Minutes of Macclesfield Chess Club AGM 2026

7:30 pm Monday 7th September 2026

Present: Ant Brough (chair), J-P Taylor, Marcus Fothergill, Denzil Lobo, Roy Gray, Simon

Darwell, Tom Moitié, Phil Cattermole, Jason Rice, Chris Riley, Connor Greenwood

1. Apologies for absence:

received from Jake Darlington, Carl Gartside, Jenny Gartside, Colin Gibson, David

Waterson

2. Matters arising from minutes of previous AGM:

The previous minutes had been circulated prior to the meeting and no objections were

made and no matters arising to discuss

3. Club officials reports

Chair - Ant Brough

Pleased to see that younger members are now taking over and settling into the key

roles. Ant is willing to continue as Chair, providing nobody else wants to do it, for a

further 2 years but then somebody else must take over.

Treasurer & Membership - Marcus Fothergill

Online access and new trustees are being set up with the help of Roy. Marcus will

produce some proper accounts when he has access himself. Note: Current total in

account is £674.22 on the date of this meeting. Some trustees already have access as

they are existing Natwest customers. The last big expenditure was £243.72 in January

2025 for new sets and boards. See item 9 regarding membership fees.

Secretary - Chris Riley

Gained full access to club gmail account with help from Tom. Over the last 12 months

there have been several enquiries via the web site contact form from potential new

members but despite sending welcoming responses only one has physically turned up.

Website Manager - Tom Moitié

The website has continued as normal. Traffic has grown 19% on last year with 2477

sessions and 662 unique visitors. The most popular pages are the competition pages

and the fixture pages, with just two percent of views landing on the “Joining the club”

page. This means the website is mainly used internally, and not yet a good driver of new

membership. It may mean that new members are not getting past the home page. I will

work to push this number up throughout this year, by signposting better. I have removed

the club directory for other clubs as it was getting cumbersome to manage. The

calendar includes the venues of the clubs we’re playing at, and the SDCL website and

the NSDCA LMS can be used to reference venues.

Tournament Directors - Roy Gray & Denzil Lobo

Club Championship (Roy) - 1st Chris Riley, 2nd J-P Taylor, 3rd Colin Gibson

Laurence Cup (20'+10") (Roy) - 1st Chris Riley, 2nd= J-P Taylor & Connor Greenwood

Pollard Cup (quickplay handicap) (Denzil) - 1st Connor Greenwood, 2nd= J-P Taylor &

Chris Riley

Pomeroy Cup (Roy) - This competition was complicated by one participant playing just

2 games and then not appearing again. The resolution of this affects the outcome as

Tom Moitié and Jake Darlington had equal points but Jake had played an extra game

against the absent player but Tom had not. The final decision is the Tournament

Director's and he decided that Tom was the outright winner. Note that this decision is

in line with ECF/Fide practice that results are annulled if a player completes less than

50% of the games in competitions with this format. 1st Tom Moitié, 2nd Connor

Greenwood, 3rd= Jake Darlington & Marcus Forthergill.

4. Team Captains reports

Captain A Team Stockport League - John-Paul Taylor

In Division 1 of the Stockport league we came 4th out of 5 teams against strong

opposition - we achieved our aim of not coming last. We reached the final of the

Charnley Cup in which we were beaten by Eccles.

Captain B Team Stockport League - Tom Moitie

Firstly a couple of shout outs. Thank you to everyone who played and drove to matches.

Congratulations to Connor for a stellar performance rating of 1914 in the Stockport

league, outperforming your rating by about 300 points and making a significant

improvement throughout the year. Congratulations also to Jenny, who similarly

outperformed her grade by about 240 points, and also improving rapidly.

Macclesfield B finished a healthy 3rd position despite fielding on average the lowest

rated board one, and on average, the 4th lowest rated team. Thank you to Connor and

Jason for performing so well on board one for us this year. The team was regularly

rotated throughout the year, in order to get enough chess for everyone involved. I have

circulated some figures about the number of matches people got last season, and I

hope this highlights that there is a gap between A team and B team opportunities.

