Altrincham and Hale Chess Club
Annual General Meeting
Tuesday 22nd July 2008
at the Navigation Hotel, Altrincham
Minutes of Meeting
1. Attended by: Jim Barr, Lou Dyba, Reyer Gerlagh, Peter Gerlagh, Wayne Kranz, Les Hebb, David Hughes, Tony Lane, Bill McCartney, Richard White, Paul Spilsbury, Karl Lockett, Nick Lowe, Callum McNulty, David Merrifield, Denis Osborne, Marjorie Rhodes, John Roff, Tom Tomkins, and Stephen Ward.
2. There were apologies for absence from Jane and Edwin Brophy, Chris McCoy and Graham Bird.
3. The minutes of the annual general meeting held on 26th June 2007 were accepted as being a correct record and there were no matters arising not covered under the Agenda.
4. The Secretary’s written report was accepted as follows:
The year has been a positive one for our club in several respects. There are now a total of 31 members on our database, of whom 27 are regularly involved in the club (including Junior members). This compares with 26 when I wrote my report last year and 23 two years ago. There have been a few evenings when home matches have been played which have left us with no spare space! This has led to the proposal to move home games to Thursday evenings while leaving Tuesday as the main club evening.
We have continued to run four teams during the Winter season and to play in the South East Lancashire Summer league – there are plenty of members who treat chess as an all year round sport. I would thank Tony, David, Karl and Steve for organising their teams and for their separate reports. Our active league involvement has led to a degree of fixture congestion and this has made scheduling the internal club competitions difficult for Nick.
An exciting new development was our the Junior competition held early in 2008 – part of the UK chess challenge. Reyer and David initiated and organised this and it was very successful. Twenty players from eight schools took part and stayed the course for the full six weeks. There is a full report and detailed results on our blog. While there proved to be insufficient interest in a proposal for a regular Junior chess club, I am keen that we look for ways to encourage and train the next generation of players – and give them access to play us to develop their game.
All but five of our members have been able to provide me with e-mail addresses and this has enabled me to forward details of congresses or other items of potential interest to you efficiently. I have continued to improve our website athttp://altrinchamchess.blogspot.com/ which I hope has become your “one stop shop” for chess with quick links to our main leagues – and much more. I would like to encourage members to register on our blog which will enable you to add content; in particular it would be good to see some of your games (you will see an easy way to do this) and maybe photos, etc.
I would also be interested in digging into the club's past - said to go back over 100 years. If any members are willing to see if they can find out more about our history, as St Margaret's Chess Club, such as past players, team results or internal competitions, it would be great to add these to our archives
5 The main item for discussion was the development of Junior chess. There was positive comment on the suggestion of opening the club at 7 p.m. on Tuesday’s for Junior’s to both play and have some training. This would require a critical mass of children (so that they had sufficient different opponents) and of adults – at least two in attendance on a rota.
The following members confirmed that they would be willing to be involved in this project: Karl, John, Callum, Reyer, Tom, Marjorie and David. It was agreed that this group (and anyone else interested) should separately plan the next steps. Suggestions and issues noted included: Contact and promotion to Trafford schools [while this had been done before, without any response, that was some years ago]. The legal and good practise situation regarding CRB checking; Seeking advise from other successful Junior chess – such as Stockport or Bert Thomas; Organising inter-school competition.
6 The Treasurer reported as follows:
There has been a further increase in income as we have three additional paying members. Due to the increase in members, the committee made a decision to allow Captains not to have to pay their subscription, should they so wish. Instead they have been deemed to have paid it in lieu of claiming reimbursement of fuel costs to away fixtures. This is the first year and is shown under “Captains rate”.
The Club underwrote the UK Chess Challenge and in actual fact made £4 profit! Thanks must go to Reyer and David Hughes. The costs are less as the engraving expenses for 2007/08 have yet to be incurred, as the winners of the Club Championship remain undecided at present. The Summer League fees are now paid for Summer 2008. Hence the £4 increase from last year.
