David Hulme stood down as Chairman because of his ill health over the past months.
Robert Milner stood down as General Secretary after 40 years of service, for which he was given a huge vote of thanks. However, he has not been lost to the Association as he was subsequently unanimously elected as our new Chairman.
Robert West of Fenton was unanimously elected as our new General Secretary.
All other incumbent Officers and Officials were re-elected en bloc.
I gave a brief talk on the new ECF League Management System and how we would be using it this season. All Team Captains will be given access to it before the end of the year so that they can enter results directly, rather than having to email them. Team Captains from Crewe, Alsager and Newcastle will be the first people to use the system for entering results from the South Cheshire Shield. It was emphasised that we would NOT be using those parts of the system for generating grading files or generating fixtures. Obviously this might be something that we might want to look into in the future but now is not an appropriate time.
Peter Evans, the NSDCA Treasurer, announced that fees for the season would be set at £8 per 5 board team and £6 per 4 board team. On top of this would be the County precept. This is dependent on the number of active members in your club, with a fee of £1 per active member, but capped at a total of £30. Alsager, Crewe, Holmes Chapel and Macclesfield are exempt from this precept as they are outside the County boundaries. However, if any of these clubs wished to enter any of the Staffordshire County Cups they would be required to pay a £5 entry fee. Clubs paying the County precept would not be required to pay to enter any of the County Cups.
Next year's AGM provisionally set for 9th July at Meir Chess Club.
Next year's AGM provisionally set for 9th July at Meir Chess Club.
Apart from this there was very little to be discussed and the Meeting ended unusually early at 9:25.