Macclesfield also fielded a team for the newly minted U1850 Geoff Lawrence Trophy.

We claimed a bye for the first round which led to an away Semi Final against Stockport,

which we won 3-2. The final was held on these illustrious grounds against Northenden.

It was a hard fought, tense match, initially let down by your dear captain on board five,

but pulled back in the final minutes by Joachim who had a superb tactical find to draw

the score to 2½-2½, securing the trophy on board count back. I’m sure you’ll all agree

winning the Geoff Lawrence Trophy on its inaugural year for Macclesfield is something

we should be very proud of.

Captain A Team North Staffs League - Philip Cattermole

We came a good 3rd out of 7 teams in Division 1 of the North Staffs league. Well done to

all involved.

5. Trophies - location and engraving

Phil will arrange the engraving on the 4 club cups as he did last year. He now has the

Club Championship, Pollard and Laurence cups and Jason will bring the Pomeroy cup

along to a club night to pass on to Phil. The winners of each cup are shown in the

Tournament Directors' reports above.

6. Election of Officials for 2026/27 season

All current club officials said they were willing to continue for another year - see section

3 for the names - and as there were no objections or rival candidates there is no

change. As mentioned above Ant will be looking to be replaced as Chair after 2 further

seasons including the up and coming one.

7. Teams for 2026/27 season and election of captains

We will continue to have teams in Stockport Divisions 1 & 3 and North Staffs Division 1.

We now have a new second team in North Staffs Division 3. Tom has produced figures,

which were shared at the meeting, showing how many games for the club each member

has played and there is a significant discrepancy between the activity of the top rated

few players and the others. The creation of the North Staffs Division 3 team will it is

hoped go some way to meeting the demand for more playing opportunities.

The existing captains (Stockport A J-P, Stockport B Tom, North Staffs A) all said they

were willing to continue and as there were no objections or alternative candidates

proposed there is no change.

For the new North Staffs B team, which will play in Division 3, we need a captain and

Marcus Fothergill volunteered - there were no objections or alternative candidates so

congratulations Marcus.

8. Temporary closure of venue for 4 weeks from 21st September

The Queen's Hotel will completely close for 4 weeks from 21st September for

refurbishment of the ground floor. We need to investigate temporary alternatives and

Jason suggested the basement room of the Five Clouds Tap and Bottle on Market Place

- he and Tom will check this out to see if it is a possibility. Tom also mentioned as a one-

off MADS theatre may have a room and the Park Tavern could also be an option.

Note - post meeting we are now told it will be 6 weeks not 4.

9. Membership fees for 2026/27

The membership fee will continue to be £10 per year with newcomers free for the first

year and juniors free. The collection of membership fees was haphazard during 2025/26

so in view of the amount in the account it was agreed that those who paid in 2025/26

would not have to pay in 2026/27, and those who did not pay in 2025/26 will simply pay

for 2026/27.

We benefit hugely from not paying for our room at the Queen's - hence the low

membership fee - and in order to maintain good relations with the venue we need to

ensure that we and visiting teams recognise the Queen's is a commercial business and

have responsibilities for what is happening under their roof.

There are two areas of concern:

1. People bringing their own drinks

2. The venue want to be aware of any children under 18 present

We can deal with these issues for our members but it was agreed the secretary would

send out a letter to opposing teams highlighting these points. We have no actual

influence over opposing teams but we can ask for their cooperation.

10.AOB (Any other business)

Tom has offered to host a session for members who want to play league chess or in the

club competitions and who are not so familiar with writing down the moves, the use of

clocks or the etiquette of standard play chess (touch move, same hand for moving and

clock etc.).

We have to make decisions for the North Staffs league in July/August so our AGM is at

the wrong time for this. It is proposed to move the AGM to the end of May instead. The

secretary will remind everyone of this nearer the date as by then we will know the dates

of remaining matches including cup ties.

Keeping the club open over the summer was successful and there were at least half a

dozen people each week, frequently more. Providing we still have free use of the room

we will repeat this next year.

Meeting closed 8:50 pm