When the CFC AGM takes place, who will be running for the Executive offices? Will the current executive be running for office? What about new candidates?
Printable View
When the CFC AGM takes place, who will be running for the Executive offices? Will the current executive be running for office? What about new candidates?
If the number of reply to this thread represent the reality, I will soon be acclaimed President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, FIDE representative, Youth Coordinator... :rolleyes:
We should modify the CFC Constitution to force the incumbents to declare there intention at date X and all others and date Y with Y coming after X and Y at least one month before the AGM.
It is a basic rule of democracy that the elector know who is running. We all know that Mulcair, Trudeau and Harper are standing. Why can't we know for the CFC?
There is time for nominations, time for discussions, and voting. Don't make it a farce. Are you wishing for advertisement like Mulcair, Trudeau and Harper do too?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre Dénommée
At the moment I am thinking that I will run again for president but that could change. It is a bit early for the campaign to start.
The time for nominations is too short. When the CFC moved from an in person AGM to an electronic AGM, the nomination period remained the same. As a comparison, FQE nominations ends the first Tuesday of June for an election in July leaving plenty of time for the campaign.Quote:
Originally Posted by Egidijus Zeromskis
Candidates who are not Incoming cannot post on the discussion area of the CFC board. Consequently, there may be no real discussion. Previously, non Incoming candidates could address the assembly when it was in person. It is an unfortunate consequence of computerization that non Incoming Candidates are at a great disadvantage because they cannot address the voting members directly.
No serious organization accepts last minute Candidates. There is noting unusual in seeking a modification of CFC policies so that candidates get nominated now instead as on the incoming AGM day.
I am interested in remaining on the Board of Directors, but possibly in a different position. I would be pleased to have a private discussion with anybody who might be interested in serving as CFC Treasurer.
It seems that nobody will be standing.
I am willing to stand for President, Treasurer, Tournament Coordinator and National Appeal Committee member.
I am also willing to stand as a Quebec Voting Member.
I have posted your candidacy on the relevant meeting forum.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre Dénommée
One question: What relationship is there between you and Nathalie Langlois?
None! This person is totally unknown to me. I have never worked or attended school with this person. No volunteer of this name is known in over 5 non-profit boards of directors on which I have served.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec
Thank you!Quote:
Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec
How about Vice President?
Only if there is no other serious nomination. I do not believe that it is a sound strategy to stand for every possible positions. The last person who did that at an FQE election has been defeated 5 times. Under the previous in person CFC procedure, nomination for vice-president were not closed until after the election of the president. Candidate for vice-president do know who will be president before standing which was an advantage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Garland Best
Could you please make sure that I am properly nominated? I have looked at the incoming meeting and I do not see my nominations.
Michael has made it official for the Appeals Committee. I saw Vlad submit your name for the other positions in one thread. i will follow up regarding the others.
There now appears to be several nominees for Vice President, so I will not submit your name.
Vlad clearly posted "My ruling is that Pierre can run for the posts of President, Treasurer and National Appeal Committee member and I will nominate him for these in order to fulfill the requirements. I believe that outsiders who are CFC regular members or Life Members should be allowed to run for any CFC office. There is no tournament coordinator election scheduled so he cannot run for that office."
So that's that.
I agree with almost all your post except for the Tournament Coordinator.
We should be voting for Tournament Coordinator. The changes to the bylaws required for the abolition of this office has not been approved by the outgoing assembly. The change is thus automatically repelled as well as all the changes voted during the last year.
If you vote for me, there will be no more of this kind of omission. Approval of bylaw changes must be on the outgoing agenda as a routine precaution even if nothing has changed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by "NFP act"
Okay, very good. I will not mention this again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre Dénommée
It has been written in the incoming AGM that training of arbiters and organisers is almost impossible.
It has now become simple due to the availability of Free Software that can be used to automate the task. I was testing this simple LTD test section when I realized that the LTD has been abolished. I disagree with this abolition.
I agree that training arbiters and organisers should be separated from generating bids for national tournaments.
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...psktlsziog.png
Is there a link to this software?
Way back when, we had the Tournament Director & Organizer Certification Program (TDOCP). We had an actual test, but again long time ago.
Again, volunteer work is needed, but a simple 20 question test could be designed along with some on the job experience under the eye of a CTD should get someone certified.
I setup the software under Ubuntu Server running in a virtual box.
The software deliberately has very stringent requirements designed to make it hard to run it in a shared host. My ISP does not permit me to make my home computer available over the net otherwise I would simply open my port 80.
I have checked again and it can be put on shared hosting so I will set it up. This will take some time.
