"half-truths, unsupported rumors and paranoid fantasies"
samsloan
unsupported rumors and paranoid fantasies help in providing the truth?
(Unless you're making the "stopped clock" argument -- tell enough lies
and one of them may turn out to be true?)[/quote]
It is interesting that John Hillary considers the financial figures
sent by Bill Hall to the Executive Board and to the Finance Committee
to be "half-truths, unsupported rumors and paranoid fantasies".
I will use that quote in the future.
Please note that John Hillary, a political ally of Jerry Hanken,
states that the financial figures provided by USCF Executive Director
Bill Hall are "half-truths, unsupported rumors and paranoid
fantasies".
Sam Sloan
samsloan
that those numbers are tentative, unreliable and probably incorrect.
But an excessive respect for truth has never been one of your
weaknesses. Why don't you use the figures from six months ago and
claim they are definitive. Oh, I forgot, you did. 2) I'm not sure
there's anything on which Jerry Hanken and I agree in this election
other than the need to get rid of you.
And Sam, learn to spell.
John Hillary[/quote]
Bill Hall did not provide these financial figures six months ago. He
provided them on Monday, three days ago.
Bill Goichberg naturally disputes these figures because Goichberg has
been saying that we are in the black. However, others are saying that
when the audited figures come out in August, we will be much deeper in
the red.
Meanwhile, John Hillary is here quoted as saying that the financial
Chess One
----- Original Message -----
From: "samhsloan" <sl...@ishipress.com>
To: <fide-...@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 6:35 AM
Subject: [fide-chess] Re: "half-truths, unsupported rumors and paranoid
fantasies"
[quote="rfeditor"]1) Bill Goichberg and Mike Nolan have both told you
that those numbers are tentative, unreliable and probably incorrect.
But an excessive respect for truth has never been one of your
weaknesses. Why don't you use the figures from six months ago and
claim they are definitive. Oh, I forgot, you did. 2) I'm not sure
there's anything on which Jerry Hanken and I agree in this election
other than the need to get rid of you.
And Sam, learn to spell.
John Hillary[/quote]
Bill Hall did not provide these financial figures six months ago. He
provided them on Monday, three days ago.
**Sam Sloan blithely ignores any answers to his 'questions' by continuing to
say that these figures are from 3 days ago. They are the same as 3 months
ago. Now, whether he choses to ignore this response, which was posted
directly to him yesterday, and admit that he is sponsoring more
"half-truths, unsupported rumors and paranoid fantasies", is entirely up to
him.
Bill Goichberg naturally disputes these figures because Goichberg has
been saying that we are in the black. However, others are saying that
when the audited figures come out in August, we will be much deeper in
the red.
**In terms of operations, there would appear to be a loss similar to last
year. Trading activities in cash businesses often depend on last year's
expenditure, and annual figures alone are less significant than a
/consistent pattern/ of loss, coupled with a shrinking market sector
penetration. Larger still are other factors, such as the worth of assets in
real-market terms, and the worth of these assets compared to the 'risk'
factors of long-term fixed investment in them. It doesn't matter a whit who
agrees or disagrees with these statements, except denying their validity who
be to expose oneself as naive. In short, these are not matters of
personality - but of objective standards of measurement of a business. To
politicise them by personality politiking, is to avoid being responsible to
any standard at all.
Meanwhile, John Hillary is here quoted as saying that the financial
figures provided by USCF Executive Director Bill Hall are
"half-truths, unsupported rumors and paranoid fantasies".
**Only a duffer could render his sense that way. It seems to me that Hillary
made the same point as myself yesterday, and others before us: that /for
anyone/ to present figures which are so flip-floppy, is of very little worth
compared with, say, what a CPA might produce for the nice folks at the IRS.
Phil Innes
-------------
Sam Sloan
Rob
In recent days, USCF Delegates and Alternate Delegates have been
receiving the following mailing sent by Sam Sloan of New York calling
for the recall of four members of the Executive Board: Tim Redman, Jim
Pechac, Doris Barry, and Helen Warren. If Mr. Sloan obtains 75
signatures for the recall of a Board member, USCF bylaws require a
recall election to be held, with a two-thirds vote of the Delegates
and Alternates required for removal.
The USCF Bylaws do not specify what the grounds for a recall must be-
it's whatever the voter thinks is a sufficient reason. No "high crimes
and misdemeanors" are needed here.
Sam Sloan is a veteran tournament player who has attended many FIDE
meetings and major world chess events. He has run for the USCF
Executive Board (formerly Policy Board) three times, with little
success. Most recently, in 1999 he placed last out of 16 candidates
on the ballot.
Petition to Recall Members of the Executive Board of the United States
Chess Federation
The United States Chess Federation is now in crisis. Everybody agrees
on that, although there is disagreement as to the causes and
solutions.
The current Executive Board majority, which just took power in August,
is unresponsive to the wishes of the membership. The current Executive
Board majority has effectively destroyed the established rating system
by instituting a "fiddle points" system where every player will be
awarded two points for every game played, up to a limit of 2000
points. They say that they have done this to increase chess activity.
However, most players compete in tournaments not to win prizes but to
gain rating points by defeating opponents and have no interest in a
rating system based upon the number of games they play. The rating
system is the most valuable asset that the USCF has and the
introduction of fiddle points will effectively destroy it.
