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Thread: 4.1 Nomination of Candidates for President

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Craft View Post
    Are these threads designed simply for nominations and the outline of a candidates platform or are they designed for debate between the candidates and their supporters? As a candidate for VP, the answer is important to me. I'm posting the question in this thread since it seems to have the most lively exchanges. Would the Secretary be the best to comment on my question?
    It would seem that any discussion for a particular position is taking place in the nomination thread. I think this is probably wise, we have enough threads.

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    Fred beat me to it but I agree with him. We do need discussion and we do already have enough threads. LC

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sasha Starr View Post
    This is from one of the posts on the Chess Talk:

    Vlad did do a good job in his first term, both Sid and Sasha have recognized him for the NFP work. But that was then and this is now. And right now, we have Vlad prostituting the CFC for the highest return, and then insulting and throwing away the person who has come through in the past with no strings attached.
    The offers from the two campaigns were deemed equivalent. The demeanor and behaviour of the two campaigns towards Canada could not be more different. The Kasparov campaign was rude, demanding and pushy.

    This for someone who has NEVER come through in the past
    He certainly came through to preserve and save FIDE when all Garry was trying to do was to destroy it.

    You violated the confidentiality of the governors board more than once. You don't seem to be able to read. The only one guilty of lying in this campaign is you and your Kasparov cronies. You make promises that your lawyer will fix everything and Nava will keep the books. That sounds like you don't even realize that there is a treasurer and executive director that are charged with that job and lawyers usually expect to get paid for such undertakings.
    Last edited by Vladimir Drkulec; 07-07-2014 at 08:05 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec View Post
    The offers from the two campaigns were deemed equivalent. The demeanor and behaviour of the two campaigns towards Canada could not be more different. The Kasparov campaign was rude, demanding and pushy.



    He certainly came through to preserve and save FIDE when all Garry was trying to do was to destroy it.

    You violated the confidentiality of the governors board more than once. You don't seem to be able to read. The only one guilty of lying in this campaign is you and your Kasparov cronies. You make promises that your lawyer will fix everything and Nava will keep the books. That sounds like you don't even realize that there is a treasurer and executive director that are charged with that job and lawyers usually expect to get paid for such undertakings.
    Vlad, you yourself advised me to look at the Governors' Board while we were communicating on the Chess Talk and you have NEVER advised me on any confidentiality issue. Is it your deal with the thugs that makes it confidential? Why do you believe that once the deal is done some people should know about it and others should not? Are there commercial or patent issues? Isn't it a Not For Profit Corporation? Do you believe that withholding important information from the Members is a good policy?
    About the FIDE affair. No one was pushy, rude and demanding. Your behaviour toward Sid was unheard of! Complete disrespect to the biggest patron in Canadian chess! It was a very questionable thing to do: don't you understand that for your actions somebody else will have to pay and suffer - including the kids you are teaching!
    No, Nava is not going to keep the books: there are indeed a treasurer and executive director. Paying my lawyer is my business.
    Last edited by Sasha Starr; 07-08-2014 at 09:22 AM.

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    Mr. Starr is CFC Presidential candidate on a crusade to elect GK. This is a decision for the Executive. They picked KI after consulting with Governors/Voting Members. Interest in this was slight. We got 20/of over 60 that expressed an opinion. Nobody thought that either was going to be important for chess in Canada. This has since become a ****-storm that is wasting our time and energies. We need our leadership focused on the AGM/CYCC-WYCC, Canadian Open etc. 2013 was a good news story for us in youth chess and Montreal 2014 promises to be even better.

    I asked Mr. Starr about what he has done in organized chess. I do not know of or whether he has ever run anything that might be called organized chess through the CFC. Nothing pops up if you enter him as a TD. His postings here do not inspire confidence that he knows what organizers of chess in Canada are facing on the ground. The voters here are all special people that run Provincial Chess Associations, chess clubs and open chess tournaments and we have all discovered that there is no low hanging fruit when it comes to finding chess players.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Halldor P. Palsson View Post
    Mr. Starr is CFC Presidential candidate on a crusade to elect GK. This is a decision for the Executive. They picked KI after consulting with Governors/Voting Members. Interest in this was slight. We got 20/of over 60 that expressed an opinion. Nobody thought that either was going to be important for chess in Canada. This has since become a ****-storm that is wasting our time and energies. We need our leadership focused on the AGM/CYCC-WYCC, Canadian Open etc. 2013 was a good news story for us in youth chess and Montreal 2014 promises to be even better.

