Ontario Chess Association in Crisis !

[Bob Armstrong]

The Ontario Chess Association is currently foundering badly, and is in crisis:

1. Executive Revolt : Due to inaction of the OCA President, Chris Mallon, V-P Michael von Keitz has called him " Missing in Action " and requested his resignation;

2. Missing Secretary: At the OCA AGM, Eric van Dusen ran for OCA Secretary and was elected. Subsequently he got elected CFC President. He does not now have time for both and has notified the OCA executive of his resignation; he said he was willing to find them a replacement they could appoint. He has still to do this since July when he got elected, and has asked the V-P to handle the secretarial position on an interim basis. So there is still no replacement secretary, which is critical. The executive has to be at full strength to handle the current crisis;

3. Motions Not Processed: On my behalf, a motion was brought to the OCA AGM in May ( now 6 months ago! ). The motion is a crucial one, siince it directs that the OCA Governors no longer elect the CFC governors as they now do, but that in future, the CFC members in Ontario " elect " the CFC governors, in their regions. At the AGM, the motion got tabled, and there was an amending motion. Since then it has been in the hands of the President, Chris Mallon. I wrote him twice without response asking that the motions be sent out to the OCA Governors for discussion and vote. As a result of the inaction, the V-P, Michael von Keitz, has asked for a vote of the executive, to authorize him to by-pass the moribund President, and send out the motions himself;

4. OCA Website: the website of the OCA is woefully out of date, and many complain about its presentation. The President is the administrator of the website for the OCA. The website does not even have the executive as elected at the May AGM yet !

5. Trillium/2006 Closed Report: There has been a long-awaited investigation into the recent Ontario government Trillium Grant to the OCA, and whether it was abused by then President Barry Thorvardson. The investigation also looked into the 2006Canadian Closed, about which there were complaints, and which was directed by Thorvardson. The finished report is now languishing in the hands of the President, and has not yet been made available to the OCA members.

6. Number of Ont. CFC Governors: A very long time ago, soon after the CFC AGM in July, I raised the issue that the CFC Website shows 18 Ontario governors. Ontario is only entitled to 17. I asked that the OCA President, Chris Mallon, recall one of the governors, from whichever Ontario region is currently over-represented. Nothing has been done on this by Chris.

7. OCA Membership: As a result of the inadequate website, I, and others, do not even know who to write to complain about the state of the OCA - I doubt that the list of OCA Governors on the website is current - it still show Barry Thorvardson as an OCA Governor, and yet the OCA has banned him from holding any official OCA position.

I am an OCA Life Member and expect much better from my provincial affiliate of the CFC.

There are likely other aspects that I still have not covered - anyone want to add to the list?

Will the OCA Governors " impeach " the President if he does not resign, for his abysmal handling of OCA affairs?

Bob

[Bob Gillanders]

I can add to your list. I am waiting for Chris to close the old SWOCL website at http://www.chessontario.com/swocl.html

It has been replaced by new site setup by Garvin at http://chess.servegame.com/swocl/news.php

People tell me Chris has the "keys" to the old SWOCL site, but he's not so sure? Please check into it Chris. Either delete the old site or redirect visitors to the new site.

Plus, the out of date OCA website still has the link to the old SWOCL website. Outdated websites are a menace!

[Christopher Mallon]

Holy crap, seriously?

1. I'm not really honestly sure what's up with that. Michael gave no good reasons for why I should resign (citing only anonymous discontent), nor did he suggest who should take my place.

2. I told Eric up-front that I didn't think anyone should be CFC President and hold any other position, due to time and due to conflict of interest. It's not his job to find a replacement; if he no longer wants to be Secretary he should resign and let us follow procedures to find a new one.

3. I have been responding to your emails. I have just resent it from a different account to see if you receive it.

4. In a case of convenient timing, the website was "hacked" right after the AGM and I no longer have access to it.

5. I have (finally) received the report. I sent it back to the committee for them to clarify a couple things in the wording, but prepare to be underwhelmed.

6. I requested a copy of my email of Governors list from the CFC, which I lost in my hard-drive death on August 27thish. Ironically, the CFC has re-requested it from ME. I know they received my AGM proxy though, which was sent in the same email.... I'm going to try to recover it in XP Mode later today.

7. Apparently the chessontario email addresses also died during the "hacking" - and since when do hackers disable email addresses anyway?

There is a new website in progress made by a volunteer member and we'll switch over to that soon. I do have control of the domain name and if people think it's better to have no website than an out of date one I can of course simply put an "under construction" page up.

[John Coleman]

I wasn't aware the OCA was "in crisis". It is true the organisation is moribund, but there is nothing new about that! Situation normal...

My take on your points:

1. Revolt: First I'd heard of it

2. Secretary: Eric should either continue as secretary (as far as I know he has been doing the job, whatever that means in practice), or resign.

3. Motion: Okay, I await an "official" communication from someone - anyone.

4. Website: Can't disagree, I have asked Chris to see about an update and/or new website.

5. Trillium: Yeah-yeah, this is getting to be old news. I don't think the long-awaited report is gonna make a lot of difference.

