A number of directors have confirmed that they intend either not to stand for re-election at October’s AGM or to step down before the end of their three-year term at this April’s Council meeting. The directors in question are:
Mike Truran (Chief Executive)
Alex Longson (Finance Director)
Nigel Towers (Home Director)
Alex Holowczak (Junior Director)
I’m sure you’ll all join me in recognising the contribution that the departing directors have made to the ECF over the years and their role in making the ECF what it is today. They will be sorely missed, and will be hard acts to follow.
While the large number of key people stepping down creates challenges, it has given the Board the opportunity to review and reorganise our future Board structure – the main purposes being to (a) spread the Board’s workload more evenly across the directorate as a whole, and (b) put in place a clearer distinction between operational and developmental roles. The reorganisation involves the creation of a number of new posts, details of which can be found in the new ‘Regulation 2: The Directors and Officers Responsibilities Regulations’ document: https://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Regulation-No.-2-The-Directors-and-Officers-Responsibilities-Regulations.pdf . We believe that this will position the Board well to continue the progress and development of the last ten years, and provide an attractive opportunity for talented and committed people to join the Board and share in the ECF’s future success.
All the director posts that we are seeking to fill will of course be subject to this October Council’s usual election process. In the meantime, however, we have a number of interim roles to fill before we get to October, and so we would like to hear from people who are interested in filling those roles in the short term and who are, we hope, willing to stand for formal election in October.
The roles we would like to fill are as follows. Job descriptions for all the roles can be found in the Regulation 2 document above:
Chief Executive
Finance Director
Events Director
Operations and Administration Director
Home Development Director
Junior Development Director
If you’re interested in being considered, do please contact the ECF Office on office@englishchess.org.uk by Sunday 6th April in the first instance to arrange an informal and confidential chat with me.
Finally, Rob Willmoth has kindly agreed to step down as Membership Director once the vacancies above have been filled, as the responsibilities of the Membership directorate have been subsumed within other directorates as part of the Board reorganisation. Our thanks also go to Rob for his contribution to the ECF during his time in office.
Stephen Woodhouse
Chair, English Chess Federation