CFC Facebook

[Bob Gillanders]

It is the Facebook page of the organization including all of its members. In this case I agree with the post (presumably written by our Executive Director, Bob Gillanders) who applauded the efforts of Vlad and Patricia.

Fred, no it wasn't me. I have no involvement with the CFC Facebook page.
I do applaud the efforts of the executive, but many others were involved as well.
It really was a whole chess community effort. Great to see.
Aris has put it very eloquently on chesstalk (that other blog), where he acknowledges a few key people.
There are many more unsung heroes making the 2024 Candidates in Canada possible.

Let's all work together to make this something special.

[Olga Mushtaler]

I just wanted to clarify why I included Vlad and Patricia in Facebook post. Among myriad tasks (booking venues, arbitrating, ticket sales, etc.), that were being undertaken for the Candidates by various organizers, Vlad and Patricia were specifically assigned the key task of obtaining visas. Given the challenge of securing visas for over 40 individuals, it clearly should not be a job for just two people. So, once again, I extend my gratitude to everyone from the community who assisted: the CFC executive board, the Local Organizing Committee, and all of our friends. You may wonder why I singled out these two individuals in the Facebook post. The reason is simple: they were tasked with overseeing the visa process. Had the entire operation failed and we lost the Candidates as a result, Vlad and Patricia would have been the ones held responsible.

[Heidi Gay]

You are completely missing the point of our criticism, preferring to brush it off as "rude," "harassment," and "slander."

The organization giving sole credit to Vlad and Patricia for "saving the Candidates" comes across as extremely tone-deaf, considering the myriad of people who jumped in to help, several whom (Lyle, Aris, Salim, and Anna for starters) deserve it equally as much. Of course, I am not discounting the efforts made by Vlad, Patricia, and other CFC members that I'm personally not aware of.

As for why this comes across as tone-deaf, well... here's some light reading. Why good leaders pass the credit and take the blame. Harvard Business Review. (2014, July 23). https://hbr.org/2011/10/why-good-leaders-pass-the-cred

DEFAMATORY PORTION OF STATEMENT HAS BEEN DELETED.

[John Brown]

I think if the Chess Federation had taken full control of this Candidates Event at the start instead of relying on others to up hold the Canadian reputation, none of these threads would have been presented. This is supposed to be a Canadian First. Stop patting each other on the back and show to the world that Canada can run the ultimate tournament and get a thumbs up from the FIDE delegation to run more high class events in the future. I wonder what these posts would have said if FIDE had moved the event?

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Fred, no it wasn't me. I have no involvement with the CFC Facebook page.
I do applaud the efforts of the executive, but many others were involved as well.
It really was a whole chess community effort. Great to see.
Aris has put it very eloquently on chesstalk (that other blog), where he acknowledges a few key people.
There are many more unsung heroes making the 2024 Candidates in Canada possible.

Let's all work together to make this something special.

There are lots of unsung heroes and heroines but there are also some singing that did not contribute significantly to this effort. Some ran off in the wrong direction and did the wrong things and are wanting credit for their work. No participation trophies here. As Yoda says, "There is do or not do. There is no try." I prefer to move on but if this nonsense persists when I am trying to spend some quality time with my family after a job well done then we will do a deep dive into this whole situation and some people will not be happy with the outcome. I am so pissed at this moment that I am probably going to wait a day or two to respond to this absolute nonsense.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I think if the Chess Federation had taken full control of this Candidates Event at the start instead of relying on others to up hold the Canadian reputation, none of these threads would have been presented. This is supposed to be a Canadian First. Stop patting each other on the back and show to the world that Canada can run the ultimate tournament and get a thumbs up from the FIDE delegation to run more high class events in the future. I wonder what these posts would have said if FIDE had moved the event?

This is FIDE's show. Full stop. We came to their assistance when they needed it. We are now being attacked for delivering that assistance and for not genuflecting towards some people who frankly did little useful. I will quote from my chess.com post.

The Canadian government and the immigration authorities were reasonable throughout all of this. There wasn't any political agenda that I observed. The media campaign launched on X (formerly twitter) worked. We got confirmation from an insider in the government that it was working and that we should keep it up. I did multiple interviews with the Toronto Star with three different reporters. They did a great job of reporting what I said. I did an interview at 11 pm on the Friday March 1st with BellMedia and they did a good job of reporting our conversation. Finally I did a television interview with the CBC which aired on Sunday Night and they played the conversation where I conveyed what I wanted conveyed.

FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky, GM Pavel Tregubov, Maria Balashova and Anna Burtasova at FIDE distinguished themselves throughout this process.

Aris Marghetis is going to be a great chief arbiter for this event. Salim Belcadi has been handling much of the local details.