It was then noted that there will be a need to budget for some cost for repair or possible replacement of some chess clocks over the coming year.
The meeting formally agreed to leave membership rates unchanged:
· £20.00 for ordinary members.
· £10.00 for retired and student members.
· £5.00 for junior members.
7 The team captains presented their reports as follows:
Manchester league first team captains report
My report last year reported “we are hopeful that we did enough to secure our position in Division B, and if this is confirmed, we will embark on our tenth anniversary in that Division next year, in the period since we joined the Manchester League in 1993/94.” The uncertainty at that time was due to the fact that we ended the official season ahead of Bury 2 on board count difference and a point ahead of Rochdale, but Rochdale’s game against Stockport 2 had not been played. Unfortunately, Rochdale’s game against Stockport 2 was allowed to proceed, and even more unfortunately for us Rochdale proceeded to beat a team 6 places above them in the league, to leapfrog Bury 2, ourselves and Heywood 2 who all finished with 6 points out of 7. Bury 2 and ourselves were therefore relegated to Division C. In hindsight, the drop down a division was not necessarily a bad move, as we had struggled in the last 3 years to maintain our status, indeed finishing in a relegation position in 2004/05 only to be reprieved at the AGM.
The move to a lower division had two important ramifications. Firstly, we were now eligible to enter the Wahltuch Trophy as this is competed for by Division C and D teams. Secondly, instead of playing 10 different clubs once a season, we now had to compete home and away with 5 other clubs. Due to our success in the cup, this meant that we ended up playing more games in the season than ever before and finished with a board count success of 60 points, higher than ever achieved in our 15 year spell in the Manchester League.
As usual, the season started with cup matches, and we secured a fine win 4:3 at Stockport 3 with David Merrifield and Callum McNulty providing sterling support on the bottom boards for the more seasoned campaigners. We then went to Bury 2 in the cup and won emphatically 5½:1½. Our first league game followed, and Warrington provided new opposition for us in the league. We opened the league campaign well with a 5:2 win. The cup campaign then continued with a defeat of Eccles and a second 5:2 league victory followed at Bury 3. This amazing start to the season was rudely halted with 3 successive 5½:1½ defeats to Stockport 3, Bolton 3 and Bury 2. Although, we were able to pull off a win in the return match at Bury 2 we succumbed again to Bolton 3 who went on to win 11 of their 12 matches finishing 8 points clear to win the Division C title. However, I am delighted to say that we then defeated Oldham 3 in the Wahltuch Cup Final 4:3 with Karl Lockett pulling off the final crucial victory. We then had a tremendous end to the season remaining unbeaten for the last 5 matches, which included victories against Stockport 3, Warrington and Bury 3 and two successive draws home and away with Salford.
In our 12 league matches we registered 6 wins and 2 draws and finished in second place to Bolton 3 on 14 points. This therefore sees us promoted back to Division B. Our points tally of 42 was the same as that conceded. However, with our four cup successes and 18 additional points, our tally of 60 was registered for the first time in history.
Such a long hard fought season required the efforts of more players than usual. Twelve players competed in all. Karl Lockett played in every match. He started with 2 draws and then 4 victories, before losing his first match on top board at Bolton. He then went another 7 games without defeat, before tiring at the end to lose his last 2 matches, but still finished with 10 points for the season from his 16 matches. Bill and myself played in 14 matches each and scored reasonably well with 8½ and 7½ respectively. Kurt also picked up 8½ points from one game fewer and David Hughes, Tom and Nick all completed 10 or more appearances with Tom the most successful on 6 points. Of those appearing in fewer games than this, Graham, David Merrifield and Callum all scored 50% or more while Richard came very close to that with 2½ points from 6 games played. Wayne Kranz also helped out with an appearance, but unfortunately for him it was at champions Bolton 3 where he was unable to conquer Ian Lamb. We actually defaulted a game on bottom board in this match and defaulted on the bottom board at Stockport 3 but only by virtue of David Merrifield being left in the Navigation car park for his lift to Stockport. Other than that, we were the beneficiary of a default in the cup competition against Eccles.
