Plea to the CS Directors

[Derek Howie]

I'm writing this a frustrated CS member. There seems to be a lot slipping through the cracks and it's leading to an increasing sense of frustration in some members. Actions promised aren't being done, emails are being ignored and questions on the forum are not being answered. I have received a couple of emails today from people who are in this boat and I have sent emails that have been ignored by 3 directors over the past few months.

I'm not writing this to have a go at anyone. Everyone has lot of other commitments, family, work and other things. The members appreciate and understand that. Most of us are in the same situation. There's no shame in saying that you're too busy at the moment. The Directors need to appreciate that there are people out there willing to lend a hand if they are asked. You don't need to do everything yourselves. If you don't then you will find these people just walking away from Chess Scotland and you will end up losing assets unnecessarily.

I would suggest the following:

- all emails are acknowledged within 4 days with a timescale of when a detailed reply will be given
- questions raised to directors on the forum are answered within a week
- minutes of meetings are issued within 2-3 weeks so that everyone is aware of their action points
- delegate! Form sub-committees if you are too busy to do something. You don't need to be on them. Just have them report through to you. Even just ask someone else to form it if you are too busy yourselves.

Please remember that everything improves through communication.

We are about to go into 2014 which will be a big year for chess in Scotland with the hosting of the Commonwealth and Glorney tournaments. If we get the simple stuff right and get everybody on-side and not frustrate and annoy them then we can move into the new year as a team and with a renewed sense of enthusiasm.

[StevieHilton]

I heartily concur with all that Derek has said on this thread.
I posted on this notice board a question about the the progress of the forming of a working party with regards to the reforming of the CS constitution. The response was less than satisfactory in my view.
There was agreement to set this working party up at the AGM, but I can only Judge that nothing has in fact been done.
I have written to our president about this and I still await a response.

As Derek rightly says it is all about communication, so why not reply to questions from the members.
The current state of affairs is simply not good enough

[Keith Rose]

Derek
I'll take up one of your points (acknowledge then follow up). I'm knocking around a few thoughts on your posting but I have to go out. I'll post later.

Keith

[Andy Howie]

I would suggest the following:

- all emails are acknowledged within 4 days with a timescale of when a detailed reply will be given
- questions raised to directors on the forum are answered within a week
- minutes of meetings are issued within 2-3 weeks so that everyone is aware of their action points
- delegate! Form sub-committees if you are too busy to do something. You don't need to be on them. Just have them report through to you. Even just ask someone else to form it if you are too busy yourselves.

Please remember that everything improves through communication.

Good evening Derek,

The following is not an attack on anyone nor should it be taken that way. I like a lot of the suggestions that are being made here.

Emails are not always the best form to communicate with, they can easily be misunderstood through the lack of emotion or body language, missed or are not delivered. I received a mail today via a third party asking why I had not responded to a mail, checking back over my mails (I have all my mails for at least the last 10 years, sad I know!) I had not received it. I can list a multitude of reasons why that happens. I would suggest that if someone has a burning issue, then pick up the phone to the person, speak to them at the next congress etc etc.

Not all directors are on the Forum, whilst I am happy to answer questions that I can, I don't think we can force directors to come on here. One of my predecessors was a big advocate of Directors not posting. Personally I think it is a good thing and it is good to see that Directors are happy in general to answer on here.

Minutes I agree, when the AGM is over they will be up quickly, I have a draft of the first part and will have the completed minutes up within three weeks of the meeting (barring an act of God)

Delegation is a wonderful tool, for delegation to work efficiently you need volunteers to delegate to. Here is an example from just this year. I delegated a task. It was a fairly important task (and I refuse to go into specifics as that is unfair on the people involved), but it was not completed. There are ramifications for us because of that. Alex McFarlane has long suggested that each director has a team under them. I would love to see this but we are painfully short of volunteers (see arbiter list for a good example) and to be fair to them, looking at the way people who give their time to, for a want of a better word, chess admin, often become targets of people who don't agree with the way things are done but won't contribute themselves, do you blame them? (This may come across wrongly but I hope you get what I mean!).

In the last 2-3 weeks I have received so many mails from people across the chess spectrum in Scotland tired of what is going on, it is really incredible.

What really has to happen is for the infighting to stop. I will take a specific example here, we need people like Mike Hanley leading Chess in Schools. Why would I say this? Look at what he has done in South Lanarkshire! Imagine that being replicated throughout Scotland. That is something worth "fighting" for. It doesn't matter what you think of Mike, good or bad, look at the results.

