BCC Club Championship after 5 rounds ended in a tie for first Trevor Coote and Gavin Strachan on 41/2 / 5. Although it appeared like Trevor was going to lose after Gavin won his final round very quickly, at just gone 11 Malcolm Kingsley blundered and fell into a very clever mating net. Trevor and Gavin have to now play two 15 min games and if these are drawn then one Armageddon match (White has to win but gets more time) to decide the champion.
Thanks to all of you who attended the LCM on 23rd August at Chelmsford. The NECL has decided to continue to submit their games for grading to the ECF. Once this decision was reached it was a question of deciding how to deal with the options of direct membership or game fees.
League fees for next season were set at £1 per player to cover the league costs and a £10 deposit per team. The league intend to use the deposits together with an existing balance as a float to cover any shortfall in time between money needing to be paid to the ECF and money being collected from the clubs. David Millward will send out a separate document covering the wider financial issue.
Clubs will need to decide how to collect the ECF money. The simplest route is for players to join the ECF directly although it can also be done through the NECL. Players can join individually online at www.englishchess.org.uk and also by post (form attached) or phone (01424 775222). Membership can be retrospective but I would advise actively encouraging regular club players to join at the start of the season for easier club administration.
One alternative is for clubs to collect game fees from non-ECF members at each match (£2 per player per match) ready to pass onto the ECF via the NECL when necessary. ECF membership is mandatory for anyone playing more than 6 games (when it becomes cheaper anyway than paying individual game fees).
This season will be a trial (perhaps in more ways than one) for the league and individual clubs and we will revisit all this at the end of the season to see how things have worked out.
Clubs running an internal championship have to make a similar decision on whether they want to submit their games for grading and, if so, whether to make membership of the ECF mandatory for anyone taking part or whether to pay the grading costs by collecting game fees from non-members. If an event is to be ECF graded every game played within the competition has to be submitted. The Daytime League will be graded and Jim House will be contacting these players directly.
Please make sure all clubs submit their league entries by 14th September at the latest. This will allow fixtures to be arranged online at www.necl.org.uk about a week before the fixture meeting on 24th September at Baddow’s venue.
One other change moves the deadline for registering players to 24 hours before a match instead of 5 days. Registration is still via post or email to the League Secretary and not via the website.
Good luck to everybody involved with organising the changes at a club level. Please get in touch if there are any queries or if you need any advice.
Robin Slade
Championship Secretary
(updated daily – courtesy of shredderchess.com)
We have to decide as a league whether to join the English Chess Federation (ECF) so we can have our league games graded nationally or whether to break away and operate as a separate body and use our own NECL grade instead.
This decision needs to be taken before anything else can be decided for next season and might just have an impact on which clubs remain part of the NECL. We will hold a special LCM on Thursday 23rd August 2012 at Chelmsford’s venue (7.45 start). Every club and league official is entitled to one vote and a straight majority will decide.
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This diagram was set up using ‘RPB Chessboard‘ by selecting ‘Chess Diagram’ from edit options and arranging pieces in the displayed graphic.
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A further example shows this viewer used to give a start position/study with follow-on moves and comments as prepared in the ‘shortcode block’ below.
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updates:-
Jan 2023, ‘removed references to ‘ChessOnline’ – disabled after identified by UKC to be the cause of admin and user WordPress logins failing, and other issues (though effect not replicated on backup server). Authors should use the ‘Chess Tempo Viewer’ instead.
Nov 2018, added further choice to use Chess Tempo Viewer
Dec 2013, use of copgn;
Dec 2012, FEN Reader replaced by ChessOnline;
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On the 1st September 2012, changes will occur in the ECF Membership Scheme and Game Fee, These changes were touched upon at the AGM. They will affect us all and are described here.
What impact will possible league policies have on this matter?
Will increased costs reduce club memberships? Will clubs reduce league participation?
Will membership be a requirement of the league, or will clubs administer game fees?
What value do your club members place on having an ECF authenticated grade?
Is a break-away league viable? Would ECF members play in ‘locally-graded’ matches?
Would a 2-tier league with membership required only for div 1 players be a viable compromise? Many questions have been raised with no obvious answers.
What are your views? Has your club decided which policies to support?
What league policies would you and your club like to see?
Posting your comments here may influence the options being considered..
It may also assist Robin to prepare an options document for presenting to the LCM.