28-07-2015, 10:33 AM
Unfortunately, my return from the SGM was accompanied by a severe deterioration in health that culminated in emergency surgery and a prolonged hospital stay. This meant I have missed the last 10 days of 'blog' communication and yesterday I was horrified to see so much incorrect information in circulation and the unfounded accusations that then arose about the conduct of certain CS members. I hope the following information will, first, correct all the misinformation and, second, immediately halt the disgraceful accusations. Perhaps those of you with more integrity will have the grace to offer some private apologies.
A number of these problems arise from the lack of understanding by certain CS members on how General Meetings are properly conducted - these apply to all types of organisations, including big business down to the local golf club. The following facts are irrefutable:
1. The SGM was run by CS, with the two senior officials in charge, the President and Executive Director. To ensure they could operate at this level they asked the 3 members of the CWP who were able to attend to deal with all points of information about the proposed new Constitution.
2. ALL votes were registered and recorded. Hamish asked Andy to state at the very beginning of the meeting how many votes were recorded, either by presence on the day, proxy on the day and by proxy recorded via the Executive Director. This number was checked at each vote to ensure that the numbers tallied. While this was done by Andy, several of us in the room took individual counts to ensure all motions were dealt with in a correct constitutional manner.
3. One problem was that a number of the proxy votes held by the Executive Director had 'provisos' e.g.' if Section X was approved/modified in a certain form then I will support (or vote against) Section Y'. This is the best way to present proxy votes under the current Constitution rather than the blanket 'yes' or 'no' provided by others. Please note that one proposed change in the new Constitution is that proxy votes could only be recorded for specific motions or candidates i.e. 'block' voting would not be permitted. Anyway, this complexity created more work for Andy but he used a clever spreadsheet calculation to decide on the majority percentage for or against any amendment or motion. That technical innovation certainly speeded up the outcome of each decision.
No proxy votes were used in deciding matters on how the meeting was to run e.g. the order in which sections were to be discussed. That was left to the members present. For every specific motion and amendment, however, the CORRECT number of proxy votes were recorded and distributed.
The Eligibility motions seem to have caused the most confusion. There were four apparent motions on this issue. That proposed by the CWP, that proposed by Walter B, one proposed by Derek H and then the 'status quo'. In practice, Derek H's motion was to support the status quo and therefore did not need to be considered as that is the default position. It was suggested that Walter's and Derek's proposal be set head-to-head until to was made clear that Derek's was not a new proposal and this must be tested only against whichever of the new proposals was successful. For that reason Derek's motion 'fell' with the proxy votes recorded for that then automatically transferred to the retention of the status quo (when that came to be voted on). Basically, this can be envisaged as the status quo having a bye into the 'final' where it would meet the winner of the vote between Walter's and the CWP proposal. In practice there was no decision on the other semi-final as Alex raised an issue about how FIDE would decide if a player was entitled to an SCO code. All motions (including the status quo) would be influenced by any such FIDE decision. The CWP had read the recent messages on Federation affiliation and considered CS had the final say on who would be permitted but in view of the uncertainty based on Alex's comments it was decided to hold off on Section 16 until we had further clarification. Had we continued then all votes in support of the Derek H motion would have been transferred to support the status quo.
All the above is proper procedure and although it can look a little unwieldy at times it does prevent major problems and avoids anomalies. Although this SGM was a CS meeting it must be firmly stated that none of the CWP would have allowed a non-constitutional approach as that would have been against the whole principles we have sought to enshrine in our suggested changes.
As the CWP have said many time we are more than happy to answer proper questions that relate to how best allow CS to operate. We can only put forward proposals, it is up to the membership to accept or reject them. What is so disappointing is that only 11% of the membership actually cast a vote in any form. Any chance we could go back to discussing some positive ideas on how to move chess in Scotland forward?
A number of these problems arise from the lack of understanding by certain CS members on how General Meetings are properly conducted - these apply to all types of organisations, including big business down to the local golf club. The following facts are irrefutable:
1. The SGM was run by CS, with the two senior officials in charge, the President and Executive Director. To ensure they could operate at this level they asked the 3 members of the CWP who were able to attend to deal with all points of information about the proposed new Constitution.
2. ALL votes were registered and recorded. Hamish asked Andy to state at the very beginning of the meeting how many votes were recorded, either by presence on the day, proxy on the day and by proxy recorded via the Executive Director. This number was checked at each vote to ensure that the numbers tallied. While this was done by Andy, several of us in the room took individual counts to ensure all motions were dealt with in a correct constitutional manner.
3. One problem was that a number of the proxy votes held by the Executive Director had 'provisos' e.g.' if Section X was approved/modified in a certain form then I will support (or vote against) Section Y'. This is the best way to present proxy votes under the current Constitution rather than the blanket 'yes' or 'no' provided by others. Please note that one proposed change in the new Constitution is that proxy votes could only be recorded for specific motions or candidates i.e. 'block' voting would not be permitted. Anyway, this complexity created more work for Andy but he used a clever spreadsheet calculation to decide on the majority percentage for or against any amendment or motion. That technical innovation certainly speeded up the outcome of each decision.
No proxy votes were used in deciding matters on how the meeting was to run e.g. the order in which sections were to be discussed. That was left to the members present. For every specific motion and amendment, however, the CORRECT number of proxy votes were recorded and distributed.
The Eligibility motions seem to have caused the most confusion. There were four apparent motions on this issue. That proposed by the CWP, that proposed by Walter B, one proposed by Derek H and then the 'status quo'. In practice, Derek H's motion was to support the status quo and therefore did not need to be considered as that is the default position. It was suggested that Walter's and Derek's proposal be set head-to-head until to was made clear that Derek's was not a new proposal and this must be tested only against whichever of the new proposals was successful. For that reason Derek's motion 'fell' with the proxy votes recorded for that then automatically transferred to the retention of the status quo (when that came to be voted on). Basically, this can be envisaged as the status quo having a bye into the 'final' where it would meet the winner of the vote between Walter's and the CWP proposal. In practice there was no decision on the other semi-final as Alex raised an issue about how FIDE would decide if a player was entitled to an SCO code. All motions (including the status quo) would be influenced by any such FIDE decision. The CWP had read the recent messages on Federation affiliation and considered CS had the final say on who would be permitted but in view of the uncertainty based on Alex's comments it was decided to hold off on Section 16 until we had further clarification. Had we continued then all votes in support of the Derek H motion would have been transferred to support the status quo.
All the above is proper procedure and although it can look a little unwieldy at times it does prevent major problems and avoids anomalies. Although this SGM was a CS meeting it must be firmly stated that none of the CWP would have allowed a non-constitutional approach as that would have been against the whole principles we have sought to enshrine in our suggested changes.
As the CWP have said many time we are more than happy to answer proper questions that relate to how best allow CS to operate. We can only put forward proposals, it is up to the membership to accept or reject them. What is so disappointing is that only 11% of the membership actually cast a vote in any form. Any chance we could go back to discussing some positive ideas on how to move chess in Scotland forward?