Irish Chess Union AGM 2022

I agree with Sodacat here on the above points. Mel has clearly given a lot of thought to his motions and they are based on his experience in the role and his generally excellent judgment. Lobbying is definitely to be discouraged, especially of possible players by would-be captains.

I (and other members who will be voting) would like to know whether honorary ICU membership has been given to all our previous IMs.

If it is, then I guess there is no reason to leave Tarun out but if that's not the case then I would be voting against the motion for the reason Sodacat indicated.

As for the other motions for honorary membership I would support the first but will be voting against the other because I cannot fathom why the person who presided over probably the most divisive season of Irish chess in living memory should be nominated for this.

@RooksPawn

shame you probably won't be allowed to vote as you have to be over 16 to vote😊 my vote on the other hand of course will count 😉

Since the proposer of the motions about selection couldn't be bothered to attend the meeting, even by Zoom, to put his case, I suppose it's unsurprising that they were defeated. What was perhaps even more surprising was that such votes for his motions that were positive seemed to come from members on Zoom and none at all from those present in person at the Talbot Hotel.

"I did blame them for arguing against and rejecting against a principle of good governance that is standard in most proper organisations." - I didn't vote against any of these motions nor did I argue against any of them during the meeting. Nor did the vast majority of the committee - I can count 7 out of the 8 who were there who didn't argue against the motion to any degree; Dave and Desmond were involved in the discussion. So yes, you did blame a set of volunteers who showed up to a meeting and voted their own way without argument. In August, I had sent some queries to the executive as sometimes but not always there's a bit of back and forth on these motions to refine them so that the questions I mentioned above would have been answered pre-meeting but its not stated anywhere that the executive have to do the work of the proposer.

I generally don't care who raises motions as long as they're good motions. I never said anything about the proposer - I'm fond of Mel, despite the one harrowing loss he inflicted on me.. He's a top man of course, I offerred him the ISC job and was very lucky he accepted. These were good intentioned motions and on another day, they will be passed, or they won't and the next ISC will set out their stall and say that this and that won't be allowed under their watch. Nothing stops them from doing that. As I understand it, they made several judgements as regards voting from players as was.

We do not approve blank cheques at AGMs and allow the executive and a sub committee to write pre-approved rules.

The chair apologised for the process. But the rest of the executive were never contacted by the ISC until after the Olympiad to some of their resignations. To insinuate that we went in to argue against/vote down these motions is BS.

The results are on chess-results.com in German:-

https://chess-results.com/tnr690448.aspx?lan=0

here here! Traditionally there has been ageism in chess and it is getting worse now by the looks of it

says two people who don't volunteer a second of their time. @me when you've volunteered 5000+ hours to Irish chess.

Don't let facts get in the way of your tinhat nonsense, you never do - articles written by two parents: https://www.icu.ie/articles/995. No Gonzaga students involved.

The ECC - written by a Benildus player: https://www.icu.ie/news/3386

What have you both done recently? Moaned (what's new) about an event you could have written a report on which you seem to care about.

If you want something to happen, volunteer. That's what the ECC player did and that's what the parents at the EYCC did.

Suppose you could have read the books, but better to just speculate, right? Teams selected by the ICU have their entry fees covered - juniors, seniors and club teams alike. Organisers tend to cover some costs for selected players - and players cover the rest; the ICU does not.

The ICU budget is roughly 40k:

Budget items you both benefit from:

The ICC 5k,

Norm and 50+ events: 7k per year,

ICU site, Stripe, insurance and FIDE costs: 7k per year,

Adult International team costs (exlc olympiad): 1.5k

High level training which either of you could avail of: 1.5k

Blitz and Rapid events: 1k, mostly break even but we run 20 of these per year.

Arbiter/coaching courses: 1-2k - which you could arguably benefit from by attending these courses.

Building the ICU's equipment stock: 2k - which you benefit from with games broadcast, sets available at venues etc.

So that's already more than 65% of our budget (26-27k) on things you could or do benefit from.

Here are the specifically junior items:

Junior International costs: 4-5k, same funding per person as 50+/65+ internationals but there are more juniors.

Domestic Junior events? 0, these break even.

Junior Coaching? 0. Funded by parents. Venues also help offset cost of rapid and blitz events.

Junior books? 0. paid for by parents.

The rest of the budget:

IWC, women's officer projects: 1-2k

Non-specific development projects/events: 2-3k

Olympiad: 4k (estimate 8k split over 2 years)

From what I previously wrote:

Norm and 50+ events: 7k per year. I guess 1-2k on senior events out of that.

Adult International team costs (exlc olympiad): 1.5k. This is mostly 50+/65+ entry fees.

My point is from a monetary perspective, there is more spent on 50+/65+ events as they don't break even.

I'm assuming that both of your points are that more voluntary time is spent on junior rather than senior events? Volunteers come onto the ICU or volunteer for Irish chess for things they care about generally. At any given time, 1/3 to 1/2 of those involved who get involved are specifically coming on to help junior chess. In my experience, no one has come on to the committee to volunteer to run senior events - which is started it and why I've run it for 4-5 years. Otherwise, it wouldn't happen. I have advertised for a senior officer for 4 years at this point and have never had a taker.

You haven't volunteered in this instance - from my position, you spend hours of time on here when you could write a simple report or email someone in the ICU to post a message.

This is nothing to do with self promotion if all you want to do is say here is the chess-results link for some event.

Apologies to both sodacat and joe. I'm aware of both of your work and I unfairly ignored it.

My points remain that in this instance, I see no ageism and I would urge you to mention it to an ICU official if you want something done on the ICU site.

and some pics by an amateur photographer with a cheap camera