6. Can't count: The inaction is vaguely troubling, but consistent with the OCA operating procedures. Is the CFC complaining about the extra governor?

7. MIA: I recently had occasion to email the members of the OCA exec, and had some trouble finding out their emails.

The real problem, surely, is that the OCA has virtually no useful function - I think Michael said it was "struggling for relevance" - and since it isn't really any use, does nothing. This is probably a good thing: if you have got nothing to do, do nothing. Most people don't notice.

There is a role for the OCA, I think, but whether there are enough interested volunteers to develop a role is an open question.

[Michael Barron]

Holy crap, seriously?

1. I'm not really honestly sure what's up with that. Michael gave no good reasons for why I should resign (citing only anonymous discontent), nor did he suggest who should take my place.

2. I told Eric up-front that I didn't think anyone should be CFC President and hold any other position, due to time and due to conflict of interest. It's not his job to find a replacement; if he no longer wants to be Secretary he should resign and let us follow procedures to find a new one.

3. I have been responding to your emails. I have just resent it from a different account to see if you receive it.

4. In a case of convenient timing, the website was "hacked" right after the AGM and I no longer have access to it.

5. I have (finally) received the report. I sent it back to the committee for them to clarify a couple things in the wording, but prepare to be underwhelmed.

6. I requested a copy of my email of Governors list from the CFC, which I lost in my hard-drive death on August 27thish. Ironically, the CFC has re-requested it from ME. I know they received my AGM proxy though, which was sent in the same email.... I'm going to try to recover it in XP Mode later today.

7. Apparently the chessontario email addresses also died during the "hacking" - and since when do hackers disable email addresses anyway?

There is a new website in progress made by a volunteer member and we'll switch over to that soon. I do have control of the domain name and if people think it's better to have no website than an out of date one I can of course simply put an "under construction" page up.

Chris,

I could add to the list:

8. GTCL is still awaiting membership rebates for 2008 fiscal year, promised in May before the AGM.

9. GTCL is asking to distribute a bid for Ontario Open 2010 to OCA Governors for discussion and vote.

Could you please comment on these issues?

[Christopher Mallon]

Yes Michael

8. A cheque for 2008 rebates was signed at the OCA AGM. Nobody from Toronto wanted to take it so it was mailed a couple days later. It apparently has not been cashed, but it will be stale-dated in about a week so once that's happened we can get a new cheque made. I have also just received the first half of 2009 from the CFC.

9. I am still awaiting the final bid. I have been emailing back and forth with the organizer fairly frequently, so it is being worked on.

[Michael Barron]

Yes Michael

8. A cheque for 2008 rebates was signed at the OCA AGM. Nobody from Toronto wanted to take it so it was mailed a couple days later. It apparently has not been cashed, but it will be stale-dated in about a week so once that's happened we can get a new cheque made. I have also just received the first half of 2009 from the CFC.

9. I am still awaiting the final bid. I have been emailing back and forth with the organizer fairly frequently, so it is being worked on.

Thank you, Chris!

Apparently, OCA could improve communication with it's Leagues and Governors.

May I suggest:

1) If you send a cheque to GTCL, please send as well email to the GTCL Treasurer and President, indicating what, when and to which address was sent.

2) Did you respond to email from Brett Campbell sent on Thursday, November 12, 2009 10:27 AM Re: Ontario Open chess tournament ?
If not, please do so, and keep me copied in your response.

[David Lavin]

Why do the OCA and the GTCL exist at all? There are three layers of chess bureacracy in Canada managing slightly over 1,000 players.

The primary function of these groups is to mandate orgaznizers for local and provincial tournaments. The same function can easily be served by simply making any an all CFC Governors who lives in Ontario eligible to vote for the Ontario Open, Closed, Junior etc, and do the same for the GTCL.

Governors can be elected at the Ontario Open and Toronto Open by a simple vote of the members who are present.

Ultimately, more power and responsibility should be entrusted to the tournament organizers and less to the chess bureacrats.

[Michael Barron]

Why do the OCA and the GTCL exist at all? There are three layers of chess bureacracy in Canada managing slightly over 1,000 players.

The primary function of these groups is to mandate orgaznizers for local and provincial tournaments. The same function can easily be served by simply making any an all CFC Governors who lives in Ontario eligible to vote for the Ontario Open, Closed, Junior etc, and do the same for the GTCL.

Governors can be elected at the Ontario Open and Toronto Open by a simple vote of the members who are present.

Ultimately, more power and responsibility should be entrusted to the tournament organizers and less to the chess bureacrats.

Good point, David!

It's really important question:
Why do we need chess organizations?

GTCL - it's organization of chess organizers in the Greater Toronto Area.
We need GTCL to organize chess competitions in GTA: Toronto Closed, Toronto Women's, Toronto Junior, Toronto Senior Championships, Team competitions between chess clubs, etc...

Let me remind you that previous OCA President Barry Thorvardson had organized a lot of chess competitions:
2 Canadian Closed and 2 Canadian Women's Championships, countless weekend tournaments, ...

Why do we need the OCA now?
Sorry, I don't know...

Maybe it's the main problem of chess bureaucrats - they think that somebody else should organize chess competitions...