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NORTHERN COUNTIES CHESS UNION

FOUNDED 1899

Minutes of Annual General Meeting held at The Grove Public House on Saturday June 9th 2001

Present: Dave Cole (NCCU President + Cumbria representative, in the chair), George Horne (Cumbrian representatives), Geoff Townsend (Cheshire & North Wales Representative), Gerry Walsh (Cleveland representative), Bryan Bainbridge (Durham representative), Dave Farley (Club championships organiser), John Wheeler (Northumbrian representative), Maurice Kent and Steve Mann (Yorkshire President and representative respectively), Paul Bielby (Northumberland representative), Egons Andersons (Lancashire representative), Bill O’Rourke (General secretary, Lancashire Representative).

1/ Apologies for Absence: Jim Moran (Treasurer, NCCU County Organiser, Merseyside representative), George Spence (Merseyside representative), Phil Jackson (NCCU Grader), Mike O’Hara (BCF delegate + Lancashire representative), Brian Driscoll (Cheshire & North Wales Representative), Jim Tennant-Smith (NCCU correspondence chess)

2/ Minutes of the Annual Council Meeting, held in Leeds, 2nd December 2000 had been circulated with the Agenda by the Secretary and were agreed with the following amendments:

Page 4: Item 12 should read ‘…that the NCCU rules were not compromised or a precedent set.’

Also Item 12 should read ‘The NCCU President made a decision, after a telephone conversation with the BCF President, that Alan Barton and Ben Morgan should share the NCCU trophy’

3/ Matters arising from last minutes not otherwise covered in this agenda:

Paul Bielby reported further to Page 3, item 6 that Longridge Towers School had received their engraved NCCU schools trophy. A debate arose about past BCET winners. Apparently several had not received their BCET awards, offered to a school nominated by each of the Unions. The secretary offered to contact David Jarrett of the BCF with the names of NCCU nominees dating back to 1995.

Dave Cole reported that Alan Barton may have qualified for the 2001 BCF Championships via a MCCU qualifier, who may have paid his entry fee. Dave will investigate further by contacting john Robinson of the MCCU – if this is so, the NCCU will repay the generous donation of £155 from Jim Tennant Smith (who had paid for Alan’s entry into the Championships).

4/ Officers reports:

a/ Annual Report of President: Dave reported that his first year in office had been eventful – Yorkshire had threatened to disaffiliate from the BCF, and BCF grading had once again had problems. He reported that the BCF in particular faced a number of problems, such as membership, grading and governance. BCF meetings were still disorderly, and in effect three factions were dominating proceedings – Dave said it was essential that this is sorted out.

b/ Annual Report of General Secretary. The following information had been sent to the BCF as a report of the NCCU’s activities in 2000/200:

General Secretary’s Report to BCF 2001

On this year’s County Championships scene, Yorkshire scored a third successive victory over Lancashire to take the Open. Unfortunately they lost narrowly in the National Quarter-finals, preventing them repeating their national success last year. Yorkshire again claimed the U175 and U150 sections. Lancashire took the U125 title. Cleveland won the U100 section.

In the club championships Morecambe defeated Preston in the Open final (Alan Barton winning for Morecambe in the last few seconds), Wallasey claimed the Major from Sheffield and Preston won the intermediate section final against Heywood. Wallasey took the minor from Cleveleys. The championships ran at break even.

The NCCU individual championships were held at the Newcastle congress in September. Graeme Oswald is the new NCCU Individual Champion, and David Eggleston the NCCU Junior Individual champion - last year his brother Thomas was the junior champion! The BCF qualifying tournament, with two free places, will be held at the South Lakes congress on June 15-17th.

In August last year the inaugural NCCU junior championships were held at Chorley. The event went well with winners at all age groups. The next event will be held in Blackpool on August 18th as part of the Lancashire Chess Association Chess festival.

