2 September 2019
The EGM of the Leeds Chess Association (EGM because it is not the AGM) takes place routinely in early September. It is where the various clubs declare how many teams they wish to field for the new season and where matters such as the number of teams in each division are settled.
Steve Hodgson reports on this year’s meeting:
League structure
Copperworks are still having 2 teams, and the entire league will be 26 teams (27 if Leeds manage to rustle up a 3rd team, who would be in Division 3 if they did).
Harrogate are entering one team, who will start in Division 3. Their representative said that their grades cover the range of about 140 to 110, so they will be contenders for promotion on their first season perhaps. Their man gave out maps (see below, the big red arrow marks their home venue. He recommends parking on Beech Grove, which is just west of the A61, and walking). The usual suspects had a good grumble about getting all that way…
The split will be 8 teams in Division 1, 10 in Division 2 and 8 in Division 3 (increased to 9 if Leeds manage a 3rd team). This means the relegations and promotions from last season are still in place, so our B team drop down to Division 3, to join our C and D teams.
I didn’t have any indication if we want to enter any teams in the Lightning event, so I said we wouldn’t be. If that’s wrong, we need to contact Paul Gelder sooner rather than later.
Several clubs were requesting situations whereby (for example) one of their teams is at home while the other one is away. I put in our request to have A & D at home while B & C are away, and vice versa. Mike Bramson is going to do his best to fit all these requests in, I mentioned that our problem was that we couldn’t host 3 five-board games at home at the same time. However, we have two things in our favour here:
1) Paul Gelder offered to host one of our “home” games at Alwodley if we were ever stuck.
2) The B, C and D teams are all in the same Division so many weeks will be playing each other anyway.
Mike had a draft fixture list which we should not rely on until he’s worked it all out, but it seems like the first date for league chess is the first round of the Main League on Wednesday 25th September, which is 3 weeks on Wednesday.
Accounts
Everything is fine, Steve Burton seems to have it all under control. He did mention that the ECF charges (for anyone who plays 3+ games and isn’t an ECF member) is going up from £16 to £18 this season.
Other stuff
Trophies were given out, I didn’t get anything for the Arjay which we won by default (I assume that has already been issued? but I collected Tom Leah’s trophy for winning the Norman Ellis tournament. He gets to keep it forever. and it’s in a box with packing so if anyone has an address for him I can send it as it is.
That’s about it, we finished within about an hour.
Steve