Revised Constitution

Following on from last Monday's AGM, I have just published a revised version of the Constitution to reflect the changes made in relation to the NSDCA Officers and Officials. You can view this from the tab at the top of this page.

AGM Summary

Robert West will be publishing the official Minutes of last night's AGM in due course. However, in the meantime, I have summarised below the most important points.

A minutes silence was held to remember those Members who had passed away since the last AGM.

The positions of Fixtures Secretary, Results Secretary, Tournament Secretary, Grader and Publicity Officer were abolished as these functions are all handled either by LMS (in the guise of the LMS Administrator and Club Captains), or on the NSDCA website. The relevant parts of the Constitution will be re-written in the near future to reflect these changes.

The following Officers were elected:

Chairman: Robert Milner  Secretary: Robert West  Treasurer: Peter Evans  LMS Administrator: Steve Emmerton  Webmaster: Steve Emmerton

NSDCA Reps To Staffordshire County Chess Association: Bob Perry & Peter Evans                                                                    

Peter Evans agreed to act as Deputy Webmaster in the event of Steve's unavailability and Nic Wright agreed to act as Deputy LMS Administrator.

Peter Evans gave an account of the League's financial position and proposed that we forego Club fees for the coming season. This was unanimously agreed.

It was agreed that the current League Playing Rules would be suspended for one year and new Rules agreed for the coming season once the format of the competitions had been finalised.

There will be no Cup competitions this season.

There followed a discussion regarding the mandatory wearing of face masks during matches, while at the board. The proposal to enact this rule was passed on the casting vote of the Chairman. There followed a proposal from Crewe that a separate Division be created where the wearing of face masks would be voluntary. This was unanimously agreed. Steve Emmerton will now contact all Club Secretaries to find out which Division (Mandatory Masks or Voluntary Masks) they wish to enter and how many teams they wish to enter. Once this information has been received we will decide on the format of each competition. Secretaries are requested to forward this information to Steve by Friday the 1st October.

The 2022 AGM will take place during the week commencing 11th July 2022 - venue to be decided nearer the date.

                                                                                                            

 

AGM Documentation

If you are a Club Secretary you should, by now, have received the documentation for the forthcoming AGM. However, it is now also available for anybody else to view online by clicking here.

Chess In Schools & Communities

Chess In Schools & Communities are putting on their first Stoke tutor training day on Friday 12th November.

 If you're wanting to teach chess, are currently teaching it, or are just interested in how it's done, then this 1 day course is perfect for you. 

Follow this link for more information: https://www.chessinschools.co.uk/Pages/Events/Category/new-tutor-training-courses

Or to book:

https://www.chessinschools.co.uk/Event/stoke-chess-tutor-training-day-12th-of-november-2021

Staffordshire County AGM

The Staffordshire County AGM will be held on Wednesday 20th October at Stafford North End Community Centre, Holmcroft Road, Stafford, ST16 1JG, starting at 7:30 pm. All members of NSDCA clubs based in Staffordshire are invited to attend. Obviously this precludes our Cheshire members.

New Venue For Kidsgrove

Kidsgrove Chess Club now have a new venue - The Bluebell Inn, 25 Hardingswood Road, Kidsgrove, ST7 1EG. Their club night has now moved from Tuesday to Thursday.

Abbots Bromley Chess Club

Abbots Bromley are a new chess club based at the Bagot Arms in the village. They are slightly out of the NSDCA catchment area but may well be in reach of many NSDCA players. They meet on Sunday evenings and play mainly online chess against teams from around the world, in both friendly and league matches. They also organise internal over the board competitions, but have not yet taken the plunge into matches against other clubs, either as friendlies or in a league. Having visited the Club myself to play in one of their Sunday evening competitions, I can tell you that they are very friendly bunch of people and welcome players of all ages and abilities.

You can contact their Secretary, Peter Hornsby, on 07528 665266 or by email : abbotsbromleychessclub@gmail.com

Rating Conversion

The old 3 digit grading database is no longer available on the ECF website. However, you can use the conversion tab at the top of this page to convert your new 4 digit rating to the old 3 digit equivalent - or vice versa.

Congresses Coming Back

Over the board Congresses are slowly starting to return. Jacob Boswell played in the recent Northumbria Masters Congress. Chris Hankey, Leslie Fancourt and Dylan Whitney are all playing in this weekend's 4NCL Congress. Glyn Valentine, Steve Emmerton and Joe Hirst are all playing in the Bury St Edmunds Congress at the end of October. My apologies if I have omitted anybody. 

ECF Membership Fees

Can I please take this opportunity to remind everybody that ECF Membership Fees are due now. You can renew your Membership from here. Please note that, if you have held ECF Membership at any time in the past, you MUST use the Renew option - NOT the Sign Up option. Only use the Sign Up option if you have never held ECF Membership in the past. If you have previously held ECF Membership, and you select the Sign Up option, the system will create a second Membership No for you, which will have ramifications for the Rating System.

ECF Rating Update

For those of you who might be interested in such things, I have just received the following from the ECF regarding the new rating system :

Rating System Update