The NCCU website is fully operational. The secretary again requested all officers and representatives keep him fully up to date with events, times, dates and personnel for the web-site:

http://www.nccu.org.uk

Dave Cole of Cumbria has finished the first year of his two-year stint as NCCU President, next year Durham will take over the Presidency as per the rota. Dave Cole and Mike O’Hara are the BCF Council representatives for the NCCU, with Dave holding the BCF Management Board place.

NCCU Champions 2000/2001

Open Section Yorkshire
U175 Yorkshire
U150 Yorkshire
U125 Lancashire
U100 Cleveland
NCCU Individual Champion: Graeme Oswald.
NCCU Individual Junior Champion: David Eggleston.
NCCU Open Club champions: Morecambe (Lancashire)
NCCU Major Club Champions: Wallasey (Merseyside)
NCCU Intermediate Club Champions: Preston (Lancashire)
NCCU Minor Club Champions: Wallasey (Merseyside)

c/ Annual Report of Treasurer:

In the treasurer’s absence the Secretary gave out figures the Treasurer had supplied. Overall the finances are healthy. There is a balance of £3043.25 in the bank at present. Unfortunately there are a lot of debtors at the present time – quite a few congresses still had to pay their £50 contribution to the Millenium Grand Prix prize fund, although payment had been requested several times by both the treasurer and the President. The President and the Secretary will chase up the eight events that have yet to pay. Questions were raised by Maurice Kent who asked for an explanation of the £451.04 sundries and a sum of £155 under creditors (BCF 2000 Storey) - nobody knew the answer to either of these questions. The details provided by the treasurer were accepted as an interim report. The treasurer will be asked for explanations regards the questions raised upon his return from holiday.

George Horne of Cumbria was thanked for the assistance he had provided to the treasurer.

D + E/ Annual Report of Open, U175, U150, U125 and U100 County Championship Organiser:

Jim Moran had provided details to the secretary regards all the county match results. The secretary reported that Yorkshire had again beaten Lancashire (9-7) in the Open, but had been beaten (8.5-7.5) in the Quarter-finals. Yorkshire had also won the U175 and U150 tournaments; Lancashire had won the U125’s (and have now won through to the National finals were they may meet Merseyside who are also playing in the semi-finals); Cleveland have won through to the national U100’s final, were they may play against Lancashire who are playing in the semi-finals next week. The point was raised that if it turned out that the finals were all NCCU affairs, why not play them in the North. This will be examined with the National Counties organiser.

Jim reported that all the sections had run well apart from Yorkshire dropping out of the U100’s and a problem with Cheshire and North Wales defaulting a game in the U125’s against Durham. This had resulted in Durham finishing second (on goal difference ahead of Merseyside) after being awarded a 12-0 win for the default. Durham had magnanimously given over second place to Merseyside.

This raised some debate – should there be further penalties for a team that defaults? Geoff Townsend proposed there be no further penalties, which was accepted. The secretary proposed that counties should make every effort to play, even if they can’t raise a full team, provided they let the opposition know in good time – this received the backing of the meeting.

f/ Report of the Club Championship organiser: Organiser Dave Farley informed the meeting that the competition had progressed smoothly after great initial difficulty raising teams. The organiser and the secretary had managed to raise 43 teams, with great assistance from Graham Marshall in the North East. Dave asked for assistance this year from ALL county officers and representatives in marketing and promoting the event in their county.

Morecambe had won the Open against Preston; Wallasey the Major against Sheffield; Preston the intermediate against Heywood and Wallasey the Minor against Cleveleys.

The secretary requested that Manchester clubs be approached as entrants for the NCCU club championships (showing the hand of friendship) and this was agreed by all.

Jim Tennant-Smith has suggested several improvements to the rules. After debate the following were all accepted:

1. In the Minor, Juniors don't have to have a BCF grade - but one must be agreed with the Controller first. The organiser would take any other type of grade but if there was no evidence of any sort a grade of 99 would be assumed.

2. Junior Teams (allowed one non-Junior for travelling purposes) would only pay £5 entry fee unless they had won a prize previously.

