AGM motion queries

[Mike Scott]

As a member of the LPSCL committee over a number of years I must so I am watching this motion with a mix of hope and fear. One of the pleasures of being involved was and is the social aspect of working with some tremendously hard working and dedicated people, with many committee meetings beings washed down with wine and cheese!

If the integration of junior chess into CS means more co-ordination between local organisers and the provision of services - eg child protection, access to resources/coaches etc - to help the local teams then I would say great.

If it is more of a take over or imposition or in some ways sucks the local organisers into the maelstrom of CS than I would be less keen!

[WBuchanan]

If it is more of a take over or imposition or in some ways sucks the local organisers into the maelstrom of CS than I would be less keen!

Well it IS a takeover - the question being rather, is it a good thing, or for whom. The priorities of Chess Scotland might differ from those of ordinary clubs. On the financial side, clubs that wouldn’t normally spend more than a tenner on a chess set may not see the benefit of paying dues to an organisation that sees the priority to spend £700 a time on electronic boards, or pay titled players to play in expensive to enter chess tournaments. There is also a level of politicisation that comes with centralisation. I’m not sure Fide-ization is a good direction for everyone, nor is it necessarily good for clubs to be driven by the priorities of external bodies. There is also a measure about politicisation that isn’t about chess, including a level of ‘child protection’ that ordinary players might describe as paranoia. I expect there are plenty of other issues too.

All this might be good, but there are a lot of chess bodies who would be affected. So I would have thought there would be quite a debate about this. Maybe there is. If there isn’t, that's fine.
Cheers