How do we stop the infighting? Let me put it another way, What would it take to stop the infighting? The entire directorate to resign? That is not really a desirable goal for anyone. The problem is each "faction" is so entrenched and unwilling to work with the other "factions" every mistake is over analysed, every comment has its motive questioned. We need to work smarter, not harder. We need to be working on moving chess forward in Scotland, not constantly looking backwards and dragging up the past.

2014 is fast approaching, we have 14 days left and that is the end of one of the most turbulent years I can remember in Chess Scotland. 2014 is going to be a big year and I appeal to all members and non-members to make a special effort to heal this rift and bring the national organisation back to where is was. 1 year from now if we are still where we are at the moment (or God forbid even worse), then there is no future for Chess Scotland. If we can't resolve our differences and move on then we don't deserve to have a national organisation.

Derek, there are a lot of frustrated members, non-members and directors out there. The biggest source of the frustration at the moment is the constant fighting. Solve that and everything else listed will resolve.

[StevieHilton]

Andy,
Good Morning!!
I read your response to Derek with great interest.

I would remind you Andy that I spoke at the first part of the AGM about the need for reconciliation and I stated that Chess Scotland will not be able to go forward until reconciliation had taken. The President agreed with my thoughts on this.
However since the first part of the meeting, none of this has taken place. The board is heavily tilted in favour of the President's supporters. They have been intolerant of those who dare to disagree.
I would agree with you on one specific point. That is there are talented people not in a position within Chess Scotland. You mentioned Mick Hanley, but there are others who do a lot of work which reflects well on Chess in Scotland. I myself hold positions on two international bodies, the IBCA and FIDE. I would dearly love to give time to forward the cause of chess in Scotland, but lets face it there those who will never support me even though my international work reflects well on our country.

The current board has to look at itself , acknowledge past errors,and then perhaps we can move on. This would also apply to those of us who have disagreed in the past as well. Until that happens then I fear that CS will stagnate

[Andy Howie]

Andy,
Good Morning!!
I read your response to Derek with great interest.

I would remind you Andy that I spoke at the first part of the AGM about the need for reconciliation and I stated that Chess Scotland will not be able to go forward until reconciliation had taken. The President agreed with my thoughts on this.
However since the first part of the meeting, none of this has taken place. The board is heavily tilted in favour of the President's supporters. They have been intolerant of those who dare to disagree.
I would agree with you on one specific point. That is there are talented people not in a position within Chess Scotland. You mentioned Mick Hanley, but there are others who do a lot of work which reflects well on Chess in Scotland. I myself hold positions on two international bodies, the IBCA and FIDE. I would dearly love to give time to forward the cause of chess in Scotland, but lets face it there those who will never support me even though my international work reflects well on our country.

The current board has to look at itself , acknowledge past errors,and then perhaps we can move on. This would also apply to those of us who have disagreed in the past as well. Until that happens then I fear that CS will stagnate

Quite a lot here we both agree with. I don't know what happened in the past Steve but I think you are doing Scotland proud with your achievements in IBCA and FIDE.

The last paragraph is key and you touched on it. Everyone, regardless of what side they are on, needs to do this.

[StevieHilton]

Andy,
thanks for the reply.

You know that in the past, I have resigned from a number of posts, and that has been held against me by some of those who voted against me in the recent Presidential Election. They are entitled to his view of course and I would be the first to defend their right to say that. Remember what happened to me at the AGM of 2009. I have moved on from that.

It is true that my main chess work is international and also specialist (Chess and Disability), and perhaps I am not well up on other chess matters, but I still believe that I have something to offer chess in my homeland.
I would welcome the chance again to prove them wrong. I did so with my stewardship of the Home Director position

[Phil Thomas]

Seems appropriate here to share some of my experience of being possibly the busiest Chess Scotland director in the 3 years period between the 2008 and 2011 agms.

I found that the best way to tackle heavy e mail traffic was to intentionally sit down at least 3 or 4 times per week and reply to the lot. Numerically and pragmatically and that meant being able to reply to mails at a rate of around 15 per hour.

Delegation? Oh yes that helps. Frequently I asked the selectors for final selections without having any opinion myself - only forming my own opinion after reading their replies. In my experience this is standard procedure for chairing meetings throughout industry.

Other key delegation was that Jacqui handled the hosting of the Glorney in 2009. I was of course in touch and well informed throughout.

[KMcGeoch]

I don't really check noticeboard that much although I have to admit I'm a bit surprised that infighting on noticeboard seems to have continued 4 months after AGM. Personally I think it must be tiring and unhealthy to hold grudges and grievances for that long.