Following our success this season, we can now confidently say that we will embark on our tenth anniversary in Division B next year.
Tony Lane
Stockport league first team
This season the ‘A’ team played in Division 3 of the Stockport League after relegation from Division 2 the previouls season. We finished as winners of Division 3 with 23 points out of a possible 28, 4 points ahead of East Cheshire B in second place. In the league the team won 11 matches, drew 2 and lost just one.
In the Charnley Cup we were unlucky to be drawn against a very strong team in the first round again. This year is was Holmes Chapel and after a close match we were defeated 3.5 to 2.5.
Altogether 13 club members played for the ‘A’ team in the league and cup this season. These were Graham Bird, Tony Lane, Kurt Linke, Karl Lockett, Nick Lowe, Chris McCoy, Callum McNulty, David Merrifield, Fainks Rossouw, Tom Tomkins, Steve Ward and Richard White. My thanks to all of them for their efforts throughout the season and I especially grateful to those who helped with transport to away matches.
Next season the ‘A’ team will return to Division 2. I believe the club has enough strength in depth to be able to compete successfully in Division 2. It will certainly be and interesting challenge.
David Hughes
Stockport league second team
Altrincham B finished equal 4th out of 8 teams in the 3rd division of the Stockport league with 13 points which is the same number of points as the revious year. The division was won by Altrincham's A team and understandibly we lost both games against them. This was a very
respectable league position for our B team whose ethos is to give less able but enthusiastic players competitive chess against similar players from other clubs. The teams priority is for the players to get something out of it, the team result is secondary.
This season, teams in the third division consisted of 5 players per team. This greatly hepled the team who as a result had only two defaults. If the club have a B team next season it is strongly recommended that we vote again for 5 players per team. A total of 14 different players played for the team last season and I would Also tike to thank all of them, particularly those that participated in the away games.
In a previous season, Steve Ward and Chris McCoy played a sufficient number of games to obtain an official chess grade and enough last season to retain it. Last season also saw Callum McNulty, and Reyer Gerlagh play sufficient games to obtain thier first official chess grade, 77 and 32 respectively. Next season it is hoped that Thomas Hague and perhaps Edwin Brophy will recieve official grades for the first time.
Also for next season Urmston chess club will join Stockport league and it is therefore possible, this has not yet been decided, that division 3 will be reduced to 5 or teams which would be a big plus for the B team, if this were to happen.
There were other noticeable performances last season. Peter Gerlagh finished runner up for the Eric Harrison Trophy and Nick Lowe finished joint runner up in the Vic Knox Trophy (9.5 points from 12 games) with myself being 4th. Finally, I will not be able to participate in Altrincham's B team next season as I will be one of the the top four registered players. This season it had only been the top 3 registered players due to us having two teams in the same division. We will therefore need nominations for a new captain.
Karl Lockett
Trafford league
I would like to start by thanking all members who played for the team when I asked and in particular when asked to play at away matches and who assisted with transport After the success in winning the league in the previous year the team returned to its customary position of second to last or equal fourth. This is not as disappointing as it may appear. Having won the league in the previous season, without realising that this was a possibility for much of the season,I felt no need to try to repeat the achievement but in view of the large number of members who could only expect to compete on behalf of the club if given space in the Trafford League games I tried to include more players, although at the expense of not winning games.
The Trafford League was set up to give less able players a chance to compete and I also believe that it should be part of the clubs ethos to give as many players as possible the chance to compete. Having said that I am aware that there were some members who did not play and I will try to remedy that next year if possible.However there were only 6 teams in the league and so only 10 games can be played, with 4 competitors in each match, that means 40 games over the season. 14 members played one or more games for the team in the season. Of the 10 matches 4 were won, 1 drawn and 5 lost.
