Sheffield & District Chess Association Established 1883 |
Notices |
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07/09/2022 S&DCA AGM 2022 (webmaster’s report on proceedings)
The S&DCA AGM was held on 06/09/2022 at The Trades and Labour Club, 200 Duke Street, Sheffield (the venue of Sheffield Nomads). This was the first AGM since that of 2019.
Attendance was numerically somewhat lower than is usual for the S&DCA AGM, which reflected the underlying theme that not all players had re-emerged from Covid-related withdrawal from over-the-board chess. fact that. In that context attendance was good.
The meeting stood for a while in silence, in memory of Association players who had died since the 2019 AGM, with Pete Ballard (Rotherham), Mike Johnson (Chesterfield) and Andy Baxter (Rotherham) being mentioned.
The supplied minutes of the previous (2019) AGM were approved, though some could not even remember if they had been there, let alone what had transpired. (One particular person accepted he must not have been present as the minutes recorded him as having tendered his apologies!)
The General Secretary’s pre-circulated report (see report here) had elaborated how on-line activity and in early-starting Summer League (see report here) had filled the Covid-induced hiatus in normal activity.
Existing officers were for the most part re-elected. As, however, Steve Bracey had stepped down as a League Secretary at the end of 2019-20, the divisional secretaryships were re-jigged with Phil Becket covering Divisions 1 & 2 and team KOs, and Alan McIntosh covering Divisions 3 & 4 and the Summer League. No 400 League secretary was appointed as only one team had entered.
A completely an encouragingly new set of four non ex officio members of the Executive were elected in the form of Jonathan Arnott (SASCA), Oliver Brennan (Rotherham), Daniel Sullivan (Chesterfield) and Jamie Woodhouse (Woodseats), the latter sportingly allowing himself to be prodded into giving it a try without really knowing what he was letting himself in for!
The webmaster did not notice the appointment of team captains for Sheffield teams in the Yorkshire League. He also assumes he is continuing as archivist. (Must have fallen asleep for a while about here in the proceedings.)
Treasurer John Mercy had warned in his report of a need to raise fees which had largely remained static for many years. The age-old cause was the need for funding of the teams in the Yorkshire League which had eaten into reserves. Accordingly, main fees for 2022-23 were set as follows:
* determined by a principle adopted of £1 per board in a team to reflect different-sized teams in different divisions.
The Individual Membership fee (not taken up for many years) has to be assumed to remain at £5, with the entry fees to the individual tournaments remaining zero.
Mike Smith’s two proposals which were to adjust the Rules to reflect either what is always assumed but not actually stated, and the modern state of the law on smoking were passed without dissent.
Trickier were the other two proposals, both put forward by the General Secretary to bring into the open ideas and issues which are bubbling in the background and might well be formally resolved.
The proposal to reduce the number of boards in a team in Division 1 to six was defeated. It got a 9:5 simple majority, but not the minimum two-thirds of votes cast needed to be passed.
The proposal to introduce an incremental time control where suitable clocks were available was defeated 7:9. There were different pros or cons perceived by different people.
Organisation of teams into divisions was always going to be tricky. With many players not having returned yet to over-the-board chess, many clubs felt unable to field teams in the divisions which normal practices would place them in.
Aughton has been known for some time to have withdrawn from league competition, with some players migrating to other clubs for team competition. Clay Cross has not re-entered the S&DCA league, though they are still playing in the Derbyshire League, wherein they have a team in Division 2 for 2022-23; so, who knows, they may yet return to the S&DCA. On the other hand, Ravenfield, which has been lying very low as regards S&DCA activity since 2019, has made a welcome re-emergence into the light of day, so to speak.
Thus the S&DCA is down to 13 clubs for 2022-23 as opposed to the 15 clubs of 2019-20. In terms of team numbers, there were finally 31 entries for 2022-23 as opposed to the 35 in 2019-20. However, some of those 31 teams may in practice struggle a bit as regards fielding players, depending on how things develop.
30 teams had been entered initially, meaning 4 divisions. As things progressed, Worksop added another team making it 31. The league tables for the unfinished 2019-20 league, adjusted to match points per match actually played, was used as would be end-of-season tables in normal circumstances. As not enough teams were willing to re-enter their “natural” divisions for 2022-23, the President used his option in the second sentence of Rule 14b to allow 7 teams in both the 1st and 3rd divisions, giving a 7-8-7-9 distribution of teams across the four divisions rather than 8-8-8-7. The resulting composition of the divisions was subject to some hopes, assumptions and uncertainties, and the like, and a final structure is not expected to be unveiled until the Fixture Meeting.
Under Any Other Business: a) it was decided the 400 league (probably needing renaming) could not proceed, as there had been only one entry; b) it was decided that the on-line league would not be resumed; and c) Woodseats advised that next year they would be proposing a scoring system for league match whereby a won match earned 3 match points, a drawn match won 1 match point, and a loss earned no match points.
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