Since the following original notice, John George came forward as a candidate for taking over as secretary. He attended the December 2025 Council Meeting eventually held on 22/02/2026, as a Yorkshire delegate (thus he could vote!) and it was agreed he would take over as NCCU Secretary from that point on. That of course leaves the post of Treasurer to be filled. I’m not aware of anybody making any efforts to find a new secretary, though there may have been efforts, by the president perhaps. (There goes another pig flying past the window!)

Whilst Bryan Bainbridge is willing to continue as Counties Championship Controller, he and I are both conscious that neither will last for ever.

The original notices of 10/10/2026 read as follows

At the moment the NCCU is being held together by people who did not seek office but stepped in to fill vacancies which could not go unfilled if the NCCU was to continue. Worse still, these people are filling multiple posts. I, myself was already webmaster, but now have three full-time posts, having replaced people younger than myself in two posts, and seek to give up at least these two as soon as possible to enable me to resume living my own life. Having people holding more than one office contributes to meetings being inquorate, besides the other problems created.

The NCCU needs new and younger blood in its list of officers, ideally with nobody holding more than one post. If nobody steps forward, there’s a danger of there being no secretary and no treasurer next season.

A major problem here is that most people currently attending NCCU Council meetings are almost wholly unacquainted with what the NCCU does and how it does it. Accordingly, I undertook a while ago to set out what the NCCU does. What follows is an outline. The Constitution, Rules and past minutes, all available on the website, are also potential guides.

What the NCCU Does

It Runs Competitions for which there are (or were) specific Rules:

	Competition		Responsible Officer etc
1	Inter-County Team Competitions:
	a	Counties Championships: Open and rating-limited sections	Counties Championship Controller, LMS Assistant
		(run as ECF Constituent Unit as part of ECF Counties Championships)
	b	Under-18 Junior County Jamboree	delegated to a county
	c	Under-16 Pennine Cup	(lapsed)
		(originally privately run by Gary Kenworthy, then taken over by the NCCU, now lapsed, with trophy transferred to U-18)

2	Club Championships		Club Championship Controller
	(currently not held due lack of administrative resources etc)

3	Individual Championships:		delegated to a congress
	a	Championship - no age restriction
		(rules include possible funding of British Championship nominee)
	b	Junior Championship
	c	Senior championship

It Holds Meetings for which there is detailed provision in the Constitution:

4	a Council Meeting designated the Annual General Meeting
	(currently held in June if possible)

5	a Counties Championship Rules Sub-Committee
	(when authorised by the AGM)

6	a December Council Meeting
	(currently held more often in January; could be replaced by e-mail working)

7	Special Council Meetings
	(when requested jointly by three of more member CCAs)

It undertakes Largely Undefined Activities of Officers who are specified in indicted clauses of the Constitution:

	Activity	Responsible Officer(s)	Clause
8	Finance operations	Financial Controller, Treasurer, Auditor	14c, 14d, 14l

9	Responsibility for trophies	Trophy Officer	14h

10	Running a website	Webmaster	14i

11	Delegate to ECF Council	ECF Delegate	14j

It undertakes Established Activities not in the Constitution/Rules, falling to oversight of the secretary:

12	Annual NCCU School Award
	(right to submit nominee for NCCU consideration passing round counties in alphabetic rotation)

13	Annual Nomination of school for British Chess Education Trust School award
	(Each year the BCET invites Unions and others to put forward a nomination for their consideration, and the NCCU extends then option of submitting a nomination for the NCCU to consider. This option passed round counties in alphabetic rotation)

The reason we have a “Financial Controller” is that after the previous treasurer died in office, after a long and hard struggle with Santander, it finally turned they could not accept the elected new treasurer, Steve Mann, as he had neither passport or driving licence to provide as ID (an increasingly common requirement). After other new bankers were considered, it was agreed Mick Norris would open a replacement account with Metrobank (which he could open and operate as an existing customer) leading to a division of the traditional treasurer functions. These two people are, however, eager to retire from these finance roles and get replaced by a single treasurer, though Mick would continue if necessary with his hsare of the work, which is not too onerous. Mick makes payments into and out of the bank. Steve has the job of the other usual treasurer’s job, receiving invoices and claims, sending out invoices, and is eventually to draw up the accounts for auditing and presentation to AGM. So, it is this latter function which primarily needs taking over by somebody else, ideally at the 2026 AGM.

