Exchange between Ken Craft and Eric Van Dusen

[Eric Van Dusen]

Ken Craft:

I'm torn. I don't support the reduction of Governors but the Presidential candidate I'm leaning towards does...

Eric Van Dusen:

Hi Ken,

I acknowledge that you are torn.

Let us consider a number of aspects of the issue:

Are the needs and desires of chess players relatively homogenous or hetrogenous on a regional basis?

Do we truly need one representative per 20 players?

How many of the CFC governors are acclaimed versus being elected?

How unwieldy is dealing with 50 versus 25 governors?

What to do about the 50% of governors who do not regularly contribute comments, ideas, or even vote?

In my humble opinion, I just do not see the actual democratic process working all that well right now or the even in the recent past.

The CFC has turned a corner and unencumbered ourselves from the ball and chain of deficits. It's time to heal what ails the organization, become healthy and strong and damn it, get out there and promote the game we love throughout Canada and the world!

My campaign is fundamentally about inviting interested people to volunteer in whatever capacity and use the CFC organization to support international chess, provincial chess, local chess, youth chess, senior chess, and whatever chess anyone can imagine.

I hope I can count on your support. It is only one specific issue.

Examine the past performance of the incumbent who sought a legal opinon that basically communicated to the CFC governors that they are nobodies that cannot be trusted with the relevant information to make significant decisions.

Examine the motions brought forward by the incumbent that want to streamline and consolidate even more power centrally to the CFC president.

Examine the budget and the updated financial reports. Was it ever really true that the CFC could not afford the team led by Bob Gillanders?

The only conclusion that I can draw is that the incumbent David Lavin wants run the CFC in the identical manner as for-profit business.

In my opinion, one cannot run the CFC as business, and the converse is true, one cannot run a business like the CFC.

I am fundamentally promising a new attitude,a new passion, a new vision, a new way of making decisions so that all volunteers have the confidence, and possess a true and real ownership of the CFC so that they will be enthusiastic about volunteering in whatever capacity at whatever level: local, provincial, national, and internationally.

Yours faithfullly,

Eric Van Dusen

[Ken Craft]

Oh, I know how I'm voting Eric.

There are other ways to drop the number of Governors than the proposed measure. One way is to cap the number of Governors a given province could have. The proposed motion diminishes the voice of smaller provinces.

[Eric Van Dusen]

Hi Ken,

Your good point is noted and I will be sure to bring it up at the CFC AGM.

Cheers, Eric.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Ken:

What you say is not really true. Because the reduction is across the board, the relative positions are little changed.

But if we want to calculate it precisely, it is the voice of the largest province ( Ontario ) that is diminished the MOST under our provincial representation governor reduction. Here is the projected change:

Provincial/Territorial Governors:
Current / Proposed
A - B.C. - ......5.........3
B - Alta. - .....5.........3
C - Sask. -.....1.........1
D - Man. -......2.........1
E - Ont. -......17........9
F - Que. -.......2........1
G - N.B. -.......2.........1
H - P.E.I. -.....1.........1
I - N.S. -........2........1
J - Nfld. & Lab. – 1.....1
K - no reps from the 3 territories ( 3 vacancies ) same

Total -38 ( and three vacancies ).....22 ( and three vacancies )

So New Brunswick for example goes from 5.3% representation down to 4.5% representation, or down a miniscule .8%.

Ontario however, goes from 44.7% representation down to 40.9% representation, or down 3.8%.

When one looks at these figures, one can see that the change to relative power of the provinces is very minimal at best. But the largest province is affected more than the smaller provinces. In fact PEI's influence goes up from 2.6% to 4.5%.

Myself, I don't see that your issue is really the one on which someone should base their decision of support. The issue is that 61 governors is simply a very big bureaucracy for a small non-profit, and it is so many, provinces can't find enough good people to fill the seats. We need to streamline a bit.

Bob

[Ken Craft]

I'm not talking relative %, I'm talking number of voices. Doesn't matter since I'm hoping the motion is defeated.

[David Lavin]

While the optics or inactive Governors may be poor, what are the real consequences of having inactive Governors?