    I asked Mr. Starr about what he has done in organized chess. I do not know of or whether he has ever run anything that might be called organized chess through the CFC. Nothing pops up if you enter him as a TD. His postings here do not inspire confidence that he knows what organizers of chess in Canada are facing on the ground. The voters here are all special people that run Provincial Chess Associations, chess clubs and open chess tournaments and we have all discovered that there is no low hanging fruit when it comes to finding chess players.
    Mr. Palsson, my point is that in spite of all your considerable efforts and great experience, unlike mine, the CFC, a national organization, has about 800 adult membership. There is a deficient web site, no Canadian Closed Men's and Women's Championships, no chess promotion, practically no funds were raised. The biggest sponsor of Chess in Canada is being chased away, the potential deal with Kasparov Chess Foundation is being derailed. CFC is mismanaged, no handbook.
    While its true that I've never run tournaments through CFC, I have a considerable business experience and connections which I'm planning to employ if elected as a President. And Governors are the back bone of the CFC, they must have a say how the CFC and its most important issues are being run. The new CFC book could be done by professionals in no time. The web site would up and running at no cost to the CFC. The funds will be raised and hopefully Kasparov Chess Foundation will try to help us. USA is our natural extension, even geographically, we can organise joint tournaments, have a North America scholastic chess league, see my program. And by refusing each you are depriving our kids to have a brighter future of chess here. The present management has no relevant skills to run a National Non For Profit organization, the results are self evident. Canadian Chess deserves better then THAT!

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    I'm sorry - I really didn't want to get into the midst of this but there are things said here I just can't let pass.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sasha Starr View Post
    Thank you, here is the outline of some of the things I intend to do for CFC if elected:

    The CFC today is a slowly dying organization that desperately needs several new ideas and initiatives to grow and become more vital than ever. Its greatest weakness is that it never seems to do anything new. Its greatest strength is that among the community it has several dedicated and long serving professionals who could adopt a new vision and make the CFC a new and vibrant organization.
    Funny - by any stretch of the imagination I would have considered "several dedicated and long serving professionals" to have included me. My company isn't publicly traded nor is likely ever to be but we make a good living and do just fine. My brother (and business partner) has his outside interests as do I as you all know.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sasha Starr View Post
    There are a lot of new initiatives that should have been adopted by CFC, however the present leadership was busy with the Non Profit Corporation Act and the endorsement of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. The endorsement of Ilyumzhinov took place in spite of the fact that in the Chess Talk poll put up by Mr. Drkulec showed only 1 vote for Ilyumzhinov against nearly 30 for Kasparov. Executives have failed even to explain how and why this endorsement ever has happened other than to criticize supporters of Mr. Kasparov. The non-executive Governors’ vote was about split, so it is possible that CFC could vote for Kirsan at the end of the day, but an endorsement? That could happened only because CFC is run by the old boys’ network, who stripped away all the powers away from the Governors, who in spite of all the work they do lost all of their powers, except for voting once a year at the AGM.
    I am completely mystified that Mr. Starr sees any role for ChessTalk as a forum for CFC governance. I am equally amazed he thinks they should. On NFP that was a huge file with drastic consequences if the Executive and Governors dropped the ball.

    There are reasons to vote for Kasparov. There are reasons to re-elect Ilyumzhinov. The 2013-14 board felt and for the most part still do that the arguments for the latter are stronger. Should a superior slate come forward in the next round of FIDE elections I would welcome a change - I do not however feel the present GK slate is it particularly with the tactics used in this election. I said previously that neither side had clean hands - I still believe that HOWEVER there's no doubt in my mind whose are cleaner. Neither is pristine - but there is a difference. This isn't a totalitarian regime - the Executive is NOT expecting 100% support nor even 99.9% - but we've done quite a few useful things in the past year that even those who feel we made the wrong decision on FIDE should carefully consider our record.

    I will say that Starr's last sentence is deeply insulting to both the Executive and the Assembly of Governors. For what it's worth on average it takes a LOT more work to be on the Executive than to be a Governor and having been both (plus on a provincial executive) I should know. In any case he is in error in saying "Give the power back to Governors/voting members" as the Governors never had the power he seems to think they held though any Governor who cares to put in the sort of effort someone like Bob A (among others) has put in can have a LOT of influence. Absolutely no question about it!

