Just a wee reminder that the deadline for copy is October 10th

Any contributions (reports/games/results/articles etc) received before then would be greatly appreciated!!

Andy Burnett

Is it just me or is the 2015/2016 season not available yet?

And two Not Quite Immortal Kieseritzky - Anderssen games.

There is a link....

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...I think.

These titles were set up in 1971, anyone know when they fell out of use and was it by falling into disuse and forgetting about them or was it formally done?

I noticed that the President has published details of the management board meeting that was recently held.

There are a few questions that need clarification.
1/ Why were Pentland Hills appointed to replace Dunfermline as a club member of council?
Was this vacancy open to other nominations?
The reason given that Pentland Hills were next in line is not good enough. When an election is held and the result is declared the election is over. When someone resigns then a new election is held the result of the previous election is irrelevant. You do not appoint someone to replace of where they finished in the previous election for such a place.

The AGM is the place for such appointments and elections not the management board

Good luck to Monica, Callum and Jake who are representing Scotland at the Euroyouth, Croatia starting today.

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The Poly Quickplay (5 rounds @ 15min per player per game) is on Thursday 24th at 7pm.
So far I have 22 entries - we can probably take 38 maximum due to room size.
Fuller details on Poly website <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~daw/Poly/">http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~daw/Poly/</a><!-- m -->

It has been a busy few weeks since the AGM, however I’m slowly getting to come to grips with what I have taken onboard.

The first Management Board meeting since 2008 was held in Glasgow on 16 Sept. in what was intended to be a get-to-know each other coupled with an introduction into the needs and requirements of the various directorships.

There were three formal issues addressed at the start of the meeting:
• Membership Secretary
Karen Howie was confirmed as Membership Secretary following the 6 month initial evaluation period.
• U18 Council Representative
Declan Shafi has accepted the role of U18 representative on council and this was confirmed by the Management Board in accordance with the constitution rules.
• Dunfermline Club Membership on Council
Dunfermline have withdrawn from their position as Club Member on Council. It was felt that with the President as a club member on Council a second was unnecessary. Consequently the unsuccessful club standing for election at the AGM – Pentland Hills – is now the Member Club on Council.


The Home. Home Junior, International Junior and International Directors along with myself were given a background on what is expected of Directors with regard to PVG. Our thanks go to Steve Mannion for taking the time to do this.

There was a discussion on the use of Rules and Arbiters led by Alex McFarlane and Andy Howie and this added some clarity as to what to do and the suggested methodology in updating rules.

The Directors, according to the constitution are not formally members of the Management Board, where the responsibility lies with the Chairs of the respective Home, Junior and International Boards. It felt that consistency and the need for the directors to have some degree of control that the Board Chairs were appointed by the Management Board. Additionally the method of determining these Chairs is not actually defined in the constitution.

Consequently the Board Chairs are as follows:
• Home Board – Ian Brownlee
• Junior Board – Mark Sanger
• International Board – co-Chairs : Peter Smith (Junior Issues) & Andy Burnett (adult issues)
These boards will be assembled and function as defined in the constitution.

The date for the next Board meeting has yet to be determined, but topics will include those we were unable to cover owing to time constraints, namely – Marketing (Fiona Petrie), Grading (Douglas Bryson) and Finance (David Congalton).

The meeting will also look at the proposals for the Chess Scotland strategy after inputs from the Directors after consulting with their relevant Boards. With these proposals we try to build both a 1 year and, hopefully, 3 year plan laying out the way ahead for Chess Scotland. This plan will of course be presented to Council.

Jim Webster
President
Chess Scotland

Should CS have one renewal date a year for membership? Surely this would greatly decrease the workload longer term of the Membership Secretary. Of course this would mean extra work initially to align everyone's payment to one date in the calender but there are clear benefits.
There would be no disputes about who is eligible to vote at AGM's. It's highly likely that CS membership income would increase. It would save the Membership secretary from writing out renewal notices and confirmations on a daily basis.
I would also suggest that as part of annual renewal each member is given a password to access and post on the CS noticeboard.

I note the absence of CS live boards at the first four weekend congresses of the season. I don't know all the reasons behind that but thought it might be worth suggesting a way to possibly increase live coverage.

1/ Have a one day course at a suitable venue, run by Andy Howie or Dave Clayton, attended by folks in as many areas of Scotland as possible. CS of course pick up the tab!

2/ Successful attendees at the course would then have to be "signed off" by Andy or Dave at an event or events (SNCL?), similar to the arbiting route.

This of course would mean a lot of extra work initially for guys like Andy and Dave but longer term we would have more folks able to operate the live boards throughout Scotland. It would greatly increase the number of events CS could cover, both adult and affiliated junior. It would be great to see events like the NEJCA Keith Hoban memorial or the Dumfries Allegro live.