4. Executive and Officer reports

[Lyle Craver]

4. Reports

(Executive members and Officers please post your reports in this thread titling your report as follows: 4A President, 4B Vice President, 4C Secretary etc.)

A. President
B. Vice President
C. Secretary
D. Past President
E. FIDE Representative
F. Youth Coordinator
G. Masters Representative
H. Reports from Board Members at Large
I. Woman’s Coordinator
J. Rating Auditor
K. Chess Foundation of Canada
L. Kalev Pugi Fund
M. Treasurer
N. Executive Director: Financial Report

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

4B Vice-President

The year became a transitional from no OTB chess to the full blast. Even my local small tournament got a long waiting list of players eager to be back to the OTB.
As the VP my involvement was a participation in meetings/talks/communications; (and that went on 4 years.)

I'll be not seeking re-election as a VP, as decided to spend the "chess" energy/time on restarting the town's club, do more local tournaments, and elsewhere. Though, I'll be around as a voting member :)

[Patricia Gamliel]

4H member at large

As members at large do, I have participated in all meetings of the executive.
I suggested and had applied ZOOM meetings of the executive with an agenda and hope this efficient way of running board meetings will become more common. I also participated in reviewing the Regs if the CFC.
In general, my goal was to help facilitate, whenever possible, the work of the board.
On a side note, I am trying to develop the program Chess For Life as it concerns restorative Justice.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I don't want to go too top heavy on the Olympiad but a major frustration this year was the visa procedure for India where the 44th FIDE chess Olympiad was held. In Canada we have to go through the visa service contracted by the Indian government (BLS) if we have a Canadian passport. This was the most frustrating process that we dealt with in some years. I believe that Canadians and Britons had to get a paper visa whereas everyone else could apply for an e-visa which involved a very quick approval process. The players and coaches with dual passports used their secondary passport for quick approval whereas those on a Canadian visa had to go the paper visa route and follow the opaque rules.

On Thursday July 22nd morning, five days before most of us were flying out, we did not have enough players with visas for either an open or a women's team or for the head of delegation/FIDE delegate (myself). A few days before this Victor Plotkin sent an email casting doubt on the probability of Canadians participating without some significant intervention by the Indian organizers or FIDE. I believe that we got that intervention and most of our team managed to attend though Rachel Chen and her mother who were applying from the U.S. were not able to obtain visas.

I sent in my application and my passport more than five weeks prior to the departure date and waited 16 days before my application came back as a refusal because they claimed that the business visa that I was applying for was the wrong visa. I should have applied for a conference visa. This conclusion came despite a letter from the Indian government and the Indian organizers instructing us to apply for business visas which was included in the package that I sent them but I have doubts that they read.

We were all comparing notes as we went through the visa approval process so we had the advantage that as each new piece of information in which we were allegedly deficient came out we were able to add it to the package for everyone.

While at the CYCC/Canadian Open I went to the Indian Consulate in Toronto but I was blown off and instructed that I needed to return to BLS. They refused to see me without an appointment. Their phone and email address posted on the consulate website did not work or bounced back. At a certain point, I called BLS and they gave me a glimmer of hope on the day when I was paired with my former student Rohan Talukdar who was just awarded the IM title. We drove to the BLS office in Brampton with Rohan navigating. When we we got into the office after an hour and a half waiting in line with only 15 minutes to spare they were rather intent on refusing me again but thanks to the Groundhog Day experience of the collective Canadian players on Canadian passports, I had all my papers in order.


They tried to refuse my application by saying, "You don't have the registration for the Canadian Company." I dropped the CFC continuation papers from 2014 on the table.
"You don't have the PAN number for the Indian Company." I dropped the scan of the PAN number on the table.
"You don't have the registration for the Indian company." I dropped the registration of the All India Chess Federation from their website.
"You don't have the proof of residence." I dropped the proof of residence.
On and on it went with each passing hurdle falling one by one, and the confidence of the gatekeeper was clearly shaken.
"You should apply for a conference visa." I dropped the final letters being the letter from the organizers and the Indian government telling us to apply for business visas.
Shaken but still defiant, the woman at the counter sent me to the security guard, who gave us the secret to getting an appointment at the consulate which was an obscure webpage on the consulate website that asked you to apply for the Open House on Wednesdays. I went home and applied but had just about given up on the process.