    Quote Originally Posted by Sasha Starr View Post
    • Increased membership/participation. Over the past 15 years the CFC has experienced a steep decline in membership. In its most general sense, the CFC has never gotten it right in terms of implementing effective membership drives or staging events that are conducive towards attracting high levels of participation. While the CFC membership has fallen, the participation in many other federations has risen drastically. In Turkey, for example, the federation grew to having 80,000 adult members. This explosive growth was largely attributable to the fact that the Turkish Federation established a relationship with a bank in which anyone who became a member of the federation received a free bank account. The bank account/federation membership drive in Turkey is a wonderful example of a win/win corporate partnership and there's no reason a similar initiative couldn't occur in Canada. The Turkish initiative proves that Canada need not re-invent the wheel in terms of implementing effective membership growth programs. The Presidents/Executive Directors of a large number of federations will be surveyed to determine which membership initiatives worked best in their nations and a concrete plan will be implemented to achieve the objective of increased growth. Goal: Increasing Membership to 5,000 members by September 1, 2015.
    The CFC has never had a problem attracting new members - the problem has always been one of retention and a big part of that is increasing the perception of "value added". Which bank does he suggest we should seek alliance with? There are only 5 majors who are active coast to coast. I'm interested in specifics please.

    As for total membership I have ALWAYS felt that a big part of restoring our membership involves restoring our relationship with the FQE and a big part of that is promoting what services we can provide in the French language. Given the position of English vs French globally there will never be equality in publications and the financial means of the CFC is limited BUT what we can do we should! Last I heard we were the Chess Federation OF CANADA. Now let's be plain - there are elements of the FQE that will NEVER accept re-affiliation with the CFC but those folks haven't been influential in the governance of the FQE for some time and I do strongly believe that the vast majority of the FQE are open to change. I want to specifically point out that most of the outgoing Executive served when the CFC / FQE agreement was made and I for one will be horribly disappointed if it never goes further than it has so far.

    At the same time, increasing membership is definitely a priority. Anybody unclear on that point? No I thought not.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sasha Starr View Post
    • Duplicating what amateur pool associations have done (250,000 members in Canada), by offering a grass roots restaurant/bar league, whereby patrons can sign up for a nominal membership charge and play a game, which is part of a ladder tournament, with donated corporate prizes at the end of the yearly league
    25 years ago when I lived in Toronto I was part of the Scarborough Chess Club - I thought it was an excellent model then and still do.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sasha Starr View Post
    • Discussion/negotiation with all other entities running rating systems (mostly for kids, e.g., Chess & Math, etc.), to attempt working out a fair deal to have their members as CFC members, and we provide the rating management/output for this
    Again you are going after what Mr. Bevand considers his "crown jewels" - I'm all for cooperation but C&M/AEM is a business and as such would need an attractive business plan for Bevand. If you've got one I'd like to see it - but I confess I see an organization primarily run by and for volunteers (and it is EASY to be a chess volunteer - just don't say no when someone asks - that's how I came to run my first event!) coupling with a business. In case you don't know - the CFC stopped charging rating fees for all-junior events specifically to compete with Bevand who used zero rating fees as a way to market to the families of juniors. This is why I as a CFC Officer get so frustrated with junior organizers who think it is not necessary to include juniors' address info with their registrations. Obviously I see what the 'win' is for the players but an organizer who does this amputates the CFC's side of the "win/win".

