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