LCU AGM and motions

cdeb

The AGM is on 13th June, and the motions are now available. We've used the forums here to discuss in the past few years, so may as well put them up again -



8.1 Proposed by Elm Mount
That from 2018 onwards, match points be used instead of game points for the group stages of the Branagan Cup, Killane Shield and William Brennan tournaments with game point only applying in the event of a tie.
(Rationale for this motion is that teams who lose in the early rounds of the group phase may field weakened teams in later rounds of matches thus giving their later opponents a potential advantage over teams they played earlier
in the tournament. Match points would mitigate the potential effects of this.)

8.2 Proposed by St Benildus
That rule 1.1 of the of the cup rules be changed as follows: The Branagan and Killane competitions are run as group tournaments with the winner/runner up of each group qualifying for the knockout round, while the William Brennan competition is run as a straight knock out tournament from the first round.

8.3 Proposed by St Benildus
And that the definition of 'eligible players' be changed as follows:
Eligible players are those players who -
Have played in either Division 1 or 2 of the Leinster Leagues of the current season(Branagan Cup only)
Have played in Division 3 or lower in the current season (William Brennan and Killane)
Have played in the Leinster Leagues during the current season
Be a current member of the ICU and
Have not already played for another club's team in any of the competitions.

8.4 Proposed by St Benildus
That rule 9.3 be added as follows:
Clubs who return trophies having failed to arrange the relevant engraving shall be fined 30 euro, such sum payable with league fees for the following season and such funds to be used by the LCU to reimburse future winners of the trophy for the costs
of bringing the engraving up to date.

8.5 Proposed by St Benildus
That round 6 of the Armstrong be played before Christmas, to allow the league to conclude and the cups to start earlier thanat present.

8.6 Proposed by the LCU Executive
That Ennis be included in part 'a' of Rule 7.3

8.7 Proposed by the LCU EXecutive
That the eligibility rules for cup competitions be included in the cup rules.

*****
An addendum is being issued as one further motion was left off the circulated list -

8.8 Proposed by St Benildus
That all divisions from the BEA down be changed to 24 teams, composed of two groups split on a geographic north/south basis.

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Nominations for elections

The LCU Executive support the nominations of Edward Durkan (Chairman); Arthur McSwiney (HonorarySecretary); Gordon Freeman (Honorary Treasurer);Tristan Sheridan (Leagues Controller); Maura Osborne (Junior Chess Officer) and will welcome nominations from the meeting. At Present there are no nominations for Vice Chairman, Tournaments Controller, Webmaster, Junior Chess Development Officer.

cdeb

A few initial thoughts to get the ball rolling -

8.1 Really dislike the proliferation of match points over game points, but there's maybe an argument for it in four-team groups.

8.2 I think the Brennan and the Killane are too similar to be honest. A couple of times before, the idea of changing the Killane back to knock-out (as it used to be) was proposed, but it was defeated. But with two cups, which are very similar at present, there's the option of making one be a knock-out and one be a group-stage competition, to give players the choice of which they'd rather play in.

8.3 is intended to be part of 8.2 - the idea being that if the Brennan goes to knock-out, it's for all players in the Ennis down.

8.4 the Heidenfeld hasn't been engraved for five of the last six seasons. The O'Hanlon is missing some recent names too. Seems a shame that clubs aren't bothered adding their name to their trophy while they have it. We could have brought the Heidenfeld up-to-date while engraving it this year, but it would have cost us more money than the club could really afford (and why should we pay anyway?) So hand back the trophy unengraved, you get slapped with a fine, and the LCU reimburse the next winner the cost of bringing the trophy up to date.

8.5 is apparently quite awkward, although that's strange when you consider that the last Armstrong game before Christmas was 22nd November.

8.6 - this moves the Ennis to Armstrong/Heidenfeld time controls. I presume this is to do with it being FIDE rated?

