4A. President's Report

As most of you may know most of my free time over the last six months or so were spent on the Caesars Windsor Summer of Chess series of chess tournaments which included CYCC, Canadian Open and NAYCC. CYCC saw approximately 259 entries which was down a bit from last year when there were approximately 285 or so. The Canadian Open had about 130 entries and with the help of Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island and their $5000 donation was able to break even.


NAYCC had 349 entries which was one short of the target of 350. Putting on three events on such a short time frame with preparations starting in December was challenging. I will probably go into more detail about everything at a later date but I am sure that no one wants to hear all the boring details. Michael Song and Maili-Jade Ouellett got the IM and WIM titles that were up for grabs in the under 18 sections which was quite gratifying.

In between the Caesars Windsor Summer of Chess tournaments we sent a team to the U16 Olympiad which once again included Maili-Jade as the female and Richard Chen, Sam Song, Joe Belissimo and Rohan Talukdar rounding out the team. The very capable coach grandmaster Gergely Szabo was once again coach for Canada. I think that Canadian young players need these types of tournaments to focus their attention on what is required for chess success internationally. Often outrated but always fighting the team acquitted themselves well with most of the team breaking even or gaining rating points and the team as a whole finishing above their initial ranking. Hopefully the kids will take this experience and become stronger for it.

I have been privately filling out and filing the paperwork to obtained renewed recognition from the Canadian Olympic Committee as a sporting federation. It is taking much longer than I anticipated. As part of their NFP process we (hopefully just temporarily) lost our recognition. Since FIDE is recognized by the IOC, I am hoping that we will also be recognized by our Canadian Olympic Committee once again.

The tasks that we can take on in the coming year will depend on getting more help from a number of volunteers. We are stretched thin but every new volunteer makes things a little easier and allows us to accomplish more.

Our membership numbers are trending upward. There are more rating fees being collected. We are not without our challenges of course. Putting on major tournaments in some of the larger cities seems to be getting more and more difficult as hotels and other venues are increasing their prices to put on events. This may force us to become more creative but I am sure that the Canadian chess community is up to the challenge.

In the coming year you can expect that we will make some incremental improvements and look for new opportunities to promote and grow chess throughout Canada.