SCA - SJCA Merger Update
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Proposal for the merger of the Scottish Chess Association and Scottish Junior Chess Association
Introduction
The Councils of the Scottish Chess Association and Scottish Junior Chess Association have both resolved to embrace the concept of a merger from July 2001. A merger is seen by both Councils as the potentially best option for maximising development of chess in Scotland. This document sets out the background and proposals in more detail.
New opportunities are emerging as the climate for schools chess development improves, with the recognition that competitive sport in schools is fundamental to world class performance re-emerging. The organisers who currently want to promote chess in schools will be able to concentrate on delivering that.
And there are no greater priorities to delivering future success to build on the strong foundations created during the 30 years or so which the SJCA has existed. Youth chess in Scotland is certainly down in activity, if not in the strength at the top. That feeds through to lower numbers of young people in congresses and clubs, and to a general weakening of the infrastructure of Scottish chess.
A merger will also bring administrative improvements such as treating all membership together, with one membership database administered by one individual rather than the duplication of work and systems we have now. Merger will also facilitate family membership. It also offers scope for better focus in developing against our key objectives, ensuring that the way we spend our income is in line with those priorities.
Organisation name
We recommend that any merged organisation should adopt a new name. The main options are the traditional Scottish Chess Federation and the modern Chess Scotland.
We acknowledge that views expressed at the Edinburgh Congress were in favour of Scottish Chess Federation (see appendix 3), and that a minority of players wanted to retain the name of the Scottish Chess Association. The SCA Board and SJCA Executive both preferred adopting a modern name, which would more easily be seen as a successor to the existing organisations. We therefore recommend the adoption of the name Chess Scotland.
It will be important that, constitutionally, any new organisation is seen as a successor to both existing organisations, and is able to maintain its status as founded in 1884.
In the report which follows, we use Chess Scotland to mean the new organisation created if the SCA and SJCA decide to merge.
Organisation structure
Overview The structure is designed to give greater emphasis to development than at present by the separation of development and mainstream Chess Scotland work. It achieves this by having the Strategic group set and monitor key developments, whilst the Executive group monitor mainstream activity. The key aspects of the different meetings or groups are:
AGM The AGM would exist to approve the annual report and elect some of the Directors [and specific further posts such as FIDE Delegate]. It and an SGM would be the only forums with scope to change the constitution or remove officebearers appointed by the AGM. Members may serve in more than one officebearing capacity. The Executive and Strategic groups [see below] should have constitutional status.
All members (individuals of any age, club, league, congress etc) would have one vote. Proxies would be permitted if lodged in writing or by e-mail one week before meeting, and, in the case of people under 15, endorsed by the member's parent or guardian. The person receiving the proxy must be a member of Chess Scotland. A parent or guardian has a right to vote on behalf of his or her child if the child is under 15 and is not voting in his or her own right. Club, league and congress representatives should be nominated one week before the meeting.
Council The Council would comprise key stakeholders eg leagues/regional associations, congresses, clubs, individuals and the elected officebearers. Selection of representatives for the membership categories above would be by ballot separately from the AGM or Council meetings. The Council will normally meet twice per annum. The Council will appoint the Membership, Grading and Publications Directors, which may or may not be remunerated posts.
The officebearers proposed for the constitution are suggested as:
President Executive Director to chair general meetings and meetings of Council to run the Executive group. The Executive group acts as the secretariat of the organisation delivering central support services and comprises the Executive, Membership, Grading and Publications Directors. Functionality of the group includes dealing with external contacts from other organisations, membership processing, response to enquiries, despatch of material to members or potential members. The group would monitor mainstream Chess Scotland activity for the Council and for publication on the internet. It would produce agreed management information. Also deals with grading.
Strategic Director to run the strategic group. Functionality of the group includes recommending strategic direction, main priorities and budgets to Council, and monitoring progress of strategic development issues
Finance Director to control the finances of the organisation and to produce annual accounts for audit and adoption by the AGM
Director of schools project - to run this project
Director of home chess - to run the co-ordinating group which runs the normal Chess Scotland tournaments (all ages)
Promotions Director - to run marketing issues, and seek sponsorship or Government based funding
Technical Director - to run arbiters group and input to FIDE on rules
International Director - to run the international group covering all ages, and including targeted training
Regional Director to liaise with regional associations and leagues, with a view to understanding and harmonising if appropriate each others key priorities, and to filling regional gaps where feasible
We believe that "Directors" is the optimal nomenclature largely on grounds of external perception.
In addition, a Junior Auditor would be appointed by the AGM during a transitional period of at least two years after the merger. The SJCA would be asked to nominate a candidate for the role to assist the AGM. The role of the Junior Auditor would be to ascertain how each Director was incorporating junior activity within their remit and flag to the Strategy Group and Council any concerns about inadequate plans.