8.7 - I guess this is just tidying things up; the eligibility is currently included in "Definitions"

8.8 - There's two ideas behind this motion -

(a) The leagues are growing quite quickly (up from 66 teams ten years ago to 90 in the year just gone, for example), and there's no reason they won't continue to grow. We may need a Div 8 in a couple of years - and then you could have a new, and good, team coming in at that level and having to play in the leagues for a few years just to get to their proper level (look at Gonzaga, Blanch, Kilkenny, Lopez, Gorey, Enniscorthy, etc, in recent years). But by flattening out the bottom of the league structure, teams would rise up the divisions that bit quicker

(b) Regionalising the divisions may make them more attractive to junior players in particular, ruling out long away trips on a weeknight. Matches like Skerries v St Benildus on a Tuesday/Wednesday night can be a hard sell for a new junior and their parents! But there's a handy north/south split in Leinster anyway, which should be taken advantage of here.

So say the rule were to come into operation for the coming season (which obviously it can't; this is just an example), then I would think the 24 teams in the BEA would be 11/12 in the O'Hanlon, 3-10 in the BEA, 1-10 in the Bodley and 1-2 in each of the O'Sullivan groups. That leaves the Bodley as 11/12 in the BEA, 11/12 in the Bodley and all the remaining O'Sullivan teams.

On last year's league standings, that would give divisions as follows -

BEA North
Aer Lingus
Balbriggan
Drogheda
Dublin
Elm Mount A
Elm Mount B
Finglas
Malahide
Naomh Barr?g A
Naomh Barr?g B
Phibsboro
Portmarnock

BEA South
Bray/Greystones A
Bray/Greystones B
D?n Laoghaire
Enniscorthy
Gonzaga A
Gonzaga B
Inchicore
Kilkenny
Rathmines
St Benildus
UCD A
UCD B

Bodley North
Blanchardstown
Celbridge
Curragh
Malahide A
Malahide B
Malahide C
Naomh Barr?g
Phibsboro
Skerries

Bodley South
Bray/Greystones
Gorey
Inchicore
Kilkenny A
Kilkenny B
Rathmines A
Rathmines B
St Benildus A
St Benildus B

I'd suggest a play-off to decide the two promotion spots from the BEA (as used to happen before) - the top two go through, keep their score against the one team from their group, and play against the other two teams, with game points deciding the two promoted teams.

I think those divisions are much better than the current ones, and would help encourage more players to play. Some of the central clubs could get caught in the middle - like Dublin being in the BEA North above - but I think the split will never be exactly perfect.

Vampslayer

Didn't get to go to the Agm. Any changes or rules updated that we need to know about?

cdeb

On the Cups, 8.1 passed I think, but 8.2/8.3 failed - so no knock-out Cups, but match-points rather than game points are coming in. That's all pending the usual review of the Cup format in light of low numbers. There was a general discussion on the point of the William Brennan, and whether it was too close in format to the Killane; the Cups review will cover that too.

8.4 passed - so get engraving!

8.5 passed where possible - the Armstrong ends earlier than the other leagues because it starts earlier. Another round could be played before Christmas, but then there's the risk of clubs having too many home games at the same time. So the committee will try get round 6 of the Armstrong on before Christmas, but it's unlikely.

8.6 passed - change to the Ennis time control, which was informally adopted this year anyway.

8.7 passed I think?

8.8 and 8.9 passed pending checking the software format can handle it, but all looks ok. So that'd mean regionalised BEA/Bodley from 2018/19, with adjusting promotion/relegation in the coming season. This is probably the biggest change.

Vampslayer

Thanks for that. Cheers!

cdeb

One other item I forgot actually - the idea of a rapidplay league was suggested and will be investigated by the committee. The rough idea might be that groups of four are drawn, and all group games take place in one club on one night - so there would be four teams in the club on the one night. Teams of 6 (or whatever suits), and say 20 minutes per game. You'd get the whole group done in one night, and there may be a couple of groups held around the province, and then you move onto the knock-outs.

Not sure how country teams would fit in there - if there was one country team in a group, the whole thing would need to be on a Saturday. But still, an interesting idea I think.