reviewed by Lumpy Kustud
4 June 2018
It was the AGM of the Leeds Chess Association – the body of wise elders who skillfully and unerringly guide local chess through the hazards and pitfalls of existence towards the sunny heights of, um, well, er ……… oh, forget it!
AGMs generally come in one of 2 flavours.
There’s the Stitch-up variety, also known as the Stalinist or more often nowadays the Chinese model. Everything is fixed beforehand. Potential troublemakers are nobbled, bribed or banished to a far-off province. Everything goes through on the nod and the management is free to do as it pleases for the next 12 months.
Then there’s the Chaotic flavour, aka the Leeds Model. Nothing is arranged beforehand – it is all left to be sorted out on the day. The Secretary arrives late because he’d left the papers at the office. Potential troublemakers are there in plenty. The Top Table is almost submerged under the babel of interjections, cross-conversations, proposals, amendments, new proposals not on the agenda, points of order and more besides. The officers are at odds wth each other and the Secretary threatens to resign if the Chairman accepts an unconstitutional proposal.
Eventually agreement is reached: only the innocuous changes are accepted. All the contentious stuff is kicked down the road to be looked at again next year – when the whole pantomine will be gone through again.
Only the Treasurer knows how to deal with AGMs. He presents accounts that are so abstruse that no-one but he can understand them. Nobody wants to look stupid by asking a question and so the accounts are accepted without a murmur. That’s the way to do it!
Your question: how will it all affect my club chess? Answer: Not a lot.
Lumpy Kustud
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