 |
£3,147.00 |
£2,651.00 |
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Total Income |
£3,290.10 |
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£3,133.00 |
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£3,147.00 |
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£2,651.00 |
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EGCA Funds |
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Surplus (Deficit) |
£455.32 |
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£269.00 |
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£243.25 |
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-£463.50 |
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Opening Balance |
£5,088.09 |
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£5,543.41 |
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£5,812.41 |
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£6,055.66 |
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Closing Balance |
£5,543.41 |
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£5,812.41 |
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£6,055.66 |
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£5,592.16 |
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(Note - £5 owed to Pontypridd) |
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Martin Ricketts Treasurer |
Dai James Auditor |
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Annex 2
Executive Director’s Report 2018/19
League
We did manage to play all of our games. Membership proved to be stable with 248 (264 in 2017/18 but with 2 less clubs!) registered players. Postponements were down but could have been even less if team captains reviewed the fixtures and requested changes before 1st October for such things as birthdays, bonfire night, Halloween, half term etc. Defaults raised slightly and were spread between all the clubs but most of them occurred nearing the end of the season.
The main issue for me was the late withdrawal and subsequent entry of new teams. The result was a smaller division 2 and the fixtures were rewritten 3 times in division 4 ending with a disjointed fixture list.
The standard of completion of the matchcard could have been better. There were many occasions where names were missing or incorrect, board order was wrong etc. It would help if the player sending in the result would include his name/contact detail as when I receive the result I don’t know who submitted it! The comments section could be used to advise details of any new players including whether they are new to welsh chess and a date of birth for new juniors.
KO Cup
At the last AGM it was suggested we return to playing the KO Cup in the Summer. The suggestion came from a club who did not enter! I remember Gary Wakeham experienced difficulties in getting teams to play and a minimum entry number was set at 8 teams. I did not anticipate receiving enough numbers for the competition to go ahead. I wanted to play the competition immediately after the league season had drawn to a conclusion as I felt players would be more likely to wish to take part as a continuation of the season.
League Stats (last season’s stats in brackets)
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Players |
Defaults |
Postponements |
Penalties |
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Barry |
27 (27) |
4 (3) |
3 (2) |
0 (2) |
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Bridgend |
17 (20) |
6 (2) |
5 (4) |
2 (1) |
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Caerphilly |
24 (22) |
5 (4) |
0 (1) |
1 (0) |
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Cardiff |
63 (54) |
16 (8) |
1 (2) |
3 (3) |
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Nelson |
0 (9) |
0 (1) |
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N Cardiff |
49 (53) |
10 (10) |
5 (4) |
1 (0) |
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Penarth |
16 (15) |
5 (7) |
0 (1) |
0 (0) |
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Pentyrch |
18 (17) |
1 (8) |
0 (2) |
0 (0) |
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Pontypridd |
21 (16) |
7 (2) |
3 (5) |
0 (0) |
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Rhondda |
12 (13) |
1 (1) |
1 (0) |
1 (0) |
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St John’s College |
0 (20) |
0 (7) |
0 (4) |
0 (5) |
Annex 3
East Glamorgan Chess League : Rating Officer’s (RO) report for season 2018-19
June 30th 2019
3986 games rated, slightly up from 3939 in the previous season. This represents 45% of games played by Welsh players.
Alec Wood Trophy
This was won by Kim Chong of Cardiff with a 326 point rating increase as at 31st May 2019. Kim is not in Wales to collect her trophy but expects to return to Wales later in 2019.
She was subsequently narrowly overtaken – see website – by Anshul Swamy, Elliott MacNeil and Mike Hollyman (but all after the cut-off date of 31st May). This means that only 1 of the top 4 at the end of June is a junior which is highly unusual!
Congratulations to all four on a magnificent season.
Notification of new players
Particularly with a new rating officer in place – see below – can I respectfully ask that when a new player plays his/her first game in the league, the captain informs the RO of the player’s status (estimated rating and whether senior/junior). This is rarely done and wastes time and effort.
Notification of dormant players
Please could club secretaries advise the RO of players whom they don’t expect to play in the ensuing season. If this could be done during September (and ongoing as players quit), that would be very helpful.
New developments in the Welsh Rating scene
· The WCU has a new National RO, Paul Orton, taking over from Robert Taylor, who nevertheless retains his International Role.
· Both West Wales and Gwent ROs are retiring as well, so we are in a state of some flux.
· There is a proposal in with the WCU Board to remove batch ratings. This will save the ROs time.
· A discussion is also due to take place over which games we rate. It is possible that we may drop foreign leagues and perhaps certain tournaments so not strictly a huge concern for the EGCA.