We have to be more comprehensive then that. Objective questions are automatically marked by the software without any human intervention. I could easily make those questions. The software uses a questions bank that can contains many more questions then what is required. This is important in case a candidate has to redo the test. Nobody should take twice the same test but some question will always repeat.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred McKim
Despite the software, a human eye should check each test for gross errors. An applicant in France has been failed despite an above 80% grade because he did not know that: the game is lost if the time limit has been exceeded, improperly supervised blitz and rapidplay use different rules, touching pieces outside of the chessboard does not force the player to promote to this piece and one more atrocity that I have forgotten. The software can give negative grade to some answers, this could help.
There should be 4 level with roughly the following content
Level 1 Basic rules and Basic administrative skills (tiebreak, price sharing, round robin pairings...)
Level 2 Swiss paring, bring your laptop and a FIDE endorsed pairing software.
Level 3 FIDE tournaments, FIDE rating, FIDE Norm
Level 4, experience in national tournaments
We should completely redo the handbook. The parts that come from FIDE should be transferred elsewhere. FIDE already has an arbiter's manual so we only need to do something for arbiters in French. I have translated many texts but the FQE is slow in publishing them.
We should use LibreOffice and a master document with a separate file for each chapter. That make it possible to assign each chapter to a suitable volunteer.
The Handbook has to be renumbered in the style of the FIDE Handbook. Introducing a new article or deleting an existing article should not have any renumbering effect outside of the current chapter.
The software is online at http://echecsmontreal.org/ArbiterCertification I am translating the sample questions and I will issue password for access.
Check your private messages. I have sent you the link and your user name and password.Quote:
Originally Posted by Garland Best
I did those question very quickly
The practice quiz has no restriction on the number of times it can be taken and it displays feedback about the answer, two features that will be disabled on the real test site.
Got it. Thanks. I'll play on the weekend.
Regarding redoing the CFC Handbook, I think renaming/reinventing the position of 'Past President' may be one obvious (if not the first) thing that should be done, now that the position is always to be filled by election rather than by the previous serving CFC president if he accepts. Don't know if the CFC would be required to pay the federal government for any paperwork that might be required of it, though.
I gave some slight thought to putting my name forward for nomination for the post, if only to have the experience of being on the CFC Board of Directors (and on its private message board), without having any specific duties (as far as I can tell). However, CFC Directors all have collective duties that are spelled out in the CFC Handbook, so besides only having a very slight interest, I feared being assigned a workload perhaps beyond any time or capabilities I might have, should I have been nominated and elected (made more problematic by my not currently being a voting member). At any rate, I am content to still field the odd email sent to me until the CFC formally fills the coordinator position I no longer formally fill for obtaining Canadian chess instructors' names to be listed on the CFC website.
[edit: perhaps the position of Past President might be replaced by Rating Auditor, which used to be included on the Board of Directors.]
There are two type of CFC non Executive officers : those who grant the office holder a Voting Membre at Large status and those who don't. As correctly stated by the President in the AGM, the CFC Executive can create new Offices without modifying the Act of Incorporation ($$$) or the Bylaws (free) but only type 2 offices. Type one office, those who grant a Voting Member status must be in the ByLaws or in the Act of Incorporation and do require the permission of the Voting Members in order to exist. In my opinion, deliberately failing to nominate persons to a type one office is wrong because it reduce the number of voting members. Those offices are: Rating Auditor, Director of Fundraising, Director of Publicity and Tournament Coordinator.
I do not believe you are correct on that. There is little interest in creating new offices but that does not mean we couldn't if a suitable candidate presented themselves. Both the NFP act and our bylaws allow the board to create offices which further the purposes of the corporation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre Dénommée
The following two excerpts from our bylaws contradict your understanding of the situation. If I didn't have to write closing addresses I could show you in the NFP act where there are provisions consistent with this.
Membership Conditions
The board of directors of the Corporation may, by resolution, approve the admission of the members of the Corporation. Members may also be admitted in such other manner as may be prescribed by the board by resolution.
Appointment of Officers
The board may designate the offices of the Corporation, appoint officers on an annual or more frequent basis, specify their duties and, subject to the Act, delegate to such officers the power to manage the affairs of the Corporation. A director may be appointed to any office of the Corporation. An officer may, but need not be, a director unless these by-laws otherwise provide. Two or more offices may be held by the same person.
You are simply incorrect on this.Quote:
Type one office, those who grant a Voting Member status must be in the ByLaws or in the Act of Incorporation and do require the permission of the Voting Members in order to exist. In my opinion, deliberately failing to nominate persons to a type one office is wrong because it reduce the number of voting members. Those offices are: Rating Auditor, Director of Fundraising, Director of Publicity and Tournament Coordinator.
