4. Executive and Officer reports
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
4A President's Report continued
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.