16/10/2018
Paper on ECF Development
Manager Proposal
There
was mention at the ECF AGM of a detailed paper, on the proposal for the
appointment of an ECF “Development Manager”, having been posted on the ECF
website as one of the papers for the meeting. This was posted so late that
many, including myself, missed it, and were unaware of it before the
meeting. The Word document’s creation and last-update dates are both
06/08/2018, so one wonders what the ECF was playing at. It is rumoured the
Board had earlier embargoed the document! Here is a link to the paper, on the
ECF website:
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/C29.12-f-Development-Officer-Proposal-Tim-Wall.docx
Anyway,
in it, Tim Wall outlines the need to re-invigorate English chess in various
ways, old and new, against the background of most adult players and
organisers now being over 50, if not over 60 or quite probably over 65. (Humorously,
the over-80 organisers I can think of are all “junior organisers”.)
Many
ideas are familiar, and have been at least briefly adopted in the past, when
somebody with transient organisational fervour has popped up.
The envisaged
brave, new, brighter chess world is very laudable, but needs bringing about by
those up-and-coming new organisers in the under-50, or, better, the under-40
age bracket – members, indeed, of the “lost generation” alluded to in the
paper, wherein lies a possible obstacle to implementation. Who is in a
position to do it?
A link
is given above lest the more energetic reader feels able and willing to help
build Tim Wall’s brave new world of English chess. The ECF Board has yet to advertise
whether it has decided to appoint a Development Manager, and that may or may
not be Tim Wall. All will doubtless in due course be revealed. Be that as
it may, you can start implementing some of its ideas now!
After
over 40 years of organising chess, I shall be watching from the relative safety
of the dinosaur enclosure.
Steve Mann
16/10/2018
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