It transpires that there were problems* at the ECF in the calculation of the January 2020 grading list which means that feverish work is being done on producing a February “update” (or correction) of the January list. This is not expected until after the weekend of 15th/16th February at the earliest.

Maybe there will be no changes for Yorkshire players.

Getting the January 2020 list as accurate as possible is essential before its conversion to the 4-digit starting list for the trialling of the new monthly 4-digit grading list system which is due to kick in after the August 2020 3-digit grading list.

This means trialling of monthly processing will be on hold for a while. Specifically, no more automatic data extraction from LMS will take place until things are sorted out. (An end-of-January extraction had been intended.) Further, manual submissions are not currently being accepted. Indeed, it sounds as though the strategy for processing manual data under the new system has not been fully worked out.

Thus the manual end-of-January submission made earlier for the Bradford league has been scrapped. When the ECF grading manager gives the go-ahead for manual data submission I will try again, with Bradford, York, and Huddersfield (if required). That may be for results to the end of February. Information has yet to be given as to what will be required.

* Problems encountered included

a) duplication of the odd event (which might have been due to a manual submission being made where automatic extraction from LMS had been set up),
b) odd divisions missing from leagues, or odd sections missing from congresses (which might due to people thinking they had successfully set up automatic extraction though their attempt had failed), and
c) inclusion of some inappropriate 2018 data (which is difficult to understand).

Steve Mann

06/02/2020