Patricia Gamliel our CFC board member who has worked as a lawyer in the field of immigration for almost thirty years worked tirelessly and contacted many individuals who assisted us on our journey. Without her I am not sure that we would be where we are now. She and Lyle Craver our CFC board secretary contacted Minister Jonathan Wilkinson on or around February 29th which resulted in him forwarding the information to his colleagues in the immigration department. Patricia and I also contacted Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller separately. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich promptly provided us with letters for numerous Members of Parliament and Ministers. We contacted the Ministers for Tourism and the Ministers for Sport and Physical Activity and they forwarded what we sent to them to the immigration authorities. Our newest board member Veronica Hitchlock (woman's coordinator) also organized the presidents of multiple university chess clubs across Canada to send a very well written letter to the Honourable Minister Marc Miller. CFC Vice President Olga Mushtaler also put us in contact with an immigration consultant who talked to Patricia Gamliel and offered suggestions for us.


FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky applied to Minister Marc Miller and received a meeting on Thursday March 7 with some very high officials in the immigration department. The officials indicated that they were well aware of the situation due to submission of documents from Minister Wilkinson and promised to do their best. I believe that by the time of the meeting we already had all the player visas.


Gary Gladstone a chess player and a chess parent and also a person who ran for parliament for Liberals in the Thornhill riding made extensive use of his contacts and friends which reached into multiple government departments including that of the Honorable Minister Miller and including some of the high officials in the meeting with the FIDE CEO Emil. He also put us in contact with the Member of Parliament Kevin Vuong, an independent who represents the riding where the tournament is to be held. MP Kevin Vuong played a key role early on getting us information on the progress of the visa applications and deserves great credit for his work.


There were many dozens of people who contacted us and their MPs on our behalf offering help and encouragement. Every time I asked for help I got it. At some point, I will write down and publish the full story with all the names attached. Here you got the condensed version.


Another chess parent who wants to remain nameless contacted a friend in the government who told us that the publicity campaign was working and to keep it up. That friend in the government indicated that we would get our player visas the day before we did.
Did someone drop the ball to provoke this crisis which caused multiple people in the CFC to lose sleep and live in a state of constant anxiety for two weeks? They did. It was not someone in the CFC. It was not someone at FIDE. We still have to do an investigation to get to the bottom of it. Someone may have bitten off more than they could chew and some extreme and massive action had to be undertaken to pull our fat out of the fire. Fortunately we had capable people in place who were able to do this. It did not occur without a cost. Hopefully as we move back to our normal routines and start sleeping and exercising at our usual frequency those costs particularly the physical cost of being part of this influence operation will fade.

In the midst of this I went to a short online seminar with Robert Cialdini the author of multiple books on the subject of Influence. He described what you had to do to influence people in this type of situation. Every step that he outlined we had already done.

We successfully climbed Everest figuratively speaking when faced with an almost impossible situation. A band of heroes accomplished the mission. Some people who had little to do with the final outcome climbed a small hill in Appalachia and declared their enormous contribution to the cause. It was irritating to the people who actually made a difference.

[John Brown]

Sounds like to me you like blowing your horn.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Hello,

I would like to know who exactly manages the CFC Facebook account, as there are illegitimate warnings being handed out against some longtime CFC members on a controversial post made today. Specifically for violating some sort of "community standards" which were a) not actually violated as stated, and b) don't seem to actually exist, at least as far as I can find on the CFC Facebook page.

I particularly take exception to a warning being given to Hal Bond, who spent decades as one of Canadian chess's greatest assets. He's definitely earned the right to state his opinion!

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There are multiple people managing the facebook account. Olga Mushtaler, Christina Tao, John Upper, Victoria Doknjas and myself have thread posting privileges. I would ask everyone to attach their first name at least at the bottom of the post or if it is an official post their name and title to avoid confusion. It is obvious to me who is posting from the CFC account but that is not the case for everyone who does not have admin privileges.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I don't see my comment as at all inflammatory. The post still doesn't sit well with me and it has nothing to do specifically with the content or the reason for the post, but the way it was handled. The fact that it turns out to not have been Vlad posting it doesn't change the fact that it comes across as if he had, or had requested/ordered that it be posted. The fact that me pointing that out was somehow deserving of a warning for violating some kind of community standards which are not actually in existence just took the whole situation to a new level of ridiculousness. I would have made my post and moved on and forgotten all about it.

You are just coming off as a very immature individual. In this moment of triumph when everyone came together to successfully save this tournament it is all about your feelings? Seriously? More than one voting member is rolling their eyes. The world is watching. FIDE is watching Mr. FIDE Arbiter. How do you think your post made them feel? Olga was one of those people on the board who stepped up. So was Veronica. So was Christina. Of course Lyle and Victor. Patricia most of all. What did you contribute to the effort? An explanation of your feelings? Grow up.

The community standards are facebook's community standards and as one of the administrators of the facebook page she is well within her rights to react the way she did. I do not want the posts removed except perhaps by the people who posted them but truthfully I don't think those people are mature enough to do so. Prove me wrong. All of you. I won't be disappointed but rather pleasantly surprised.

And no, you are right it was not slander. It was defamation.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Sounds like to me you like blowing your horn.

Sounds to me like you are not adding anything positive to the discussion.