Ordinary Member/Governor Dialogue

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

So visit this members' CFC Chess Forum on a regular basis to join in the discussions, to raise issues, to post your views for governors to respond to. It can only help the CFC to have greater member input.

Governor Bob Armstrong

Good words.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Ken:

I know we differ on this. I agree that many chessplayers are satisfied with ChessTalk.

But I think there is benefit in CFC having its own space for governors and CFC members to discuss CFC matters. There is no need for CFC to be cribbing off a CMA site to do this. I see it as part of CFC's mandate to dialogue with members, and to promote chess. A national organization should provide this service to members.

And the numbers coming to this board are slowly increasing. I would say there are about 40 hardcore CFC supporting governors/CFC members who show up on a regular basis, and post. I note that this thread itself has almost 200 views to the present.

I don't see it as particulary taxing to monitor 2 national boards, of which one deals with more general topics usually, and this board with generally current CFC issues, with governors posting here and dialoguing with the membership.

Bob

[Eric Van Dusen]

Greeting Governors,

I normally monitor the following CFC boards: Governors and English Chat. I will be adding the French sites.

With the web site problems, I was monitoring Chesstalk, but with my laptop in for repairs, that monitoring was sporadic. I normally do not surf Chesstalk as it is not particular useful for rational dialogue.

As for emails to the president, the VP sorts the mail and sends me the high priority ones to my work email. The other emails I try to get to at my yahoo account about once a week. With the website down and the flu, I decided to take a break from emails and work on some long-term projects.

At the moment, I am dealing with a specific situation with respect to posts on Chesstalk. It my opinion that the CFC needs to have a policy on public posting.

I find that too many issues that could be managed internally by the office or on the CFC Governor board are first publicized on Chesstalk. Now some people in the chess community would consider what I just stated as sacreligious but what I am respectfully suggesting is what people do in the normal mundane world, for example, bad service at a shop or store. Much of what passes for comment on public boards brings the Chess Federation of Canada and chess in Canada into disrepute. I suppose the analogy would be washing your dirty laundry in public. One long-term project is to secure corporate sponsors through a Fundraising Committee. My fear is that if a prospective sponsor ever surfed Chesstalk, that sponsor would just find some other activity to sponsor.

[Ken Craft]

And how would one enforce a CFC policy on public posting?

[Eric Van Dusen]

Ken,

The policy will be developed and approved by the governors. The governors main role is the development of policy.

My main point is that the CFC has turned the corner of concentrating on its survival. It is time to concentrate on the CFC's main task, which is promotion of the game of chess, in my opinion.

My concern with many posts on Chesstalk is that reputations are damaged, relationships are damaged, and the promotion of chess and its reputation as a game and the reputation of the CFC as a corporation is damaged.

The CFC Fundraing Committee is going to work hard on fundraising and corporate sponsorships. In my opinion careless and malicious posts by CFC members and governors is working at cross-purposes and undermining this committee's efforts.

The truth of the matter is that the reputation of a corporation is an important asset. The executive and the governors have a duty of care to protect that reputation. As president, I have a fudiciary responsibility to carry out the wise stewardship of all of the CFC's resources.

Currently, I am working on a situation which I will not deal with publicly but it is sufficient to say that the people involved have suffered hurt which in turn has damaged not only this particular chess community but also the CFC's relationship with that community. I see my efforts as president to help in the healing of these relationships in order to reach some sort rapprochement and enable that community to get on with the CFC mandate: Play chess and promote chess.

[Ken Craft]

I think the concerns in paragraphs 3 and 5 would trample on one's right to freedom of expression.

[Kerry Liles]

I could swear that last night I saw rather different posts from the Prez. The Prez first claimed he had to look into what people could or could not post on this and other boards [that post is more or less still here]

... and then backed up over his foot by referring (inadvertently by name?) to a problem he seemed to have with an individual). Chris Mallon then pointed out that post by the Prez contradicted what he was saying he was going to clamp down on! [this post is gone now]

[Ken Craft]

What a sweet smell on a Friday morning...

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

I could swear that last night I saw rather different posts from the Prez.

it was a mirage

Anyway, I found good to have a possibility to edit own posts within 24 hours (probably the time span is infinity here), unless somebody quoted them.

[John Coleman]

I found good to have a possibility to edit own posts within 24 hours (probably the time span is infinity here), unless somebody quoted them.

A non-chess board that I frequent has a similar policy... the OP can edit his post, unless a comment has been made.

All of us have posted something and then had second thoughts. (It is probably better to have the second thought before posting...)