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EDINBURGH CHESS CLUB
Minutes of the 188th Annual General Meeting

held at 1 Alva Street, Edinburgh on Tuesday 8th September 2009


Present: Keith Aitchison, Dennis Anderson, David Archibald, Stephen Balmer, Neil Berry (Chair), Sebastian Gattenloehner, Alastair Girvan, Douglas Heatlie, Colin Hutchison, John Marr, Bill Marshall, Andrew Masters, Calum McGillivray, Lindsay McGregor, Mike Ridge, Mark Sanderson, John Smith, Chris Sykes
Apologies: Jeremy Hughes

1. Minutes of the 187th Annual General Meeting
These were approved.


2. Matters Arising
There were no matters arising.

3. Office Bearers’ Reports, including Annual Accounts
3.1 Secretary
Mr. Archibald highlighted the pleasing amount of chess that had been played at the club over the past year. There had recently been a FIDE-rated tournament and an U1350 competition played here. In addition, we were hosting a Masters Tournament which started on Saturday. At the FIDE tournament, organised by Jonathan Grant, they had provided their own boards, sets and tablecloths and this had looked good. Funds permitting, he suggested that we should do something similar and also purchase digital clocks.
On the downside, we were short of officials and captains, and really needed more volunteers to provide help in running the club.
Mr. Berry added that there had also been seminars held at the club by Tiger Hillarp Persson, and Tibor Karolyi.
3.2 Treasurer
Mr. Sanderson presented the audited annual accounts. He noted:

  • subscription income had remained healthy

  • room hire continued to be useful additional income

  • the sum of £1,507 against other club costs represented the new lighting installed a year ago, but falling into the current financial year

  • that despite this major expenditure, the overall position for the year was a loss of only about £73.

Turning to the 2009/10 budget, he highlighted provision for glass doors for cupboards, chair repairs, and new boards, sets and digital clocks as mentioned by the Secretary. In addition, we were considering purchasing a PC for use by the Curator in cataloguing the library and by the Secretary for administration. If there was demand, we could also purchase chess software for the PC as an additional facility for members. In all, this meant a budgeted loss of over £2,500. However, reserves were healthy and we could afford to continue to invest in the club’s facilities.


Mr. Masters was keen to see the investment in sets and Mr. Ridge thought that purchasing Chessbase for the PC was a good idea. Mr. Sanderson advised that he had a set, of the type we were considering purchasing, on loan from Chess Suppliers for members to inspect after the meeting. Mr. Berry added that the delay in equipment purchase, which had been discussed at the previous AGM, was due to attempts to source equipment suitable for use with the current tables. This had proved unsuccessful.
Finally, Mr. Berry thanked Mr. Balmer on behalf of Council for his assistance in reviewing the accounts.
3.3 Membership Administrator
Mr. Marshall informed the meeting that we had 63 members last year (15 Full, 3 Country, 7 Concessionary, 12 Associate, 13 Junior, 6 Student, 6 Honorary and 1 Life). This was similar to previous years.
3.4 Team Captains
National League (Chris Sykes): A good season for the 1st team which had won Division 2 comfortably with 13 points out of a possible 14. The second team finished mid-table in Division 3 (4th out of 8 teams), but had defaulted their final round matches and had therefore been relegated.
Richardson Cup (Chris Sykes): We had won two games and lost one in the qualifying section. This had been insufficient to qualify for the final stages.
Tiger Cubs (Chris Sykes): The Tiger Cubs had finished 3rd in Division 3 of the Edinburgh League, 1 point behind second place. A number of Tiger Cub players had developed strongly – Johnny Scott (who had recently won the Edinburgh Congress Challengers) and Shivan Murdochy in particular. We also had four players (Johnny, Shivan, Rhian Hughes and Fergus Skillen) at the current European Youth tournament.
Mr. Sykes added that he had insufficient time to run both the Tiger Cubs and SNCL/Richardson teams and was therefore looking for volunteers to take on one of these jobs.
First Team (Graeme Kafka): Mr. Berry reported that the First Team had won the Premier League.
Second Team (Keith Aitchison): The Second Team had finished second in Division One and were scheduled to take part in a play-off match with Civil Service on 21st September for promotion.
Third Team (Colin Hutchison): The Third Team had finished third in Division Two, missing the play-off place on match point difference.
Allegro League (Mike Scott and Callum Vipond): Mr. Sanderson reported that the A team had won the league with the B team finishing 7th out of 12.
3.5 Tournament Administrator
Mr. Masters reported that he had adopted a different format for the club championship, running it as a knock-out with players playing pairs of games. There had been 13 entrants. Mike Ridge had won the event, beating Mark Sanderson in a nail-biting final. The match had been tied 1-1, the first pair of five-minute tie-break games had also finished 1-1, before Mike won the second pair 2-0. The format had been well received but he was considering alterations to the blitz play-off.
Mr. Sykes pointed out that players eliminated in the first round only get two games. Could there also be a plate competition? Mr. Girvan considered this a good idea. Ideally players should get at least 5 club championship games. Mr. Masters saw no reason not to do this. He would be advertising the event in the next couple of weeks. Mr. Sykes noted that he quite liked the late start to the competition since he found the league season congested.
There was a general consensus that the current format be retained but with a plate competition.
3.6 Development Officer
Mr. Sykes had run a number of pre-season events.
3.7 Curator
Mr. Archibald had invested in further additions to the club library.