There may be a case for creating an Officer post of Secretary for Junior Chess to deal with the Pennine Cup (1b above), also taking on the School Award jobs (11 and 12). That would create an extra voter at meetings, helping reduce the possibility of meetings being inquorate, and it could help train up somebody for another job later. It could even lead to the expansion of junior chess organised by the NCCU. Bryan Bainbridge says, “I agree that we do need a coordinator/organiser for Junior Chess.”

My Own Position

For myself, I am happy to continue as webmaster, though anyone is welcome to take over. I’d rather somebody took over my part of the treasurer’s function from the 2026 NCCU AGM. In my hunt for the next NCCU president who should assume office at the 2026 AGM when the present president’s period of tenure is due to end, I’ve been saying I’ll stay in post as secretary, if needed, to ease the transition. However, my secretaryship must end at the 2027 AGM at the latest. I have stepped in to replace one person who had health problems and one who died office, both being younger than I was at the time, and there’s no sense in inviting history to repeat itself.

There are a number of things not related to chess which I had hoped to spend more time on after I retired from the Civil Service in September 2010, as well as existing chess-related projects which I don’t have adequate time to pursue. Meanwhile, my other half, who at 85 is even older than I am, has been developing macular degeneration and then glaucoma as well, both currently held at bay. Macular degeneration made her father virtually blind, with only slight peripheral vision. Eye problems aside, there is the statistical probability of her dying in, say, six years’ time (before which dementia may well have kicked in with either of us), so I take the view I’m entitled to ditch chess and live out my own life as I see fit!

I reckon I’ve done my bit. Setting aside being school chess team captain, my first job in chess organisation was as a league secretary in the Sheffield & DCA, almost exactly 50 years ago, since when I’ve performed every function in the S&DCA at some time, including being local grader when everything was manual (though I computerised my own work). I’ve been general secretary and fixtures secretary of the Sheffield & District Works Sports Association Chess Section before it finally folded as local industry declined and was sold off to foreign owners such British Steel Tinsley to Outokumpu. I’ve been secretary of Rotherham Chess Club, my predecessor saying the club would have folded without my intervention. I was later one of the three co-founders 40 years ago of Darnall & Handsworth Chess Club, an S&DCA club formed of Works League players, becoming its first secretary and its bulletin editor. I’ve captained teams in the Yorkshire league, the Sheffield & District CA and the Sheffield Works League. I’ve been Yorkshire CA Deputy President, Secretary, Correspondence Chess Secretary, Bulletin editor, Year Book editor, etc and was the first to set up a YCA website around 2002. I’ve done little previously within the NCCU, but was attending meetings way back when Paul Bielby was secretary and all meeting were held at the geo-centric town of Ripon. I’ve been a divisional secretary and then chief controller of the British Correspondence Chess League. I’ve been controller of the British Police Individual Chess Championships both in Sheffield and later as assistant controller in London when they hired a BCF arbiter then realised how expensive that was in taxi fares and reverted to me as controller as I cost nothing when funded by S Yorkshire Police! I’ve run a Civil Service Individual competition at the CS sports ground at Chiswick. I’ve been involved in various roles to two series of Sheffield Chess Congress, the first being around 1991. More recently I’ve been involved with the Doncaster Congress variously as section controller, entry secretary, webmaster and grader (working from manual pairing cards). I am an ECF Rating Officer and still do a limited amount of rating work for people who can supply result data only in a manual format. That’s what I remember off the top of my head. In virtually every case I was asked to take on the official roles, though the first YCA website was my own initiative when secretary. Having been for some time the sole person carrying out all the software maintenance and development in a public limited company (okay, then Sheffield’s smallest plc, namely the now-defunct Neepsend plc) I’ve been able to introduce a degree of computerisation into much of the chess work I’ve done and am doing, mainly website-related.

It’s your turn now. Yes, I know, others are overworked as well!

Steve Mann

10/10/2025