· The big news over the last year has been discussions about replacing our current system with an integrated national rating system. This project has yet to really start in earnest so it’s not going to be implemented anytime soon. Matthew Lunnon of Pentyrch is due to be involved, at least in the early discussions.
2019-20 EGRO
Edwin Allen, formerly of the Rhondda club, is taking on the role of EGRO from 1st July 2019. His contact details are :- edwinegca@hotmail.com
Good luck to Edwin!
Pete Heaven
Annex 4
Management Board Rep
There have been ongoing consultations regarding the future of the Rating site with a view to having 1 All Wales site to be accessed by all the ROs and reducing the need for batch ratings. We are a long way from being able to do this yet.
Further work was done in the early part of the year relating to the GDPR work started last year.
The legal challenge to the selections for the Olympiad has lead to quite a lot of work going on to make the selection procedure more robust and open, and to provide a speedy appeal procedure for any player who feel aggrieved by the teams selected. Currently FIDE’s World Youth Disabled Championships is due to come to Cardiff. This was pushed through FIDE as if from Wales by someone with no direct links to WCU, and the support of Penarth’s mayor who is a disabled person with contacts in this area. The venue currently planned is by all accounts totally unsuitable. The WCU is involved to a point, as if it goes ahead, there is a possibly quite substantial money from FIDE which we may receive, wheras if we say no, we are unlikely to get any funding coming from FIDE in the future. With no money coming any longer to WCU from the Welsh Assembly, and people chosen to represent Wales still generally paying costs of travelling and often accommodation, the MB is aware of the need to raise money, quite possibly through sponsorship, or through FIDE, to support players and to develop chess further in Wales.
Lastly if people want me to continue in this post. I am happy to do so.
Junior Organiser
As last year Tim Kett has helped me with advice about choosing the various representative sides at county and higher level; and without the work done in the zone by Tim and Sarah, there would be far fewer juniors playing, particularly at primary age.
Again we have almost a clean sweep of Welsh age group champions: I think the U8 Champions Hassan Amar and James Choung are both from Cardiff, and the following champions are all from the EG zone: U9 Govind Anandkumar, U10 Tom Davies, U11 Sridatta Dantu, U12 Ethan Chung, U13 Yuxuan Wu, U14 Hiya Ray, U16 Ethan Chung and Hiya ray.
A lot of these and a number of other players have been chosen to play for Wales in the Glorney/Gilbert/Stokes and Robinson teams in Ireland later this month.
I had hoped to run the Minor League on similar lines to last year, on a somewhat larger basis, but ran into trouble with not being able to get a venue. In the end it ran on just two weeks in June. 6 teams competed, with around 25 players participating. North Cardiff were the winners. Parents seemed quite appreciative. Th format used seems to work – 3 round Swiss tournaments each night with players, who are restricted to U1100 rating, and those in the same team kept apart; but finding a venue is a big difficulty. With many players at this level in Cardiff, I would be reluctant to move it from a club or school in the Cardiff area, and for clubs the timing of 6.30-8.00 interferes with their normal club night.
Finally I would very happily stand down if someone else is prepared to take this post next year.
Annex 5
Report of the East Glamorgan
International/Selection delegate 2018-19
International
1. Peter Bevan, International Director, was asked to produce a 10-year Development Plan 2018 - 2028, to which I contributed.
2. East Glamorgan’s (hereafter shortened to EG) Lee Davis played in the 2018 World Senior Individual Championship 50+ in Bled, Slovakia in November.
3. Cardiff have qualified for the 2019 European Club Cup in Budva, Montenegro in November.
Selection
4. Players from EG in the 2018 Olympiad in Batumi, Georgia in September were Alex Bullen, making his debut in the Open team, and Olivia Smith, Shayanna and Venetia Sivarajasingam who again all played in the Ladies team.
5. Unfortunately, the Women’s selection led to a legal challenge which went as far as the Court of Arbitration in Sport and occupied a substantial amount of WCU officers’ time before proceedings were withdrawn.
6. The Selection Committee has also been involved in a number of other tasks, to which I have contributed:
(a) Revision of the rules by which players representing Wales must have ‘actively associated’ themselves with Welsh chess.
(b) Provision of a limited right for individuals to have selection committee decisions reviewed by another WCU body – as suggested by FIDE in light of point 5 above.
(c) Consideration of various suggestions for changes to the Committee’s current approach of using its collective judgement to select the strongest team.
The fruits of this work are currently with the Management Board.
7. In the 2019 World Senior Team Championships in Rhodes in April, EG players were John Fletcher in the over 50s team, and John Thornton and Bill Harle in the over 65s.
I am prepared to continue in the post for another year if that is the wish of the meeting.
Stuart Hutchings
June 2019