3. Teams with multiple entries would pay £15 for each of teams 1 & 2 but then only £5 for any subsequent team.

4. Players could play for different clubs in different sections (subject to being a bona fide member of each club)

5. In the Major, Intermediate and Minor, there would be no maximum grade but apart from the permitted team average, there would also be an average grade for boards 1 and 2 of 165 (Major), 140 (Inter) and 115 (Minor).

6. The average grade for the Major would reduce from 160 to 150 (the above takes this into account).

7. The team winning the toss will have white on boards 1 and 4.

g/ Correspondence Chess Organiser :

Jim Tennant-Smith had reported to the secretary that he had had problems getting adjudications performed, although somebody was now in position. JTS says results for last year will be out shortly.

h/ Annual Report of Grading Officer: At this meeting there was no official grader in place, Phil Jackson having put in his resignation notice a year ago. The meeting noted and thanked Phil for all his efforts. Maurice Kent said there had still been great dissatisfaction regards grades and that this year is the last chance for the BCF to regain any credibility. A discussion revealed further dismay at the handling of grades by the BCF by most counties. Dave Farley had approached Dave Pearcey regards grading the NCCU Championship Games. {After the meeting Dave Farley has informed me that Dave Pearcey is willing to grade NCCU Championship games; Dave Farley will now approach Dave Pearcey and ask would he also be willing to grade the NCCU County matches – this would mean that all NCCU grading was being covered.}. Gerry Walsh commented that the links lost between Union graders and the BCF was a major reason for problems with the grading system – they must be rebuilt. He said that a National graders forum is being set up. Dave Cole offered to initially represent the NCCU on this forum while it is getting established.

i/ Annual Report of BCF Delegates:

Dave Cole said the idea of doing away with game fee in favour of direct membership for everybody who wanted a grade had been raised. He believed this could have been in position already if the national grading problems had not occurred. Gerry Walsh said that it had already been proposed that all ELO rated players must be members of the BCF. Gerry said it was ridiculous that non-members could be officers of the BCF. A discussion then followed, from which it was apparent that the concensus of the NCCU Council meeting was that Direct membership for all people who wanted a grade should be introduced as soon as possible, alongside the abolition of game fee. Dave Cole said he would draft a proposal to this effect with Gerry Walsh and Bill O’Rourke, for consideration by the BCF management board in June and to be put before the council in September.

Gerry Walsh said that Tessa Jowell was the new Culture secretary after the election and that he had already asked for a meeting with her to get ‘Chess as a sport’ back on the political agenda. (Note: since the meeting Richard Caborn MP for Sheffield has been appointed as the new Sports Minister). He also commented that Steve Davis will be asked to take on the role of ‘BCF patron’ rather than ‘BCF president’ and that an active president was being sought. Finally Gerry mentioned the possibilities of chess scholarships at Ampleforth College and offered to find out details and send them to WOR

5/ Report on Junior Chess within the NCCU:

The secretary, as president of Lancashire, apologised to Paul Bielby (the organiser of the NCCU U18 jamboree 03/03/01) for the fact that Lancashire has pulled out in the last week – it had been believed that the LCA U18 manager had organised a team. Unfortunately only two counties competed (Northumbria and Cumbria). Northumbria won the main event 9.5-2.5, and the Northumbria girls team won on a walkover. Fortunately Paul Bielby and Syd Cassidy had organised a subsidiary event, a U11 match between RGS Newcastle and Scotby school Carlisle, which had been well attended. With coaching being provided by senior players. A debate now arose regards travelling for juniors to compete at the extremities of the NCCU region. It was agreed that the position will be reviewed after next year’s U18 Jamboree which will be held in Yorkshire, possibly in Leeds.

The secretary reported that the U16 Pennine Cup, a project initiated by Gary Kenworthy three years ago, had appeared to be failing administratively. However the Secretary stepped in and promoted the event in Lancashire on Dec 9th. Seven teams had competed and a good days chess had been had by all, with many senior players giving their services free. Gary had agreed that the tournament will now be run under the auspices of the NCCU. This year’s event will take place on Sunday 2nd December.