The only team to beat us twice was Chorlton B who came last in the league.As we managed to beat every other team once it is reasonable to assume that if I had picked a team for the task we could have beaten Chorlton B twice and that would have made us equal first. However I chose to give some of the less able players competitive games where they stood a chance. Although they may not always have won they did have good games and they were able to put up reasonable resistance against their opponents I tried as often as possible to ask members to play on boards matching their ability. This was the main factor that led to a disparity in the number of games played by each member as there are many more better suited to boards three or four than to one and two.
The two main players through the season were Chris McCoy, played seven times for the team all on board 1 winning three and Callum McNulty who played six times mainly on board 2 but once on board 1 with 5 wins and 1 draw. The other winners were Thomas Hague, Edwin Brophy, Steve Ward, Jane Brophy, Reyer Gerlagh, and Wayne Krantz but my thanks to all who played for the team
Steve Ward
Summer league team captain’s report
I could report that we finished third for the third successive season in Division B of the Summer League. However, you may recall last year that we were disputing the official position in the 2006 season, as our records indicated we had defeated Bury 2, 3½:2½ as opposed to the official records that had credited us with a draw. I am pleased to say that after a year of lobbying for the correct result to be reflected in the Summer League records, our victory over Bury 2 has now been confirmed and the additional point earned has been sufficient to secure for us the B Division Championship for 2006 on board count. As pointed out last year, both Stockport 2 and Chorlton 3 who now move to second and third in the league in that year, both opted to remain in B Division in 2007 and this would also have been our preference. However, it is nice to know that the trophies are currently being engraved and our name will appear as 2006 Division B Champions. Our third place finish last year was therefore not quite as impressive, but we were in fact only one win away from catching Chorlton 3 at the top of the table.
As usual, the season started with a cup match, and as is often the case saw us concentrating early on the league. The cup match at Eccles was a close affair, finishing 3:3, but as our wins were on the lower boards we were eliminated on board count. Our league fixtures started with a reversal of fortunes against Bury 2 from the position that had secured us the 2006 title. This time they won 3½:2½. However, we were able to follow that up with a resounding 4½:1½ victory over the eventual champions Chorlton 3, who went on to win all their other 4 matches. Our remaining 3 matches were all close fought affairs, with a 3½:2½ victory over Oldham 2, a defeat by the same score to Stockport 2 and finally a 4:2 victory against Urmston who having been promoted the season before were relegated in 2007. In fact they swapped positions once more with Rochdale.
We just about managed double figures in the number of participants in the 2007 Summer League season. Tom and myself played in all 6 matches and were relatively successful with 4 and 3 points respectively. We suffered a little on the higher boards from Richard and Nick not being available as much as in prior years. Nick secured 2 draws on top board from his 3 games and Richard had a win and a draw from his 2 matches. Karl and Bill filled in admirably with Bill playing 5 of the 6 matches and persistence paying off with a win at the last one at Urmston. Karl secured 2 wins from his 3 matches. The top points scorer and most successful player last season was Kurt who went through the season unbeaten finishing with 4 out of 5 points. David Hughes, Graham Bird and David Merrifield were the other people to appear during the summer with 3, 2 and 1 appearances respectively.
The 2008 season is now underway and with Chorlton 3 again opting out of promotion, the 6 teams competing in the league reverts to those playing in our 2006 championship year, with Rochdale again replacing Urmston.
Tony Lane
The meeting gave a big vote of thanks to all team captains
8 The club events organiser reported: The first event was the 5-minute tournament held at the beginning of January. With Christmas and New Year falling on Tuesdays, it was arranged for a Thursday night and I was delighted with the turnout, whereby a total of 22 people participated.
Karl, winning with a round to spare, dominated it, finishing with six out of six. A special mention for Edwin who did well in scoring 3.5 considering he had the misfortunate of playing black in the first 5 rounds!
The Club Championship followed, but rearranged league fixtures have resulted in both the Major and Premier still awaiting completion. The premier has one round to play, with finalisation of the draw to be made tonight, although three of the four pairings are pre-determined.
The Major has two rounds to go and due to the serious illness of John’s wife, his two games can be played once he has resumed playing chess without distraction. Apart from that, I am looking to complete the tournament by the end of August.