Administration and processing
There is a general agreement that one of the benefits of merger would be the ability to use a central database of members, facilitating family membership.
The SCA is developing a membership processing facility based on Microsoft Access databases. The system is being developed by George Anderson and is intended (for simplicity) to be a single user system (though access to the database may be made available either by email update or through a controlled part of the SCA website scottishchess.com. The database will also be used to allow a section of the website to be made available for members only. The software for this has already been developed by Donald Holmes, with the intention of making added value services [e.g. annotated games] available in the protected area of the site.
Work is being done in parallel with the Scottish Correspondence Chess Association who are also pursuing holding e-mail addresses which can be used for a future e-version of the bimonthly magazine Scottish Chess.
The basic membership processing system will shortly be with Sam Collins to allow parallel running of the existing system and the new system for a couple of months before any possible merged database is created.
Membership categories and fees
Appendix 4 sets out the current levels and structure of membership fees in both organisations.
It is proposed that membership fees for Chess Scotland would be age based, with the basic membership fee for players aged 17 or below set at approximately 60% of the adult rate, and for players aged 14 or below set at approximately 40% of the adult rate. The additional cost for Scottish Chess would also be scaled down, subject to the additional cost being not less than the marginal cost of production and issue of the magazine. No reduction would apply to Patron membership.
Annual family membership would be available with or without Scottish Chess. The fees would be set on the principle of a 25% reduction on the fees otherwise chargeable, though the Steering Group proposes to ask the Membership group to consider a pragmatic approach to simplify charges.
A trial budget has not yet been done but will be available in time for the Council Meeting.
International
The international group would be appointed by Council and be accountable to them. Likely size is around 6 people, mixing strong players, organisers, and age groups. It is the decision making group for activity, including budgetary control. It will normally be chaired by the International Director. One of the group should act as International Secretary. A key objective will be to encourage younger members of the group to take greater control over its running - to make a generation shift in driving activity forward.
The International Liaison group would be a wider group of top players and organisers who should be informed and, where appropriate, consulted on proposed activity. In particular this group should be consulted on the plans for the forthcoming year (though decisions remain with the international group).
The FIDE/ECU delegate feeds into the international group with relevant information about future youth events for selection etc.
The international group will appoint groups to make selections for adult and junior events, and to run the youth squad. Once appointed they will be responsible for decision making within agreed plans and budgets. The plans put forward by each group would be put to the International Group for agreement, and would include broad details of the intended plans and events to be entered.
Selection groups would comprise either strong players [adult] or coaches [junior], with a chairman whose key objective is to ensure proper process is applied.
Shared objectives in the merged organisation
Our basic objective is to increase the number of strong players at each age from the current low levels. This can to some extent only be achieved when grass roots activity is greater.
We must work to make better information available to parents at an early stage. Feedback from top players and youth organisers will help in its construction. This information should be on the website, and sent by post to parents of youth squad members. We should also consult with local organisers to make it available as appropriate to local training group members' parents. A small group should work on this during the summer, for sign off by the international group at the start of next season.
The material available to parents must set guidance on aspirations, giving examples of the wider chess events available. It should include the international events we would normally commit to (e.g. tri nation, world youth, European youth, Glorney cup, and an international match against the Welsh or an alternative country. We should also widen scope for young players to go to weekend congresses in England, and in particular the BCF Youth Squad weekend [subject to BCF agreement] to help achieve a better balance and widen perspectives beyond simply junior events.
The Youth Squad should be extended in particular to younger ages. Coaching enhancements such as greater individual coaching should be considered to deliver increased options at a suitable cost. This should deliver more contact between players and coaches. A small group should also produce detailed procedures for the youth squad for next season, again for international group sign off.
We agreed that the international budget should be increased from current levels to meet the increased activity in attending weekend congresses and the BCF Junior Squad.
Financial aspects
The SCA accounts are audited up to year ending 30th April 2000. The SJCA accounts are audited up to the year ending 31st March 1999. The accounts for the year ending 31st March 2000 will be completed fairly soon. We propose the adoption of 30th April as the year end for Chess Scotland. A financial projection is being prepared.
Merger process
We recommend that two separate AGMs are followed by a General Meeting for the new body. More specifically, we see the process as:
Scottish Junior Chess Association AGM - 24th June
Scottish Chess Association AGM - 9th July
Chess Scotland inaugural meeting 18th or 19th August
These meetings should discuss and vote on a motion on the lines of: "That this meeting agrees to merge the SCA/SJCA (as appropriate) into a successor body to be known as Chess Scotland on the basis of this merger document, and to transfer all funds and other assets to the new organisation within two weeks of its being formed".
