No formal papers have yet been posted, perhaps due to the minutes of the penultimate ECF Board Meeting being “pending” for some reason. So, e-mails have been sent out by the ECF Chair of Council to existing Council members and to ECF Members pointing out the positions subject to election, there being at the time three major vacancies and one relatively less important but still important one. (Nominations closed on 18th September.)

Chief Executive – Vacancy

Acting Chief Executive is Stephen Woodhouse who assumed that role when previous CE, Mike Truran, stepped into the vacant Finance Director role.

Finance Director – Vacancy

It was noted, “At this point in time Mike Truran does not intend to stand for the post of Finance Director, but he may reconsider this if no other suitably qualified candidate stands for election.”

International Chess and External Relations Director - Malcolm Pein intends to stand for re-election

Home Chess Development Director - Yuri Krylov intends to stand for re-election

Junior Chess Development Director- Tim Wall intends to stand for re-election

Events Director – Alex Holowczak intends to stand for re-election

Operations and Administration Director – Vacancy

Non-Executive Chair of the Board - Stephen Woodhouse intends to stand for re-election

Non-Executive Director – Vacancy

Stephen Greep is not intending to stand for re-election

There is a rota whereby different posts arise for election in different years, so this meeting does not cover all posts.

The eagle-eyed reader might notice a certain Tim Wall standing for a post to which he was appointed by the board earlier in the year, also that Hull’s Stephen Greep is bowing out of holding posts in the ECF.

There seems a probability of Stephen Woodhouse continuing as Acting CE and Mike Truran continuing as Finance Director. We’ll see.

That there is likely to be no Operations and Administrative Director might seem like the whole pack of cards is about to collapse, but one should remember the hard-working Officers falling under that Directorship. These, arguably, are the people who keep things going (in the order listed on the ECF website):

Manager of ICT	Nigel Towers
Safeguarding Officers	Jo Wildman, Paul Sharratt, Kevin Hurney
Office Manager & International Rating Officer	Debra Atkinson
Webmaster / Membership Admin	Andrew Walker
LMS System Administrator	Steve Emmerton
System Manager / Lead Developer	Malcolm Peacock
Manager of Rating	Brian Valentine
Rating Administrator	Matthew Carr
Games Played Abroad Administrator	Paul McKeown

I (Steve Mann) have had dealings with four or five of these over the past year or so, all with favourable outcomes. In particular, Debra Atkinson was very helpful with sorting out the state of NCCU-ECF finances after the death in post of George Horne with resulting loss of all his records. Additionally, I remember Malcolm Peacock from when he was at Sheffield University, and roughly 55 years ago I beat Brian Valentine in the inter-school chess team competition organised by Chess Ltd, and he remembers!

Steve Westmoreland is the NCCU’s representative on ECF Council. He’s also the YCA’s representative, but that should not be a problem, as the electronic voting system enables a single person to vote separately for different organisations, though I see no reason why the NCCU and YCA are likely to hold differing views on how to vote. (Within the NCCU one cannot vote differently to represent two opposing views.)

Apart from elections, most of the meeting is likely to consist of “the Federation’s general matters – reports from the Board, Non-Executive Directors and Chairs of the Governance and Finance Committees, an update on the Board’s strategy and business plan, and some constitutional changes.”

Pretty boring really! That said, the recruitment problem reflects the NCCU’s own problems, with people such as myself having late on in life to serve functions which they would never have sought to fill, denying them their deserved right to live their few remaining years as they would wish.

A succession-planning campaign is on my ever-lengthening “to do” list.