The Southampton Chess League will hold its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 31st May 2023. It will be at our club’s venue, the Chandler’s Ford Central Club. The SCL AGM will start at 7:30pm.

SCL AGM

Southampton Chess League AGM, Wednesday 31st May 2023, 7.30pm, Chandlers Ford Central Club (2 Winchester Road, Chandlers Ford, Eastleigh, SO53 2FZ).

Agenda

1. Welcome Thanks to Chandlers Ford club for hosting us.
2. Apologies for absence Roger Marsh (Grading Officer), Stephen Cartridge (Andover)
3. Minutes of previous AGM (14 June 2022) and matters arising   The ‘missing’ Division 2 trophy was retrieved from the estate of Chris Priest (sadly, he passed away in December 2022).
4. Fixture Secretary report (Malcolm Clarke) – copied below
5. Secretary Report (Fraser McLeod) – the season ran smoothly aside from one ongoing complaint for discussion (see proposal 4)
6. Treasurer Report and League Subs (Michael Pope).
7. Website (Graham Stuart) – we propose to use the ECF League Management System (LMS). This is used by many leagues around the country . An added benefit, supported by Roger Marsh (Grading Officer), is that the LMS automatically sends results for rating, substantially reducing workload.
8. Rating – (for discussion of any rating-related issues)
9. Election of officers – The current officers – Fraser McLeod (Sec), Malcolm Clarke (Fixtures and Results Sec), Michael Pope (Treasurer and Vice-chair), Matthew Coldwell (Chair), Graham Stuart (Webmaster), Roger Marsh (Grading Officer) are willing to continue. 
10. Proposals
11. Planning for the next season. Tentatively place teams into divisions based on current structure, with promotions, and regarding expected numbers of teams and clubs’ preferred divisions. With only 5 teams in Division 1 this season, there may be no need for any relegations.
12. Presentation of trophies

	2022/23 winner	Previous season (2022)
Division 1	Fareham A	Fareham A
Division 2	Basingstoke A	Salisbury A
Division 3	Southampton B	Basingstoke A
Division 4	Chandlers Ford B	Fareham B
Division 5	Winchester C	Basingstoke C
Robertson Cup	Fareham A	Not held
Robertson Plate	Salisbury B	Not held
Individual	Tom Anderson	Not held

Important: All trophy holders should bring them to the AGM for presentation to this season’s winners. Basingstoke hold the Division 3 and 5 trophies – all other trophies are with the League Sec.  

13. Any other business

Fixture Secretary’s Report : Malcolm Clarke

This was my 33^rd season as a committee member of the Southampton Chess League and the 32^nd as a secretary. It was good to have a full season after the previous three years had seen one truncated season, one blank season and one half season due to Covid. The Robertson Cup and Plate which had not been competed for since 2019/20 and not completed since 2018/19 were reintroduced.

The five divisions were won respectively by Fareham A, Basingstoke A, Southampton B, Chandlers Ford B and Winchester C, meaning that for the first time I can remember the five divisions were won by five different clubs. Fareham also became the first club to win the Southampton and Portsmouth leagues in the same season. Salisbury became the sixth club to win a trophy this season when they won the Robertson Plate, while Fareham A completed the double when they also won the Robertson Cup.

All divisions ran with six teams, except for Division 1 which ran with five. No individual team remained unbeaten through the campaign and the only winless team drew two matches. In divisions 2, 3, 4 and 5 only one match was defaulted and it was good to see many clubs fulfilling long distance away trips even when it was difficult to have a full complement of players available for the trip.

At last year’s AGM new rules were introduced to the Robertson Cup/Plate which meant that the Plate was for clubs in division 3 and below who were not a club’s first team, with no overlap of players between the two competitions. Although the motion was comfortably agreed at the AGM I did have some concerns. Two clubs with a team in the lower three divisions that was not their club’s first team played no part in the Plate and I was involved in a lot of dialogue with other clubs to check whether they had the resources to enter both Cup and Plate. As things stood, I thought that some teams in the Plate might struggle to keep players eligible to play in the bottom three divisions in league games available for the Plate, while it was still possible for regular Division 1 players to play in the Plate providing they were not nominated to play in Division 1.

For the draws in both Cup and Plate I tried to regionalise the early draws and for the Cup I generally tried to apply the idea of seeding.

Team captains are permitted to act as arbiters, but I think it may be worth clarifying what they can or cannot do in that role.

Matthew Coldwell took over as chairman, while his fellow Salisbury player Michael Pope took on the roles of vice chairman and Treasurer. It is good to see new blood on the committee, alongside long-serving secretary Fraser McLeod. In addition, Graham Stuart has taken on the role of Webmaster. Sadly, Chris Priest, who was a long-serving member of the committee, died during the season.

During the season Andover switched from Wednesday night to Tuesday night, although that change was not known when compiling the fixtures, but it will be noted for next season. The fixtures are always a challenge with University teams being unable to play during certain periods of the season, other clubs being unable to play on certain dates, and some clubs being unable to play more than one home match on the same evening. The need to avoid consecutive teams of the same club playing on the same night and some clubs playing in other leagues means that compiling fixtures can be challenging, but I do not think that too many fixtures have required rearranging.

Results continue to be entered on the SCL website soon after matches are played which represents a good service, especially with the Southern Daily Echo no longer publishing results on a daily basis.

Malcolm Clarke

20^th May 2023