I went back to the Canadian Open and learned that I had taken a forfeit against Rohan for the game which we had not played.

On the Tuesday after the Canadian Open, I got an email somewhat late in the day, instructing me to attend the embassy the following day. I let Omar Shah who was having similar difficulties in his quest to be an arbiter at the Olympiad know about the secret webpage. I wish I could say that I got the visa, the next day but there was not going to be anything that simple. Near the end of the day I got into see someone at the embassy and started to show him all my documents and proof and evidence and letters. He asked to see the rejection letter and then I showed that and I showed the letter from the Indian government and started to make my case but he cut me short. "You are from FIDE."

"Yes."

"You will have your visa today." I shut up.

Alas through no fault of that individual, I had to come back the next day because the embossing machine that stamped the visas was broken. This necessitated an over night stay in a hotel. I had brought a change of clothes just in case. They did waive the visa fee which was almost the same as the cost of the hotel but I was going to India. I called Victor Plotkin to let him know. The logjam with most of the players broke on just about the same day.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I thought the FIDE Congress went well and the Olympiad went well though it wasn't without its unpleasant moments. I was sick for the early part of the Olympiad when I let my guard down and consumed some orange juice (I suspect that this was the source of my illness) which sent me to the bathroom quite a bit. They had doctors on site for the Congress but still it took three days before I could venture far from the Congress hotel and even after that I had a recurrence. Fortunately, the Congress had not yet started and the only thing I missed was making the long trip to the Olympiad site for several days. I didn’t really miss any of the Congress meetings aside from having to choose which of occasionally multiple meetings occurring simultaneously I would attend. I lost sixteen pounds in sixteen days. Of course, I have put almost all of those pounds back on recently.
We made some new contacts and met some people who previously had only been email contacts. We have several new people who I can approach on the CFC behalf as a result of attending this FIDE Congress. I got to meet several of the women who make the FIDE office work so well these days and they were in contact when we were trying to get Rachel Chen a visa, unsuccessfully. Of course, I have a direct channel to President Dvorkovich who has invited me to use it whenever needed. Victor has already established good contacts of his own so we should be well covered.
My impressions were that the organizers and FIDE did everything they could to make this Olympiad and Congress work well. I will not go into the bad experiences of which there were a few.
The illness from the food/drinks was expected though I did hold out faint hope that the Dukoral prescription would mitigate any problems and maybe it did as I was largely able to function even during the illness. The Arkady Dvorkovich ticket won over 90% of the votes which was not unexpected. They have done a good job over the last four years and if the invasion of Ukraine hadn’t happened, the result would have been even more decisive.

Alexandra Botez won an award for the Americas her online social media presence. It appeared in my hotel room and I managed to bring it home without it being damaged. Hopefully it got to Alexandra without being damaged as well.

[ian findlay]

4H member at large

On a side note, I am trying to develop the program Chess For Life as it concerns restorative Justice.

Chess for Life was started in Lethbridge AB a few years ago, where I believe it was quite successful. They are now trying to start it in Edmonton. See ACA website homepage at http://www.albertachess.org/home/ for more details. I think it is a great idea.

[Paul Leblanc]

4.K. Chess Foundation Annual Report (as of 30 April 2022):
Total Assets: 437,624
Income Payable to CFC: 14,074
Portion Allocated to General Expenses: 12,701
Portion Allocated to Pugi Fund non-gender specified: 923
Portion Allocated to Pugi Fund for female players: 450
I am waiting for the CFC to hand over revenue from life memberships purchased in FY 2021/2022. Once I have received that I can submit a detailed annual report and remit the appropriate amount to the CFC.

[Aris Marghetis]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

;))

[Oksana Golubeva]

4I. Woman’s Coordinator

Hello everyone,
I hope you all are doing great.

Pease see below my report.
1. Assisted with sending the National Team to the Olympiad 2022 (revising selecting criteria, calculating ratings of candidates, general inquiries and communication etc).
2. Assisted with organization of Canadian Zonal including personal invitations, organizing promotion of the tournaments on FIDE social media.
3. Organized nomination and promoted our nominee for the Year of the Women in Chess Award 2022. Our nominee won the Outstanding influencer/commentator/social media star Americas award!
4. Participated in all Zoom meetings and discussions.
5. Completed other general inquiries.

