Minutes of meeting August 2014

Lytham Chess Club Extraordinary General Meeting 14th August 2014

Present:

John Cooper (Chairman), John Regan (Treasurer), Geoff Robinson, Ben O’Rourke,
Pat Coleman, Dennis Davies, Keith Sansom, Colin Liddle, John Cox (Secretary)

Apologies:

Paul Evans. Phil Raynor, Graham Taylor

Minutes of AGM held on 24th June 2014 were accepted

The Len Gibbins Trophy was awarded to John Regan at the AGM and John Cooper presented the trophy to John.

Number of Teams in the League: It was agreed that the Club should maintain four teams in the League this season.

Club Accounts. John Regan told the meeting that since the AGM an additional charge of £10 had been paid for the use of the room (for the AGM). The accounts have been modified and have now been audited. This leaves the Club with a year end surplus of £730 compared with £616 in the previous year. On the basis of this increase in the Club’s reserves John Regan had proposed a reduction in the annual subscription from £20 to £16. John Cooper had also proposed that the club should buy five quality chess sets and boards from the Club reserves. These two proposals were discussed together. The cost of the chess sets would be about £325 and on the other hand the costs for room hire have been assumed to be the same as last year and the income would be £80 less because John Regan obtained two years match fees last year amd we could only claim for one year this year. It was agreed that the subscription fee would remain unchanged at £20 and we should purchase five new chess sets that would only be used for official Club Team matches.
Donation of a chess set to the Ex-Service Cub for bar use was agreed in principle. This should be done formally and John Cox was actioned to write to the Ex-Service Club President to see if this is acceptable to the Ex-Service Club.

The Team Captains have all confirmed their willingness to continue in their respective roles and this was agreed.
Keith Sansom confirmed that Lytham 3 will remain in League Division B.

A Club Simul was agreed. John Cooper is to ask Brett if he would be prepared to participate. A date cannot be set until after the League define this year’s match programme. Other Clubs will be invited to attend.

Other Club Activities - An on-going problem is the poor attendance on regular club nights if there is not a team match. It was proposed that one night per month should be devoted to a defined Club activity. The Silver Queen Tournament on 11th September would fall into this category. John Cooper offered to hold a tutorial similar to the one he held successfully last year. It was noted that dates could not be set until the League defines the programme for this year, so this is to be reviewed later.

Changes to League and Rapidplay Rules. John Cooper went through the changes proposed by the League Management Committee and are due to be put to the League AGM on 4th September. The meeting was in agreement with the changes. Pat Coleman raised the question of whether the rules stipulate that players in a team should play in ECF Grade order. John Cooper replied that the League rule 11 states that “teams shall play in order of recognised playing strength” and enables the LMC to award the match by default to the opposing team “where a team blatantly contravenes this Rule.” John could not recall any cases where the LMC has had to deal with a complaint of this nature but his view is that we should follow the practice used by the ECF in County matches—i.e. a player should not play on a higher board than another player whose grade is more than 10 points higher than his

Club Championship Paul Evans is hoping to get the Club Championship underway in September and all members who are committed to participating throughout the various rounds are advised to confirm their intended participation to Paul.

Diary Dates. As stated above Blackpool and Fylde League AGM at Lytham on 4th September and Silver Queen Tournament at Lytham on 11th September

Editor’s note: For all the latest Club news and future diary dates, keep an eye on the club website at: lythamchess.org Any problems accessing the site, please contact John Cox on 01253 724182