The Handicap was held at the end of May, which attracted about half of the membership. Again Karl won, but slipped up in only drawing with Kurt, although he did beat the two who finished second, namely Tom and myself.
Results to date mean Karl has won the Grand Prix and will win the treble if he avoids defeat against the defending champion in the final round of the Premier.
9 Karl was then presented with the trophies for the five minute competition and also the Grand Prix.
The meeting also noted the impressive Wahltuch Tropy which had been won by the Manchester league team!
10. Arrangements for 2006/2007
It was agreed that the club is will continue to run teams in the Manchester league, Stockport league (two teams), South East Lancashire Summer league and Trafford league.
The meeting endorsed a formal proposal that Thursday becomes the club’s evening for home matches in all leagues. Serious chess, such as internal club competition games can also be played on Thursday’s. Tuesday’s will remain the main club evening but this division also supports the proposed development of junior chess on Tuesday’s.
The meeting formally approved a proposal which allows those regularly driving to away matches (in particular – but not only – team captains) to in effect reclaim some or all of this against their annual membership (but not more than their membership). Making this claim is entirely up to the member concerned – some members are likely not to claim this. Equally members should feel fully entitled to claim this if they wish to.
11. Election of officers:
The following were elected as club officers:-
President: Tony Lane
Secretary: Tom Tomkins
Treasurer: Nick Lowe.
Manchester League team captain: Tony Lane.
Stockport League first team captain: Karl Lockett.
Stockport League second team captain: David Hughes.
SE Lancashire Summer League captain: Tony Lane.
Trafford League captain: Stephen Ward.
Club events organiser: Nick Lowe.
12. Any other business - None.
I have had comments or feedback about club arrangements from most of our on line members - with a very positive response all round. I also printed the proposal for the six members without e-mail contacts and by good chance, they were ALL at the club last Tuesday; the three who commented all considered the proposal to be a good idea.
So, while we should formally deal with it at the AGM, it is clear that this is the way for the club to move forward. In effect, Tuesday will continue to be the main club evening, where new members (including Juniors) will be welcome. Club competitions, such as the Lightning or Handicap will still be on Tuesdays. I would however want to pass on the concern from more than one member that we do ensure that we do retain the atmosphere of a chess club. While total silence will not be required, with discussion about games and a more social style being OK, it will still be the main club night.
As I see it, Thursday's will be the usual night for home league matches - certainly for Manchester league games. It may also be the choice for members playing club championship games, but will, I suggest, also be OK for other members to come along if they want to play under similar conditions.
More specific details regarding Trafford league and Stockport league arrangements probably need further discussion. Since 2007-08 league fixtures are almost complete and dates predetermined, the new arrangements will commence for the 2008-09 league season - possibly also including the 2008 Summer League...
Karl has come up with what seems like a great idea.
Our active membership continues to increase and on Tuesdays when there is even just one team match we now find ourselves close to running out of space. Also, at times the club gets a bit noisy and this can become a distraction to visiting teams (and our own players).
The suggestion is that we continue to meet on Tuesday's as the main club night, for example, continuing to encourage to come Juniors along, with a social atmosphere, discussion about games, etc.
Thursday would become our new evening for all home matches. It would probably also be OK for members to play their Club competition games, but it would be expected that there would be silence and the usual conditions for serious chess games at all times.
I checked with the Navigation and on Wednesday our room is in use for Bingo, but should otherwise be available. I would argue that Tuesday should continue to the main club night (as that is what we are used to) and Thursday for matches (assuming those who play in teams regularly are OK with this) ...rather than the other way round or considering other nights. I know that for some members, the proposed arrangement for home matches would be better to avoid clashing with football on TV!
This should probably be formally agreed at the AGM, but it would be good to get a consensus of all of our members now and agree it in principle in advance. If it is agreed, then we might want to confirm and start this arrangement for the South East Lancashire Summer League...(in which case we would need to advise the Leagues in good time).