Best regards,
WFM Oksana Golubeva

[Victor Plotkin]

CFC FIDE Representative Report.

1. FIDE election.

The CFC board of directors discussed our stance regarding this election. No one was willing to support alternative candidate Andrii Baryshpolets. Both Vlad and I talked to him many times before the Olympiad in Chennai and during Olympiad as well. We both got a very similar impression: a nice guy, but not ready for this position. Being anti-Russian is a popular point nowadays, but it shouldn't be the only point in a candidate's agenda.

It was a negative surprise for me that the western world was not able to produce a better candidate. The outcome of the election was very obvious even before the final voting. Still, I expected about 40 votes for Andrii, but he got only 16. Even most Western European federations did not support him.

The final score shows not only satisfaction with Dvorkovich's presidency, but also the appreciation of his management team. During the last 1.5 years, I regularly contacted many FIDE management team members. I was almost always able to get a quick and helpful reply to our questions and needs.

2. Travel expenses and Visa.

India was probably the worst possible place in terms of travel expenses. The price for an economy class ticket was 100-150% higher than for previous Olympiads. During many conversations with A.Dvorkovich and V.Bologan, I tried to explain the CFC's difficult financial situation as a result of pandemic restrictions. At the end, FIDE agreed to partially cover travel expenses for Olympiad.

Obtaining a visa was another problem. A Canadian passport is usually a very good travel document, but not in this case. Some visa conflict between Canada and India made the holders of Canadian passport ineligible for a convenient e-visa to India. Usually it takes 1-3 weeks to get a regular "paper" visa. Many chess players have the bad habit of starting unpleasant process as late as possible. The problem was that in this case, it could have been too late. 2 National Team players got their visas just 1 day before departure.

1 week before departure, I contacted E.Sutovsky and told him that it entirely possible that Canada could miss the Olympiad due to visa problems. Maybe it was a little bit too dramatic, but the FIDE took it seriously and made Indian organizers contact the Indian embassy in Canada. I can not be 100% sure that this intervention changed the outcome, but at the end everyone except Rachel Chen got a visa on time.

3. Qiyu Zhou and Rachel Chen.

Just 8 days before departure, Qiyu Zhou told me that she would not be playing in India. I immediately sent an email to next-in-line Rachel Chen. She is 14 y.o. girl living in LA, which makes it even more difficult to get a "paper" visa on time. The nearest Indian consulate is in SF, which is a 5 hour drive from LA. It was clear from the very beginning that it would be too late for a "paper" visa without active and powerful FIDE involvement. Unfortunately, in this case the FIDE and Indian organizers were not able to solve this problem; everyone has their own limitations...

To be continued ...

[Patricia Gamliel]

Chess for Life was started in Lethbridge AB a few years ago, where I believe it was quite successful. They are now trying to start it in Edmonton. See ACA website homepage at http://www.albertachess.org/home/ for more details. I think it is a great idea.

Yes! I am in contact with Lance Grigg and have had some contacts with Alberta Chief provincial courts. Amazing judge! Would love input from every province.

[Fred McKim]

4M Treasurer's Report

Normally I like to break down the Financial Statement into a simple in and out and will do that if it is posted before the end of the meeting.

As Treasurer, I have to weigh each request for funding and try and give the best advice as possible, considering we have been operating with uncertain revenue for the past 2+ years.

Fred

[Victor Plotkin]

Continue...

4. Late withdrawal.

A very late (just 8 days before the departure) withdrawal created a lot of problems and could potentially jeopardize the entire campaign. I still feel sorry for Rachel and her mom as they couldn't attend the Olympiad. Q.Zhou herself played many times in Olympiad, the first one was in 2014 (Norway) and Qiyu was just 14 years old - exactly the same age for Rachel this year.

In my opinion, there is a huge difference between withdraw 6 weeks before the departure and just 1 week. Some players (A.Botez, T.R-R) changed their mind about 1.5-2 months before the start of the tournament. We were able to find a substitution very fast almost without extra problem/expenses.

Sending team of 4 is very risky, especially nowadays with COVID rules. We got lucky that everything was smooth enough for all 4 players of Women Team. Just for example, Austrian Women Team started many matches with 0-1 as a result of COVID for 2 players. They stayed at the same hotel with us in Chennai.