The proposed constitution will be tested beforehand for acceptability as far as possible. The motion would require to be passed by the majority appropriate to a constitutional motion.
With a positive vote by both bodies, an inaugural general meeting of Chess Scotland would then be held at which the constitution would be approved.
The new constitution should make clear that Chess Scotland is the continuation of both SCA and SJCA in order to retain 'ownership' of the achievements of both bodies. It is equally important to be able to claim that Chess Scotland was founded in 1884. A statement of assets and liabilities up to the date of merger will be prepared by both SCA and SJCA to be available immediately after the inaugural meeting so that both funds and a statement of outstanding liabilities can be passed to allow Chess Scotland to pay for costs incurred by either the SCA or SJCA. The timing of the meeting should be such that there should be few outstanding costs, hopefully, especially as both of the year ends will have recently taken place.
Appendices
1 Organisation chart (see separate document)
2 Financial projections (under preparation)
3 Considerations on the choice of name
4 Membership fee information
SCA/SJCA Merger Steering Group John Glendinning Rod Tweedie Iain Mackintosh Ronnie Macdonald May 2001
Appendix 3 Considerations on the choice of name
Forms were put out on boards to allow the 300 or so players at the Edinburgh Congress to express some views on the merger of the SCA and SJCA. We would like to thank those who took time to complete and return the form. Here are the results:
The principle of merging On the question of whether the possible merger seemed sensible, 28 people felt it was, 2 disagreed and 6 wanted to wait for more information to be made available before deciding. 26 of those who voted were members of the SCA with 5 members of the SJCA. What's in a name? The name of any merged organisation generated helpful feedback. The votes were: Scottish Chess Federation 22 Chess Scotland 2 Scottish Chess 1 Scottish Chess Association 6 No view 4 The following research also backs up the use of the name Scottish Chess Federation: Language accuracy The New Oxford Dictionary defines a federation as "an organisation or group within which smaller divisions have some degree of internal autonomy", whereas an association is defined as "a group of people organised for a joint purpose". Given the presence of regional associations or leagues, congresses etc, "federation" seems more accurate than "association". National Chess organisations throughout the world The following countries have "federation" in their organisation's name: Afghan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, England, Ethiopia, Fiji, Macedonia, France, Gambia, Georgia, Guatemala, Guernsey, Guyana, Haiti, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jersey, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Kuwaiti, Latvian, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Morocco, Mongolia, Mozambique, Union of Myanmar, Namibia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippine, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, El Salvador, San Marino, Senegal, Seychelles, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, UAE, US, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, British Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands, Zambia and Zimbabwe
The following countries have "association" in their organisation's name: Antigua and Barbuda, Bermuda, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Ghana, Japan, Kenya, Nepal, Qatar, Trinidad and Tobago and Yemen
An interesting and more modern name was Chess South Africa.
Appendix 4 Membership fee information
Scottish Chess Association Leagues and clubs
What we have now are 3 levels of fee for leagues, namely
adult league,
junior league and
allegro league
They are all currently based on a unit team board so you multiply the published fee by (number of teams) * (number of boards in each team), summed over all divisions.
There are 4 levels of club membership fee, namely (in descending cost of membership)
Clubs which are members of a league which has chosen not to affiliate to the SCA
Clubs which are not members of a league
Clubs which are members of an affiliated league
Clubs which are members of an affiliated league and which have fewer than X members
Club members do not get Scottish Chess within the membership fee.
Individual We have the following categories with benefits as indicated:
Life - membership for life + one year's Scottish Chess
Patron - membership + one year's Scottish Chess + grading list
Annual with magazine - membership + one year's Scottish Chess
Annual without magazine - membership
The proposed fee levels for 2001/2 are:
Without magazine £11
With magazine £26.50
Patron £65.00
Life with one year's magazine £180
Grading fees These are for congresses. What we have now are 3 levels of fee for congresses, namely
top rate,
middle rate and
lowest rate.
They are all currently based on each player per game so you multiply the published fee by (number of games) * (number of rounds) * 2, summed over all events within the congress. The rate used by the congress depends on the extent to which they incentivise SCA membership by offering a discount on the entry fee to the congress.
There are separate rates for tournaments open to players 14 to 17, and for players under 14.
There is a separate rate for allegro tournaments.
Scottish Junior Chess Association The 2001/2 annual subscriptions are:
Junior Subscription (Basic) £6.50
Subscription (with Mag) £17.50
Family Subscription (Basic) £10.00
Subscription (with Mag) £21.00
There is also a Club subscription which is currently £9.00 basic or £20.00 with the magazine.
There is also schools league membership, with no fee and the only benefit of membership being inclusion in the Council. In particular, games are not graded as part of this membership arrangement.
| John Glendinning President (SCA) | Rod Tweedie President (SJCA) |