Were the inactive Governors repsonsible for the nearly $160,000 in losses betwee 2005 and 2008? Since they did not vote, they couldn't have been involved in the decisions that allowed the CFC to nearly bankrupt itself. Of course, no one else is lining up to accept responsibility so its easy to blame them.

Potentially active governors have not been excluded as it seems that it is hard to get a full complement of Governros anyway. David Cohen spent a month after last year's AGM trying to get more people to sign up as Governors

The real problems that the CFC faces are far more than skin deep and a discussion about Governor reduction addresses the symptoms, not the causes. The CFC has a history of debating issues such as this ad nauseum rather than dealing with real problems, making difficult decisions, and then implementing them.

I suggest that either of these two alternaives would satisfy the need for better optics and would allow the CFC to move forward rather than backwards:

1. All CFC members vote for the Executive electronically. This should be very easy to set up.

2. Only active TD's and Organizers will be appointed as Governors. After all, they are the most important stakeholders. in the organization.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi David:

1. Inactive governors demoralize those who are active, and expecting other governors to share the load; inactive governors make the membership skeptical about the governance of the CFC; inactive governors make it impossible to get a quorum for " constitutional " amendment votes outside of an AGM; why have governors at all that do nothing; if there aren't enough good candidates, then reduce the number of seats, so we only get good candidates.

2. Membership election of the Executive is worth consideration. It does shift power away from the governors. Also, the thinking behind governors electing the executive, is that that way they can be sure they get an executive they can work with. But most critical is that this administration has not communicated on a regular basis with the membership ( and some say the governors ), and membership vote does not work without lots of communication with the membership so they become educated to the CFC system and issues.

3. Being a TD or organizer does not mean they would be good governors, and in fact many are solidly uninterested in chess politics. Definitely the CFC needs to improve its support for TD's and organizers though.

The idea sucks.

Bob

[Kerry Liles]

Hi David:

The idea sucks.

Bob

Bob, tell us how you really feel! lol

David, you could easily move a motion to propose that course of action. I am sure you could find a seconder among the Executive at least...

[Christopher Mallon]

I would be much more inclined to support this motion if it was backed up with statistical evidence.

So where are the numbers?

Where are the numbers to show that the elimination of these governors will weed out the inactive ones? What if the 8 Governors not from Ontario are in fact all active ones? Are you not now worse off?

What if this motion passes (with the support of Life Governors) but the motion to reduce Life Governors fails (without the support of Life Governors)??

Now all of a sudden you have something close to 50% of the votes being UNELECTED. How is THAT democratic?

The motion as of now just seems to be change for the point of change. Where is the actual plan behind it? What is the net BENEFIT for the CFC?

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Chris:

The relevant number is less than 50% voting on all motions this year except for the first four restructuring motions. Seems pretty devestating to me - so we reduce the provincial governors by 50%, and make the positions in future competitive.

I don't have stats, but I understand most provinces have acclamations of governors - this year the Greater Toronto Chess League ( the biggest of four Ontario regions ) acclaimed 9 governors for the 9 positions they were trying to fill. Cut the number in half, and we'll have more than enough good candidates vying for the job

Another stat - 1 governor for every 23 members !! ( 61 governors for about 1400 adult members ) - where elsewhere do you find such absurdly high representation figures. There are so many governors, we can't find enough good people to fill the positions.

We are maintaining some balance between elected and unelected governors by cutting the former president governors at large by 50% as well ( our motion got " lost " by Lyle, and David has refused to ciruclate it and put it onto the AGM agenda ). But it will eventually come to a vote, and many governors think it is time to get rid of the idea of life governors, which is a consequence of our motion # 2. We hope it and the motion 2009-14 will both pass.

This is not just change for the sake of change. There is a detailed argument about where we are going with this - streamlining decision-making - a BIG BENEFIT to CFC.

And next the CFC Constitutional Coalition will be considering a fourth motion to place an activity restriction on CFC Governors. So the reduced numbers will have to stay active, or get booted ( unless someone else brings such a motion first ). We see this as a two step process:

1. reduce the numbers;
2. impose an activity rule.

Bob