I don't want to consider some sanctions against a player who withdrew very late, but somehow CFC should protect our effort, our money and our reputation. Last Olympiad (2018) in was a similar situation with A.Lesiege, that time we solved the problem thanks to fast response by E.Bareev and easier travel requirements to Batumi.

5. Bonus for young players.

Probably, some VMs remember discussion about qualification rules for Olympic Teams in 2016. Our proposal (Fred and me) to grant a bonus of 5 rating points/year under 23 years old player was defeated with a narrow margin. I remember that time I was generally satisfied that VMs accepted other proposals, but honestly, that one was no-brainer for me. Unfortunately, some concerns about discrimination of older players played an important role in the voting.

In Chennai I talked a few times with GM G.Szabo who was a Romanian Team captain. Actually, Romania accepted his proposals about Qualification Rules, and he told me that he was inspired by our proposals from 2016. They also have 20 bonus points for 2nd place in Closed, 10 points for the 3rd and 5 points/year for U25 players.

Accepting this rule would have been allowed Shawn R.-L. to play in India. A very good example for the positive impact of this rule. Shawn became a World Champion U18 just 1 month after Olympiad, his rating now is around 2470 - more than enough for Canadian Team.

[Michael Barron]

Continue...

Probably, some VMs remember discussion about qualification rules for Olympic Teams in 2016. Our proposal (Fred and me) to grant a bonus of 5 rating points/year under 23 years old player was defeated with a narrow margin. I remember that time I was generally satisfied that VMs accepted other proposals, but honestly, that one was no-brainer for me. Unfortunately, some concerns about discrimination of older players played an important role in the voting.



Thank you, Victor, for your report!

Maybe it's a good time to reconsider this proposal?

[Fred McKim]

The attached file was received from Bob today. Please let me know if there are any simple errors, as due to time restrictions I'm posting it without the more thorough review I usually give it.

Our Revenue consists of 3 streams
1. Memberships (I have removed life memberships as they are sent to the Chess Foundation) ---- $28,128
2. Rating Fees (I have removed the portion paid to FIDE as they are a pass-through) -------------- $12,724
3. Chess Foundation of Canada (We receive the interest earned on an annual basis) --------------- $11,500

Expenditures
1. Administration & Office Expenses ----------------- $56,501
2. FIDE Expenses (Rating fees removed) ------------ $ 3,255

Net Loss ---------- $7,404

With the reappearance of OTB tournaments, it appears we have weathered the storm and will be in the black for 2022/2023. Luckily several good years preceding Covid had allowed us to tuck away money for the 2022 Olympiad, which I'm pretty sure was the most expensive one yet.

I don't think we have a separate thread for financial discussions, so please any questions or comments, direct them here.

Fred

[Victor Plotkin]

6. Arbiters and Olympiad.

This year Canada had 2 arbiters at Olympiad. Aris Marghetis was promoted to sector arbiter and Omar Shah served as a match arbiter. About 7 months before the Olympiad, I had a conversation with an arbiter from Quebec as he wanted to get a position of Olympic arbiter. I talked with A.Dvorkovich about him and got a positive reply. Looks like an arbiter was willing to serve in Moscow but not in Chennai and I did not hear from him since January.

Generally speaking, the earlier arbiter contacts Arbiter's Commission, the more chances for him/her to get the job. Usually, the selection process starts 8-10 months prior to Olympiad. In certain circumstances, I can help to get the job.

This year Omar was able to get it at very last moment, despite some difficulties with Indian Visa, as he was born in Pakistan which makes the Visa process even more complicated.

7. Olympiad in general.

I will provide more detailed report as a captain later, after this meeting. Now only about general impression.

It was better than I expected, as my expectations were really very low. I had too many concerns about wood, weather, medical issues, travel problems... Indians tried their best and spent a lot of money on the tournament, but some problem remained.

Organizers provided fast immigration/custom lines at Chennai airport, good and reliable transportation to/from tournament hall, more than 10 lines for security check before entering the playing hall. But they can not change the temperature from +35C, they can not change the Visa procedure, they can not change the problem with food and internet in many hotels.

We got lucky as our hotel was likely the best possible one, with good internet and no strong food issues. I talked with some USA players, L.Aronian and A.Zatonskih. They got stomach problems from the very beginning and very pour internet. Both VVIP of Olympiad, Dvorkovich and Carlsen stayed at out hotel.

