7. Closing Comments by Chair

[Lyle Craver]

This thread is reserved for our president's closing comments. When done he will adjourn the meeting.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Thank you to everyone who participated in this meeting. I was happy to see the results of the poll with regard to the unprecedented situation with regard to the individual taking pictures of young women and girls. Some people abstained for various reasons most likely due to questions of order. I voted for the motion as I don't really agree that we necessarily have to recuse ourselves in this particular situation. I could not provide full information and context and it is quite possible that it will never come unless the individual in question returns to Canada and requests a hearing.

We don't have rules for every situation but between our bylaws and the NFP act and rules governing corporations we can respond to these novel situations in a way that protects the innocents and punishes the wrong-doers appropriately.

I think we will continue to work on the safe play question at the next meeting which will likely once again be a five day meeting on or around Sunday May 16 to Thursday May 20, 2024. At Lyle's urging the AGM will be the usual eight day meetings in August or September depending on what is going on at the time or three to four weeks before the time of the meeting.

We dodged the bullet of losing the Candidates and the Women's Candidates tournaments. I was impressed how our chess community was able to come together to deal with this problem. We have FIDE and its top players coming to our home. Lets welcome them and embrace the moment where chess history will be made and perhaps altered. It will be a long time before we get to enjoy such a hinge moment in our own backyard. We should be eternally grateful to the sponsor, Isai Scheinberg and the Scienberg family and also to FIDE which trusted us with this moment.

The CFC continues to grow and thrive. We have to do what we can to encourage that to continue and even perhaps to accelerate. The executive is doing its best, but there is much work to do and really we are just beginning our journey. We have a good story to tell the world. Lets tell it to the world at every opportunity. Like any good story, characters and people enter and leave the scene and sometimes new characters enter who become important in ways we could not predict. I feel very optimistic about our future. Lets work together to make it even brighter than it is shaping up to be.

We may open up the executive reports section if someone who has not yet made their report offers a report. Patricia Gamliel was single-minded when we needed her but like me she probably made up the time deficit by cutting back on sleep. I believe that she was immersed in litigation over the course of this meeting.

With that I thank you all and adjourn the meeting.