From my understanding most of the directors are unpaid and do it on a voluntary basis. I'm unsure how everyone else feels but if I was in position where I was a director I wouldn't be happy to spend lots of my limited free time trying to help chess and then getting abuse for things that may even not be relevant to my remit and work I actually do. While communication and accountability can be useful it should be a two way process and there should be a cost/benefit analysis involved in communication. For example if you spend let's say an hour a week communicating and thanks to getting people involved you can get 3 people working an hour a week on average then it's a win/win situation. If on the other hand they just get interrogated it's probably harmful for chess since it diverts them from working for chess.

This is just in general but I'd also like to say that making mistakes isn't a crime. Everyone does them (even me!) and it's perfectly normal if you do anything. Important thing isn't to make no mistakes but to learn from them and improve in future. Indeed good team work involves experienced people sharing their mistakes so that others should learn from them. As long as someone tries their best they shouldn't be blamed even if things don't go as intended.

I'll add that I think CS will only work well if they have support from membership. Something that could be food for thought is that I've seen lots of threads with complaints/attacks etc but I've yet to see a thread with roles that CS needs help with. This means that if I hypothetically wanted to help out rather than seeing what needs done and what I can do I would presumably have to approach each director individually and ask if they need help and if they are so inclined and have something to do they could then suggest it to me and then I can judge if it's within my capabilities/availability and if so accept. Note that I'm not volunteering but you can see that process of getting members involved could be streamlined.

I think that once concept of "them" and "us" is removed it should help and breaking down barriers and factions is first step. It's even possible that when people meet each other on same side their old enemy may turn out to be a decent guy when they get to know them.

[Derek Howie]

Emails are not always the best form to communicate with, they can easily be misunderstood through the lack of emotion or body language, missed or are not delivered. I received a mail today via a third party asking why I had not responded to a mail, checking back over my mails (I have all my mails for at least the last 10 years, sad I know!) I had not received it. I can list a multitude of reasons why that happens. I would suggest that if someone has a burning issue, then pick up the phone to the person, speak to them at the next congress etc etc.

Andy, thanks for the reply. Yes, the very occasional email can go missing and emails can be misunderstood, but I don't see either of these as being the issue here. Emails are the recommended way of contacting directors, given that is what is listed on the main site. You appear to be suggesting that it's satisfactory for emails to not be answered as people can always phone or speak to directors instead. There are obvious issues with that. I'm disheartened by this response.

Not all directors are on the Forum, whilst I am happy to answer questions that I can, I don't think we can force directors to come on here. One of my predecessors was a big advocate of Directors not posting. Personally I think it is a good thing and it is good to see that Directors are happy in general to answer on here.

I can understand some directors not wanting to post on the forum if they are not familiar with this kind of communication, but part of all directors' responsibilties is to engage with members and as such I would encourage those who are uncomfortable or not familar with it to give it a go. I can see it only as a positive thing and improve CS as an organisation.

Delegation is a wonderful tool, for delegation to work efficiently you need volunteers to delegate to. Here is an example from just this year. I delegated a task. It was a fairly important task (and I refuse to go into specifics as that is unfair on the people involved), but it was not completed. There are ramifications for us because of that. Alex McFarlane has long suggested that each director has a team under them. I would love to see this but we are painfully short of volunteers (see arbiter list for a good example) and to be fair to them, looking at the way people who give their time to, for a want of a better word, chess admin, often become targets of people who don't agree with the way things are done but won't contribute themselves, do you blame them? (This may come across wrongly but I hope you get what I mean!).

I accept what you say here but I have seen examples within CS of where it can work quite effectively. There may be times that it doesn't, but that shouldn't prevent it being tried more. If it's just a short term project then I'm sure people are happy to help if a request is made, say, on the forum. I presume that you got more volunteers than needed for the Consitution project? That's a good example of putting out a request and getting people to volunteer. It can surely be done to a greater extent, particularly for the Directors who have a large workload.

Derek, there are a lot of frustrated members, non-members and directors out there. The biggest source of the frustration at the moment is the constant fighting. Solve that and everything else listed will resolve.

So you are blaming everything on the infighting? Sorry, but that's a cop-out. The two issues should largely be unrelated. Is what you are saying, for example, that Council members' names will not be put on the website while the fighting continues? CS has to be able to be a better organisation than that.

Andy, apologies if I'm misunderstanding your responses and do appreciate you taking the time to respond, but I'm feeling even more frustrated now.