4. Presentation of Prizes
Due to the club championship only having concluded a few days previously, Mr. Archibald had not had time to organise the trophies for this.
Mr. Berry presented SNCL Division 2 winner trophies to Chris Sykes and David Archibald. Of the other team members, Lindsay McGregor had already received his trophy, and Graeme Kafka and Hugh Brechin were not present.


5. Proposed Changes to the Club Laws
Mr. Berry introduced three proposed changes to the Club Laws (see Appendix 1).
Proposal 1 – Mr. Sanderson explained that this proposal was about tidying up the wording relating to the “auditing” of the accounts. In its strictest sense, use of the word audit implied employing a registered auditor and activities in excess of those required for an organisation of this size. All that was really required was for a suitably qualified person to review the accounts and confirm that everything was in order.
Mr. Balmer agreed with this, and confirmed that the word review was more accurate since “audit” has a precise meaning.
The proposal was passed with the necessary three-quarters majority of full members present.
Proposal 2 – Mr. Sanderson explained that this proposal would allow use of e-mail for General Meeting notices where appropriate. After discussion, Mr. Archibald proposed and Mr. Masters seconded an amendment to append “(as chosen by the member)” to the inserted text.
Both the amendment and revised proposal were approved by the meeting.
Proposal 3 – Mr. Sanderson detailed the background to this proposal. Last year it had been “touch and go” whether the AGM could take place with the meeting only just being quorate, and then only after a number of attendees had paid their subscriptions on the spot in order to allow the meeting to proceed. Mr. Berry added that we would want as many members to attend the AGM as possible. Mr. Balmer thought that the reminder e-mails sent out by the Secretary this year had helped. Mr. Archibald noted that Mr. Girvan had earlier suggested that we should differentiate between AGMs and Special General Meetings within this proposal. Mr. Heatlie expressed concerns that a quorum of eight could easily comprise just Council Members and suggested modifying the proposal to stipulate a minimum number of “ordinary” members. Mr. Marshall summarised the issue as: subscriptions not paid on time and members don’t attend AGMs. It was the responsibility of members to attend, and we were just reacting to events. After further discussion, the proposal was amended to “Eight Full Members shall forum a quorum at an Annual General Meeting. Ten Full Members shall form a quorum at any other General Meeting. This was proposed by Mr. Archibald and seconded by Mr. Sykes.
Both the amendment and revised proposal were approved.