    Quote Originally Posted by Sasha Starr View Post
    • Youth Membership. Never before has the participation levels in scholastic and youth events been higher in Canada. Chess is currently considered a very popular activity for parents seeking to enroll children in programs/events. Aside from the initiatives of the Chess and Math Association, there have been other highly successful chess programs aimed at kids that have enjoyed enormous success. In Kitchener the Chess-For-Kids program has had several thousand kids register since inception and is run as a for profit business. Even in a small province such as New Brunswick there were nearly 400 kids that participated in the provincial scholastic championships in May. There has been no CFC presence at any of these activities, and not only should the CFC establish an attractive program of its own, but it also should establish co-operative relationships with existing programs aimed at increasing youth membership.
    The Kitchener program owes a lot to the C-FAX program in Victoria (which is primarily what got Lynn Stringer into chess organizing) in the late 60s/early 70s. It was a good program and the original version of the CYCC cycle took a lot from it. CYCC has morphed a lot since then which is to be expected but I assure you your examples are far from unique.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sasha Starr View Post
    • Much more effective use of the chess events. The standard swiss-system weekend events in Canada have not been customized to attract high levels of participation. Most require a two night stay over for travelers, and are run on schedules that are demanding for both travelers and host city participants. I have remedies available. Some of them are revamping the way swiss tournaments are being run, for example, Curling and Bridge events, which often attract thousands of participants, have a build in social component. Certain pockets of the country, such as Quebec and Ottawa have been fairly constant in terms of offering a full calendar of events each year, but in much of the country there aren't many events to play in.
    Speaking from BC, chess is active in Victoria and Vancouver but almost non-existent elsewhere. Most of what chess there is outside these two areas is online and make no mistake about it - our style of chess no longer is the only 'brand' and there are lots of alternatives available for those who want to play chess. It needs to be clearly said though that the CFC as an organization has no control over the format of events volunteers choose to run. We can encourage - and should - but we cannot mandate.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sasha Starr View Post
    Also, there are clauses with federal tax law that make it extremely attractive for chess players who die to include donations to charitable organizations in their wills....
    On the contrary - bequests are definitely something the CFC has previously pursued. However you are clearly unaware of the battle over charitable status that was fought and lost and I want to emphasize that it wasn't lost due to lack of effort but rather a concerted policy initiative of the current federal government to reduce the number of charitable organizations in this country and to make gaining charitable status for a new organization to be much more difficult than previously. There were definitely things we could have done better in the charitable status fight - but I am firmly convinced that the Feds were actively seeking to lift charitable status wherever possible. I agree seeking bequests would be a good thing but I doubt I have to explain how much harder this is without charitable status.

    I say again - there has been a great deal going on during the past year on the Executive and there are plenty of factors besides the FIDE Election Governors / Voting Members need to take into account. To each of you - I hope I will get your vote but win lose or draw I really want to see all of you voting!

  8. #18
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    Chess is popular in areas where there are local organizers who are willing to promote it, teach it, and hold events where it is played. Without such organizers there is little hope for any great expansion in CFC member numbers. We have been encouraging this in Windsor where I can actually personally get involved and the result is that 9% of the kids at this year's Montreal CYCC are coming from Windsor a city with 0.7% of the Canadian population.

    When I was preparing the strategic plan for the CFC I looked at what some other sports were doing in order to increase participation in their activities. Sports like tennis and soccer get support from governments and invest much of that support in building infrastructure and training kids in how to play the sport. If you teach kids how to play you will get more chess players as a natural consequence of this.

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    For what it's worth Starr's membership statistics exclude Life Members who as a group who have made a conscious decision to make a serious financial commitment to the CFC. One can fairly debate whether it's been a good deal or a bad deal for the members affected. What one cannot fairly do is exclude them from calculation of membership totals.

    No one denies we can improve our membership totals and there are lots of ways to pursue this.

    The CFC formerly offered multi-year memberships and I have repeatedly said both in previous Governor meetings and within the Executive that I intend to introduce a motion to this effect once the NFP process is completed. I thought previously and still do that it's worthwhile BUT have no desire to give Ottawa any excuse to delay final approval. I have not been keeping count but this is the 4th or 5th time I have made this point. We are well on the way to final approval BUT we're not fully 'into the barn' yet.

    I have favored additional benefits to TDs and organizers for more than a decade. I do think the pairing software and rating fee discount on events submitted with it is a big one. We could do more.

    Please don't think I'm being self-serving (I have directed over 100 events) - I haven't collected statistics but am convinced most of us have directed or organized at least 10 events. Given the sort of person who directs/organizes and the sort of person who gets involved in CFC governance no one should be surprised there's a huge overlap between the two groups.

  10. #20
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    Hello Lyle,

    We have final approval from the federal government. We have transitioned to the new act which means we are governed under the provisions of the NFP act and not the old act. What we still have to do is pass any new bylaws in a way that are compliant with the NFP act.

    Fewer bylaws are required than under the old act as much of the governance provisions previously spelled out in the constitution and bylaws are prescribed and proscribed under the new law (no ex-officio board members being one).

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