I'm incorrect but I am sad. Your citation is from the unpublished Article of Incorporation. I am sad because it means that the Directors could create 200 new voting members at will and take total control of the CFC. I am not suggesting that the current Executive is dishonest, just that this is a very dangerous loophole that could be abused by less scrupulous directors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec
We should only elect scrupulous directors. Unscrupulous directors can be removed by the voting members or the other directors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre Dénommée
Standard of Care
Directors and officers are required to exercise at least the level of care, diligence and skill that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in comparable circumstances. They are also required to act honestly, in good faith and in the best interests of the corporation, rather than in their own personal interest. This is known as an objective standard of care.Footnote 41 In other words, when a court must determine whether a director or officer has breached his or her duty to the corporation, it will test the person’s actions against those of a reasonably prudent person.
Appointing 200 voting members would no doubt violate that standard.
General Duties of the Board of Directors
The board of directors is accountable to the members. It is responsible for managing, and supervising the activities and affairs of the corporation. Generally, the directors are elected by the members, and the members are admitted by the board (in accordance with the articles and conditions set out in the by-laws).
The board may appoint one of its members to act as a managing director or a number of directors to act as a committee of directors. It can then delegate to the managing director or the committee any of the powers of the directors.Footnote 1 Directors are not, in that capacity, trustees for any property of the corporation, including property held in trust by the corporation.Footnote 2 See Responsibilities and Liabilities of Directors and Officers.
If it is a loophole it is a loophole in the law associated with the NFP act. This is how non profit corporations are to be governed in Canada.
The Act is very complex there are committee of directors, committee of members. Advisory committee is not mentioned in the Act because it lacks authority.
21. (1) A corporation shall prepare and maintain, at its registered office or at any other place in Canada designated by the directors, records containing
(a) the articles and the by-laws, and amendments to them, and a copy of any unanimous member agreement;
(b) the minutes of meetings of members and any committee of members;
There is almost nothing in the Act about committee of members. A slide show that I have already referred to mentioned that authority may be given to those committees. This is not clear from the Act and it is a Lawyer interpretation.
The CFC has at least 3 Committee of members which are elected directly by the Voting Members. Kalev Pungi Fund, Chess Federation of Canada trustee and the NAC. Each has his own authority and answer ultimately to the Voting Members.
The CFC has at least four standing committees: TDOCP, Olympic, Youth and Ethics. Are those were approved by the voting members.
This covers all committees except committee of members https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cilp-p...g/cl00695.html
Committee terms of reference should always provide for, at a minimum, the following elements:
chair (how selected);
composition (size and how selected);
reporting responsibility (to whom and when);
mandate (scope of authority);
nature of authority (report, recommend, act); and,
resource and/or staff support.
Most of our standing committees are in violation of those minimal IC requirements. The members committees are much better. Because they have always operated outside of the Directors' authority, their mandate are very clear.
We keep the articles and bylaws on the website, in the forums and also there should be a physical copy in the office. In addition it should be available somewhere on a government website.
Does that lawyer say that the liability devolves to the members of the committee? If not, I can't see much enthusiasm for giving up authority while retaining liability for the exercise of that authority by the committee members.
Quote:
The CFC has at least four standing committees: TDOCP, Olympic, Youth and Ethics.
None of the committees that you mention are standing at the moment.
The record of the meetings serve as the minutes of the meeting.
From the same article you cited which outlines the government policy on advisory committees:
Advisory committees have no power to act on behalf of the corporation. Such committees are sometimes established to give an organization credibility or as a tool for fundraising. Sometimes they are struck to create a pool of technical expertise from which staff may draw in carrying out the organization's activities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec
From the same Industry Canada source.
Adequate insurance coverage should always be in place to protect committee members - including those who are not board members - from any liability that may arise from bona fide committee decisions or actions. Indemnification provisions in the articles of incorporation or bylaws should also contemplate protection against actions arising from committee work.
Just as a point, from a legal standpoint, "should" does not mean it is legally required. It is good advice on best practices. One has to consider the cost/risk benefits involved here. As an example, suppose the Foundation Trustees invested heavily in the oil sector one year ago, resulting in a loss of 50% of the fund. MAYBE someone could attempt to sue the trustees for lack or foresight, but I doubt it. And I believe that the possible maximum damage could not exceed the material losses of the investment. And i think it would be thrown out of court. So insurance for that group seems overkill.
More appropriate would be insurance for the WYCC delegation, as any group delegation of that nature has to be critically sensitive to the possibility of child predators. So there insurance as well as protocols to vet adults (ie: police screening) would be practically mandatory. Just ask Scouts Canada.
Nice point! The insurance to which we are referring is the errors an omissions insurance for those who takes decisions. The Quebec Government pays this insurance for all Federations and I believe that the Federal Government should do the same for national Federations. Failure to pay income tax, to perform deduction on salary or to pay GST are not covered .Quote:
Originally Posted by Garland Best
For child predators, I would not want to be the person saying to a mother : "I am sorry, a predator have kidnapped your daughter, but don't worry, we are insured".