Minutes of Macclesfield Chess Club AGM 2018

Held At The Queens Hotel : 19:35

Present: A. Brough, G. Laurence, M. Renshaw, R. Shaw, A. Soames, D. Lobo, C. Davidson, A. Green, M. Jouannet, P. Cattermole, P. Colville, D. Risley, J. Trier, R. Gray, F. Moan, A. Lane

Apologies: J-P Taylor, D. Mallinson, K. Smallbone, A. Renshaw, R. Murphy, P. Caulkett

Minutes Of AGM Sept 4, 2017: Had been circulated and were accepted.

Matters Arising: The secretary reported that, as far as he knew, the New Liberal Club premises were still up for sale and hence there was no progress in recovering owed fees. He felt it was unlikely that they would be recovered.

The missing £15 reported by the treasurer had been accounted for.

Officer’s Reports:

Stockport A Capt, Rob Shaw:

The A team had a reasonable season finishing fourth in the First Division with 8 points from 10 games. We went out of the cup in our first game, losing to Stockport the eventual winners.

Thanks to all of the 15 different players who played,

Stockport B Capt, John-Paul Taylor: No report submitted. The team finished just below the A team and had done very well indeed.

Stockport C Team Capt, Mick Renshaw: After two years of heroics there was, once more, only one serious objective – to avoid finishing last! This was, unfortunately, one season too far. Just a couple of reversals in key games would have saved us from this ignominy but it just wasn’t to be. The lower boards competed well enough with boards 4-6 scoring 45% but the top boards were generally out-graded and scored just 10%. A big thank you to all who played.

Stockport Limit League Team Capt, Richard Murphy: No report submitted. The team finished next to bottom but plenty of players enjoyed opportunities.

Stoke League Capt, Phil Cattermole: After a terrible start to the season, the team won all 9 of their final games to finish runners-up.

Secretary, Geoff Laurence: Attended both Stockport League and North Staffs League AGMs. As fixtures secretary in the former, he will be producing provisional fixtures for the coming season. He confirmed that he and Phil Cattermole had abstained on the major restructuring proposals for the North Staffs League. He felt that clubs whose main focus is this league should have the say. The changes were thrown out. He did however strongly oppose the proposal that postponed matches would only be permitted if both clubs agreed and this too was thrown out. He has not submitted reports to the local press, he feels they would not be printed.

Treasurer and Membership Secretary, Roy Gray:

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Account 2017/8

We have £813.38 in the bank and this is £138.50 up on last season’s balance.

Website Manager, Denzil Lobo:

Website-The website is a communal website. It has updated by the captains ( Mick), myself , David Risley, Tony Soames and Geoff

Repeat as I said last year -Captains need to ensure results are put on the website:

(Do it themselves or send results to me/someone)

Geoff as Stockport Fixtures secretary and having played in a lot of Stoke fixtures has put the results on the website last season .This is not ideal .

General:Blog - Ask Captains to write some blogs about their matches or if anyone else wants to write something , email me and I shall put it on the website.

Chess Clocks: We have had digital clocks for some years or more now. There are instruction on the website and videos

Club Championship and Pomeroy Cup, Dave Risley:

The winner of the Club Championship (CC) was Dave Risley who beat Carl Gartside in the final.

The winner of the Pomeroy Cup (PC) was Phil Colville who beat Denzil Lobo in the final.

Eighteen players entered these standard time limit competitions. Entry to the PC was restricted to the lower-graded half of the players (reset upwards to ten to produce an even number for the two qualifying all-play-alls).

All players could enter the CC.

In the event six players competed in both the CC and the PC. Thus there were two all-play-all groups of seven players in the CC and two all-play-all groups of five players in the PC.

Well done to the PC finalists, Phil Colville and Denzil Lobo, who completed 16 and 15 standard time limit games and four and two rapid play games respectively.

Of the 42 games in the preliminary all-play-alls in the CC, 37 were wins, four were draws plus one win by default. There were four wins in the semifinals. The final had one win and one draw.

Of the 20 games scheduled in the preliminary all-play-alls in the PC, 17 were wins, one was a draw plus two games that were not played because playing them would not have affected the semifinal qualifiers. There were four wins in the semifinals. The final had two draws. Two wins in the rapid play games followed to produce the PC winner.

The pleasingly low number of draws (eight) reflected the hard-fought nature of the competitions.

Thanks to all the club members who took part in the CC and PC, playing their games as soon as they could and sending in their results promptly.

Pollard Cup: Tony Soames: The winner of the Pollard Trophy is Robert Shaw. In second place was Phil Cattermole, closely followed by Phil Colville and Francis Moan. Twenty-two players took part in at least one round and ten managed to compete in all three.

I would welcome discussion. I would suggest making a two minute difference for each ten point grading difference. The three minute minimum would remain. I would also like to know if people find the end of round problems amusing, too difficult or irrelevant to the entertainment. 

Format of Club Championships and Pollard Trophy:

A number of members thanked Dave for his hard work and made suggestions – Mick wished to capture the romance of the FA cup format, Tony wished to avoid disparate groups, Ant insisted that whoever organises it should have the final say on the format and this was unanimously approved.. A porposal that only ECF members should be allowed to enter was defeated on the casting vote of the chairman.

It was agreed that the time limit handicap could be doubled for the Pollard Trophy competitions (2 mins for every 10 grading point difference between players) with a minimum of 3 minutes for a game for a player.

There was general approval of the “problems” that Tony provided for between round entertainment.. Again the organiser was given the final say on the format of the competition.

Presentation of Trophies

Club Championship – Dave Risley, Pomeroy Cup – Phil Colville, Pollard Trophy – Rob Shaw,

Most Improved Player – Joachim Trier.

No of Teams and Election of Captains

The secretary had entered teams into both leagues (and cups) as the deadlines for doing so are now both before the start of our season. All 5 of the captains from last year were reappointed unanimously.

Election Of Chaiman, Secretary, Treasurer and Membership Secretary, Website Manager, Club Championship Organiser, and Pollard Trophy Organiser:

Anthony Brough, Geoff Laurence, Roy Gray, Denzil Lobo, Dave Risley and Tony Soames were re-elected respectively.

Safeguarding Policy

Colin Davison informed the meeting that the ECF had an extensive document relating to this. He suggested that we should adopt their policy and also keep this under review. It was felt we should keep this displayed on our website. Whilst we have no current junior members, should any join, they need to be accompanied by parents and we should also be aware that lifts to matches would need parental approval.

We presumably have a constitution, but no-one knows of its whereabouts and contents. Colin offered to produce a very basic one for the club to approve.

Data

E-mail addresses and/or phone numbers are kept by the secretaries and captains. This is obviously necessary for the team and event organisation to function. The secretary has always sent circulars round without blind copying so that the addresses are available to captains and likewise the captains, aware that it will ease transport arrangements, tend to do likewise. All present were happy to continue with this. The secretary will check with others on the circulation list.

Subscriptions These are unchanged (£15 pa for full members, £8 concessions, captains)

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AOB : Francis Moan added his congratulations to Dave for his work on the club championship and Pomeroy Cup

Meeting Closed 9:15pm