6. Election of Council
The following were duly elected:
President Neil Berry

Vice-Presidents Keith Aitchison and Mike Ridge

Secretary David Archibald

Treasurer Mark Sanderson

Membership Administrator Bill Marshall

Tournament Administrator Andrew Masters

Curator David Archibald

Development Officer Chris Sykes

Full Members John Smith
with
Caretaker Colin Hutchison
completing the Council.

7. Any Other Competent Business
Mr. Masters reported that he had set up a club blog. Mr. Ridge asked if this could be added to our current web-site. Mr. Marshall advised that this was possible. It was agreed that Mr. Masters and Mr. Marshall would liaise over this and also over re-vamping the web-site.
Mr. Sanderson asked the meeting if we should continue to subscribe to New in Chess. The annual subscription of £62.50 for eight issues was now due. After discussion, it became clear that here was little support for continuing with this.
Mr. Sanderson noted that Keith Aitchison had won the Chess Scotland Grand Prix Major Section for the second year running, and that David Cubitt had won the Minor section.
Finally, Mr. Sanderson advised the meeting that we proposed to enter a fourth adult team into the Edinburgh League this season. We now had sufficient players to do this, and not doing so would make it difficult to offer all members regular competitive games.
APPENDIX 1
Proposed changes to the Edinburgh Chess Club Laws

 
Proposal 1 – “Auditing” of Accounts


Background
The current club laws make reference to audited accounts. An organisation the size and nature of Edinburgh Chess Club does not require a formal audit of its accounts - examination of the accounts by an appropriate third party is sufficient.  The requested changes aim to clarify this, and to remove any ambiguity over what is required by use of the word audit.

 

Proposed Changes


In XIV (10) – “To appoint an Auditor to audit and report on the Club’s Annual Accounts as prepared by the Treasurer,”, replace an Auditor to audit with a suitably qualified individual to examine.
In the final sentence of Section XX - "At each Annual General Meeting the Treasurer shall submit a statement of the Accounts and Balance Sheet of the Club for the Club Year ending on the preceding thirty-first day of July, duly vouched and audited.", replace audited with examined.

 

In the first sentence of Section XXII (2) - "At each Annual General Meeting the Secretary and the Curator shall present annual reports, and the Treasurer shall submit the audited accounts and balance sheet for the preceding Club Year.", remove audited.



 

Proposed by: Mark Sanderson Seconded by: John Smith

Proposal 2 – Notice of General Meeting
Background
The current laws stipulate that notification of General Meetings is by letter. It is proposed to update the laws so that use of e-mail is a permissible alternative where available.
Proposed Change
In the first sentence of XXIV – “Notice of a General Meeting specifying the business and place, day and hour of Meeting shall be given by circular letter addressed to each Member at least seven days before the meeting.”, insert or electronic mail after letter.
Proposed by: Mark Sanderson Seconded by: John Smith

Proposal 3 – Quorum at General Meeting
Background
A quorum at a General Meeting is currently ten Full Members. Declining meeting attendances combined with the fact that not all members pay their subscriptions in advance of the AGM could make an AGM quorum a potential problem in future years.
Proposed Change

In XXV (2) – “Ten Full Members shall form a quorum at a General Meeting.”, replace Ten with Eight.


Proposed by: Mark Sanderson Seconded by: Mike Ridge
APPENDIX 2
Election of Officers



Officer

Proposed

Proposer

Seconder

President

Neil Berry

Mike Ridge

Keith Aitchison

Vice-Presidents

Keith Aitchison Mike Ridge

John Smith

Neil Berry

Secretary

David Archibald

Andy Masters

Mike Ridge

Treasurer

Mark Sanderson

Keith Aitchison

David Archibald

Membership Administrator

Bill Marshall

Mike Ridge

Chris Sykes

Tournament Administrator

Andy Masters

David Archibald

Neil Berry

Curator

David Archibald

Mike Ridge

Keith Aitchison

Development Officer

Chris Sykes

Mike Ridge

Andy Masters

Full Members

John Smith

Andy Masters

Keith Aitchison


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