Here is a sumary of the decisions made at the LDCL meeting held last night.

If all goes to plan it is hoped to get the League up and running in September.

 

As a club, we are also hoping to re-start our Club nights at Foundation House during August.

To this end, please ensure that before September you are a member of the ECF if you are going to play in the League.

 

There will be a Stratford AGM before we meet again in August. (This may be online or in person, depending on Government restrictions).

This will discuss matters relating to Team selection, subscriptions and committee members, etc.  When notified of the date please try to attend as it is your club and any decisions made will affect you.

 

One final note. The Summer online Swiss tournament will be starting in June. Do let me know if you want to take part. It is a great opportunity to get your chess mind back up and running, and to interact with other club members. The more members that take part, the better the competition will be. Help with setting up a chess.com account can be given if you haven't already got one. It's free and very easy to use.

 

 

 

To summarise what was agreed:

 

 

- We will look to get the LDCL 21/22 underway in September, if the national situation allows. As things stand, we have every reason to be positive.

- Assuming going ahead is possible, we will of course do so in accordance with whatever the rules/ ECF guidance happen to be in the autumn.

- We recognised that all venues are also likely to have their own bespoke rules and we agreed we would look to share details of these on the LDCL website before the resumption, such that clubs would know what to expect in each venue. (While also noting that restrictions are likely to be lighter than today, if the current Government road map holds.)

 

 

-  All clubs provided indicative entries last night and we will be able to run four Divisions. We can take a lot of heart from this. 

-  We need to ascertain Leamington's initial entries and there is an action on all clubs to reconfirm the number of teams they want to enter in early August, so that Steve can do the fixtures.

- We agreed we would run the season for real, including cup and individual KOs. 

 

- It was recognised that more flexibility would really help teams next season. I have taken an action with Gordon to review our rules around notice to postpone games/ ability to play in more than one team (and while we didn't mention it explicitly last night, we will also think about how the registration scheme best reflects this too.) All with a view to making it easier for teams to flex their squads. I would envisage any changes being put in place for a single season, prior to further review. 

- We agreed it was impossible to determine at this time what we might do if we start the League and circumstances change and we then have to stop again. Instead we will deal with this as and when, if we have to.

 

- It was noted that many juniors will have significantly grown in strength during lockdown and hence their "current" OTB grades will be very out of date. There is already extra flexibility in our rules as to where juniors play, but again I'll look with Gordon to put something forward that ensures juniors can play on the board that is consistent with their post-lockdown strength.

- We will convert all our competitions (U-700 etc) to the new four digit ECF grades and will advise as to the conversions.

- Gordon, Steve and Mike will also take a decision as to whether we adopt the new LMS system, which would certainly save the grader some work!

 

- It was noted that this is scheduled to take place in Leamington, in July. (Entries are not being taken yet.) If it does go ahead, we agreed we would try and give it some publicity and encourage people to play. It could be a great way of easing back to the board.

 

- We highlighted that entries were open for this and we would be grateful if clubs would spread the word. We also reconfirmed that we would not run online League events in the autumn, if OTB does indeed prove to be possible, as we all hope.