some basis in research and feedback, as opposed to an idea based on hope and/or expectation. The idea is based on whether we can get a better venue for the same or less money. It appears to be a misinterpretation of rule D3.1, the penultimate sentence of which says: "These dates may be varied by the Director of Home Chess not later than 31st October in each season and shall be notified within 7 days to Union Controllers." That last bit doesn't seem to allow more than a week to find and confirm new dates. And the formal notice is a bit late (posted on 5th November 2012 - does it indicate that the notice of variation needs to be provided within 7 days, or the notice of the new dates provided within 7 days?). In practice, it should all work out, but if there are problems then that may indicate why this rule was brought in originally (presumably to avoid problems caused by late changes to the dates). My interpretation would be that if the dates are to be varied, then the new dates should be sorted and an announcement made before 31st October (or by a week after that at the latest), not that you have to pull the date by 31st October and then try and sort something out with an open-ended timetable after that. The notice was sent to Unions on 31st October, but couldn't immediately be published on the website as the webmaster was/is on