Welsh Correspondence Chess Federation

Russell Sherwood  Saturday, December 8, 2018

89 new games this month with a few interesting highlights:

Gareth Yeo adding draws against a GM, SIM and IM!

Russell Sherwood completing the longest Welsh CC game in ICCF History!

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Austin Lockwood  Wednesday, December 5, 2018

It is with our deepest sorrow that WCCF announce the death of Bill Flew, who sadly passed away on 3rd December.  Our thoughts are with his family.

A memorial tournament will be organised in due course.

Austin Lockwood  Wednesday, November 28, 2018

On Sunday, WCCF voted to adopt a completely new model of membership.

The former model gave a vote to affiliated "member organisations", but none to individual players; this worked well when the federation launched in 2012, however as the number of active players has continued to expand, it has become clear that the membership model was out of date and far from democratic.  Nothing illustrated this more than the fact that of eight players attending the AGM, only two held voting cards.

We have now moved to individual membership.

This website will be updated over the coming weeks to reflect this change, and the minutes of the meeting published shortly, but essentially we now have three types of membership:

National Members: National members are any player who plays under the Welsh flag, and just wants to get on with playing chess.  National membership is free and gives members access to international ICCF tournaments and most Welsh national tournaments, however national members do not have a vote and neither can they hold office in the federation.

Premium Members: Premium members pay a small annual subscription (£5.00) to support the federation, they can vote at meetings and they can also hold office.  WCCF may organise touraments to which only Premium members may enter, or there may be a differential entry fee in favour of premium members.  Nominations to invitational events, or to the WCCC cycle, may be limited to premium members.

International Members: International membership is open to players who play under any flag other than the flag of Wales in ICCF, annual international membership costs £10.00; we are planning a series of open tournaments, which our international members will be able to compete in.

All members will have access to restricted areas of the website.

Premium and International membership for 2019 is now open; just log onto the website with your usual ICCF credentials, and follow the "My Membership" link from the dropdown at the top right.

Austin Lockwood  Wednesday, November 21, 2018

On Sunday, the WCCF AGM will vote on the adoption of a new constitution; if accepted, this will represent a significant change in the way that the organisation is managed and our players represented, both nationally and internationally.

WCCF has its roots in the former British Postal Chess Federation (BPCF), later called the British Federation for Correspondence Chess (BFCC). When BPCF was formed in the 1960s, correspondence chess in the UK was rather splintered, with several different organisations competing for players. In order for Great Britain to be represented in ICCF, it was neccessary to form a "parent" organisation so that each of these separate clubs could be represented. Unlike many national CC organisations, the members of BPFC were organisations rather than individuals.

WCCF emerged from (what was by then) BFCC in 2012, and retained the same membership structure and many of the same member organisations; this structure worked well in the early days when there were few active players and we received a great deal of support from our member organisations. However, the democratic validity of this model has some significant deficiencies, and we should now seriously question whether or not it best represents our players.

1. As we only have a small number of member organisations (currently five), and in the modern era of international online correspondence chess, it's very unlikely that new national correspondence clubs will emerge; under the current system there can never be more than five votes cast for any particular motion.
2. Because there is only room for a small number of voting members, the pool of available officials is small, and engaging new volunteers is a thankless task. We wish to avoid the possibility of a small number of members voting each other into office in perpetuity by ensuring that the pool of voting members is significantly larger than the pool of prospective candidates.
3. In order to have any form of representation in WCCF, currently it is necessary for a player to be a member of one of the member organisations, and even then, representation is not guaranteed and is dependent upon the democratic rights within that organisation.

This model is out of date, and undemocratic in the modern age; the proposed new constitution seeks to empower and enfranchise all Welsh players as individual members of WCCF.

Any Welsh player or representative of a current member organisation interested in this issue is cordially invited to attend the WCCF AGM on Sunday 25th November at the Premier Inn, Cardiff City Centre (Meeting Room One), 10 Churchill Way, Cardiff. The agenda and proposed new constitution are attached to the announcement below.

Austin Lockwood  Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Please find attached the agenda for the 2018 WCCF Annual General Meeting, to be held on Sunday 25th November at the Premier Inn, Cardiff City Centre (Meeting Room One), 10 Churchill Way, Cardiff.

Any player wishing to attend should inform the secretary ([email protected]); some of us will be going out for a meal after the meeting, please let me know if you wish to join us!

Please send nominations for EC positions and items for discussion under other buisness in advance of the meeting.

(Update - an updated version of the proposed consitution was uploaded on 11/11/2018)

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Updated Sunday, November 11, 2018 by Austin Lockwood

Russell Sherwood  Thursday, November 8, 2018

To All Welsh players involved in teams in these events:

The starts have been delayed due to a technical issue and will commence as soon as possible. More details as we receive them!

Russell Sherwood  Thursday, November 8, 2018

Congratulations to Adam Davies on picking up a CCM Norm in WCCC41PR01

Russell Sherwood  Sunday, November 4, 2018

Welshbase has been updated with 94 new games. A fairly quiet month, although 7 new draws against IM and 5 against SIM

Standout game for the month is a gem from Mark Adams shown below

Russell Sherwood  Thursday, November 1, 2018

We are always pleased to welcome players into the "GM Club". Here we have Paul Scott's first result against Matjaz Pirs!

What is nice to see is the level of moves not directly anticipated by engines!