Olympiad-2024 will be in Budapest, and Tashkent got Olympiad for 2026. A very interesting place, but hopefully it will be in fall as Uzbekistan usually has a very hot summer.

[Tony Li]

J. Rating Auditor

In the past year there has been mild deflation with average ratings decreasing by 20-30 points across the board. Most of this is coming from the past 6 months as there was little OTB activity beforehand. This is somewhat of a pleasant surprise as I was expecting bigger impacts from rapidly improving juniors with little OTB for 2 years. The average deflation to date represents less than the difference between a win and a loss for most players (32 points is the difference between a W and L for those rated under 2200).

There have been a lot of good discussions in the past year with Paul Leblanc, Bob Gillanders, Don Parakin and many others. Thank you for your support. I am looking forward to the transition to my successor Ian Findlay over the next few weeks.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Thank you Victor for your report. The biggest problem we had was with the Indian visa process for Canadians. I think we were a bit slow hoping that Qiyu would be able to resolve all her entanglements. We might have started Rachel Chen a week or two earlier but I am not sure that the result would have been any different. The petty bureaucracy worked very hard to prevent Canada from attending against all logic. One week before we were to fly I had made peace with the idea that we would likely not be attending the Congress as the last glimmers of hope were largely extinguished before I got an email on Tuesday opening the door a crack.

If Rachel were living in Canada, I suspect that the issues would have been able to be resolved but adding the complication of applying through the U.S. was too heavy a burden.

[Christina Tao]

4F. Report from CFC Youth Coordinator

After two year of pandemic shut down on chess world, finally we are heading into a amazing year and youth chess is never better than this year.

1. World Cadet & Youth Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships, April 30 - May 4, 2022 at Rhodes, Greece. We had two players travelled to Greece and coming home with great results.
Modith Mutyalapati finished 2nd place with 8/9 points
Sarthak Deshpande finished with 5th place with 6.5/9 points


2. Pan-American Youth Rapid&Blitz Online Chess Championship, May 21&22, June 4, 2022. We had 8 players attended this event, with great achievements from

U10 Open : 2nd place Daniel Joshua Lee (CAN)
U12 Open: 1st place Jifan Zhao (CAN)
U14 Open: 2nd place Emanuel Kot (CAN) and 3rd place Jonath Joseph (CAN)
U16 Open: 2nd place Adrien Cheng (CAN)
In overall, Team Canada finished the 2nd place in the country ranking

3. IRT Hybrid Americas League Sub-2400 Divisions U2400, U1800, and U1400, Jun 4 & 5, 2022 Markham ON. I successfully run the first Hybrid tournament link to American countries. We had 9 players joined in that event. This will open a new way of linking Canadian chess players to other countries in Hybrid format.

4. World School Chess championship Jun 10-19, 2022 in Panama city, Panama. We had three players(U11G Marie Guan, U11O Arun Mendes and U13O Johnathan Han) travelled to this event with two Champions coming home.

U11O Champion Arun Mendes
U13O Champion Johnathan Han

5. XXXII Pan-American Youth Chess championship, Jun 25-July2,2022 Montevideo, Uruguay. We had a team of 10 players from all provinces to attend this event in person. With an undefeated performance of 7.5/9 Rachel Chen coming home with 1st place winner. It was very blessed the team was greeting by ambassador Isabelle Valois.

6. North American Youth Chess Championship Aug 10-14, 2022 in Calgary Alberta. This is a recording year, with 407 players from Canada, USA and Mexico attended in this event. I had also travelled to NAYCC and gave out presentation to education parents. It is so important to bring CFC background and our work to the west coast players and their parents.

7. FIDE World Youth Chess Championship Sept 5-17, 2022 in Mamaia, City of Constanta, Romania. We had a team of 14 players travelled to this event. With the most exciting and intensive tournament, U18O Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux came home with World Champion title.

8. FIDE World Cadets Chess Championship Sept 15-28,2022 Batumi Georgia. We had a team of 12 players playing in this event. It is still on going as I report this event.

9. FIDE Youth U-16 Chess Olympiad, Oct 1- 11, 2022 Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan. We just form a Team of 4 players, they will travel out soon.




Christina
CFC Youth Coordinator