EGCA

East Glamorgan Chess Association

Minutes of the Pre Annual General Meeting of the East Glamorgan Chess Association 2024

Barry Chess Club, West End Club, Barry. Monday 10th June 2024 - 1930 Start

In attendance: Anthony Baker, Bill Harle, Phil Jones, Martin Ricketts, Anthony Williams, Sam Jukes, Gwyn Havard,

Marton Ilett, Mike Gale, Tom Ilett, John Thornton, Morgan McGuigan, Christopher Slack, Martin Jones, Erion Pici

AGENDA

1 Apologies for Absence

Apologies were received from: John McGregor, James Williams, Kevin Staveley, Sam White

2 Approval of the Minutes from Previous Meeting

Minutes from Pre AGM 2023 were accepted as true record

3 Matters Arising from Previous Minutes

No matters arising from Pre AGM 2023 minutes

4 Preliminary report from the Treasurer.

The Treasurer would like to thank all Club Officials who provide him with registration details

and funds, it helps greatly with processing the memberships with the WCU.

The accounts have been prepared and audited by the Auditor and no queries have been

raised. A copy will be made available for the upcoming AGM. Highlights include:

A) A shortfall in EGCA funds of £274

B) This shortfall was planned due to the agreed waiver of EGCA membership this season.

C) It is a reduction in the shortfall created in the 2022-23 season of £644. This was achieved

with reduced Junior spending and a reduction in the cost of Trophies. Also the Honoria for the

Covid Officer has been removed.

D) Bank balance is currently at £4267. With the Auditors agreement in the aim to reduce the

bank balance The treasurer will be proposing at the AGM to waive the EGCA membership

fee for a further season.

E) The Treasurer is not aware of any changes to the WCU for the 2024-25 season

F) The Treasurer would like to remind clubs to double check if a player is already registered

directly with the WCU or not as it has caused several issues this season.

5 Preliminary report from the Executive Director.

“I have found this to be a difficult season. In 2023 I had some health issues and in 2024 I

have encountered issues with my laptop. In addition, everything seems to take much longer

to complete than previously although perhaps that is an age issue.

2 new issues arose this season. There was difficulty in completing the registration of players

and towards the end of the season there were a considerable number of postponements. I

did at one stage think we might struggle to complete all the matches before the end of the

season. A few penalties were imposed for these reasons.

Regarding postponement, remember that you can have a valid match if only 1 board is

played. There were requests such as “I don’t have my normal team”, “some of my players

took part in a congress on the weekend” and “I only have 2 players”. These are not valid

reasons to postpone. Also note that teams are only allowed 2 postponements per season.

Perhaps it is significant that the smaller clubs are the ones who do not request a

postponement. Remember that if you know you have a problem with a future match you can

always bring it forward. Hopefully next season will see a significant reduction in requests to

postpone a match.”

In response to these concerns and the unspecified penalty for breaching postponement rules

The Chair allowed a vote to submit a proposal to amend the rules at the AGM in respect of

this report.

The vote passed with majority and the following will be proposed at the AGM:

Postponements without due notice (14 days) can only do so with the agreement of their

opponents and the Ex.D. Failure to obtain the agreement of the Ex.Dir will incur 12PP.

The Executive Director briefed the meeting on the upcoming rating uplift from the WCU

effective July 1st. This means that several of our rules regarding ratings are now immediately

outdated and need amending. The Chair allowed the vote to submit a proposal to amend the

rules at the AGM in respect of these changes.

The vote passed with majority and the following will be proposed at the AGM:

By now the ratings should have been uplifted. Rule 8 (c) and (d) need to be uplifted to

increase the game restrictions. The 2 limits are currently 1400 and 1900. It is proposed to

increase these to 1640 and 1940 respectively.

6 Preliminary report from the Secretary

The Secretary would like to thank the Executive Committee for welcoming him in his first

year in Office and to thank them for aiding in the arrangement of the AGM.

There has been little to no correspondence to deal with the exception of several scam email

attempts

7 Proposed changes to the EG Rules of Play

A) A Proposal was made by Sam Jukes and seconded by Bill Harle which was the following:

Suggested change to section 7(a)(i)(b)

All games shall be played to a finish on the night at a rate of 30 moves in 60 minutes and

then an additional 25 minutes to complete the game.

All games shall be played to a finish on the night at a rate of all moves in 60 minutes with 10

second increments.

Suggest remove all of section 10

Suggested change to Appendix 1: Article 8.4

If a player has less than five minutes left on his clock and does not have additional time of 30

seconds or more added with each move, then he is not obliged to meet the requirements of

Article 8.1. If the increments result in a time exceeding 5 minutes, the player is still not

required to record their moves. Immediately after one flag has fallen the player must update

his scoresheet completely.

This proposal was discussed at length in the meeting and a vote was proposed from the

Chair to determine if generally an increment time control would be favoured. The vote passed

with a majority.

The amount of increment to add per move was then discussed at length and the Chair

proposed a vote of 10, 15 and 20 seconds. A majority vote was given to 15 seconds.

It was agreed to amend the Increment in the proposal made by Sam Jukes to “All games

shall be played to a finish on the night at a rate of all moves in 60 minutes with 15 second

increments.”

This proposal was recommended by a majority of the meeting to be proposed at the AGM

Due to the discussion had regarding Sam Jukes’ proposal and the amendment it received,

John Thornton decided to withdraw his proposal at this time

B) Proposed changes to the EG Rules of Play and the Rules of the Association

A Proposal was made by Mike Gail and seconded by Phil Jones which was the following:

Change rule 3b(i) to read ' Promotion and relegation will be on the basis of two up and two down

A vote was proposed to the Meeting to recommend this to be proposed formally at the AGM

and passed with a Majority.

8 AOB

There was no other business to discuss.

9 Close

The chair called the meeting to a close at 2050