But that is only the beginning. The new board majority has not issued
any financial reports. The most recent balance sheet for the USCF is
dated May, 1999. The USCF Annual report for the year 2000 was supposed
to have been issued in August 2000 at the time of the US Open. It has
not been issued yet. Financial statements are supposed to be available
on the USCF website. Yet, if you try to get the financial statements
supposedly on the web site, it says: "The page cannot be found".
In a recent newsgroup posting, Tim Redman, USCF President, stated:
"Consolidated statements were far from being my top priority". If the
current Executive Board majority is thrown out, perhaps we can get
somebody in there who does consider financial statements to be a top
priority.
This is not because of a lack of resources. The USCF hired a Chief
Financial Officer last year, Jeffrey Loomis, a position which did not
previously exist. The USCF supposedly has more accounting and
bookkeeping personnel than ever before.
The reason no financial statements are available is that Jim Pechac,
the elected Vice-President of Finance, has blocked the issuance of
financial reports. This situation does not seem likely to change as
long as the current Executive Board majority remains in office. By
now, the financial reports for the year 2001 should be in preparation.
Yet, the reports for fiscal 2000 are not out yet.
But there is more: The USCF introduced its highly touted US CHESSLIVE
system for Internet online play. The group that provides this free
service to members was brought in by Doris Barry. However, observant
subscribers quickly realized that the US CHESSLIVE software is
infected with spyware. It installs spyware into your system, enabling
the operators to read your entire hard drive, including your credit
card numbers, your bank account passwords and the like.
A big ruckus was made over this, so the company withdrew that version
and issued a new version of US ChessLive. The new version does not
contain that brand of spyware: It contains a different less obvious
brand of spyware instead! They claim that it is not spyware, because
it is fully disclosed in the agreement that everyone must make when
they download the software, an agreement which almost nobody reads.
Meanwhile, anybody who downloaded the first version of US Chess Live
is still having their hard drive read by that company. Once the
spyware is installed, there is really no way to be sure of removing
it, except either to buy a new computer or reformat the infected hard
drive.
The current Executive Majority knows about all these problems, but
they don't care. They have the arrogance of power. They have no care
or concern for what their members think.
There is much more: Several members of the Executive Board are known
to want to close down the books and equipment business and to close
down USCF correspondence chess. They have already reduced School Mates
magazine to just four issues per year and they have greatly reduced
the size of Chess Life magazine. Several senior USCF staff members
have been summarily fired, including Barbara DeMaro, whose firing
became the subject of a column in the Boston Globe. At least that
brought publicity for chess. In addition, Glenn Petersen was removed
as Chess Life editor.
It goes on and on. And remember, all this has happened in the few
months since August when the current executive board majority took
power, except that the problem of No Financial Reports dates back to
August 1999, when Jim Pechac became Vice President for Finance.
There are many more problems. The Tournament Life Announcements
section of Chess Life is down to ten pages in the current issue, half
of which is devoted to Grand Prix events, as opposed to sixteen
previously. The price to organizers for putting TLAs in the magazine
has quadrupled. It is surprising that half of the current TLA section
is devoted to Grand Prix events, because the USCF funding for the
Grand Prix program has been abolished, a program which benefits all
but the smallest organizers, as it brings grandmasters to tournaments
where they would otherwise not play. Yet, the current Executive Board
majority claims that they voted in favor of fiddle points, or
"activity points" as they prefer to call them, to increase chess
activity.
While almost everybody is unhappy about this, there are those who say
that we should wait until August when a new election will take place
and a new board will presumably take power. However, I for one feel
that we cannot wait. If we wait, by the time of the election, there
will be no more USCF to fight over. By the time of the next election,
the financial statements for fiscal 2001 are supposed to be out.
However, since financial statements for 2000 are not out yet, it can
be just about guaranteed that there will be no meaningful financial
information by the time of the next election, or for at least as long
as Jim Pechac remains in office.
The presence of spyware in US ChessLive creates a potential financial
liability of millions of dollars if and when the general membership
finds out about this and decides to bring suit. Ironically, the cover
of the January/February Chess Life says: "see what all the fuss is
about - us chesslive". It fails to mention that the fuss is about the
spyware that US ChessLive contains.
In 1995, the Delegates passed a new rating system which addresses the
concerns about ratings deflation. It is known as the Glickman System.
Glickman is a Professor of Math and Statistics at Boston University
who wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the USCF rating system. However, the
USCF office staff never implemented the Glickman system. Finally, the
October issue of Chess Life announced that the Glickman System was
being put into effect. Almost simultaneously, on October 6, 2000, Tim
Redman, in one of the most arrogant acts imaginable, got the board
effectively to throw out the Glickman system in favor of his own
fiddle points plan.
Players are upset that they do not know which rating system is in
effect and they cannot calculate or estimate their new ratings. Most
of the complaints about the previously established rating system come
from the scholastic community, who said that their players were
underrated. The fiddle points system will have a devastating impact on
scholastic chess because, for example, any kid who lives in New York
City where the Manhattan and Marshall Chess Clubs hold Swiss system
tournaments every day can quickly play a few hundred rated games and
thereby qualify to represent the United States in an international
youth event, whereas players who live in remote areas will not have an
equal opportunity. The current top-50 lists for various age categories
will become meaningless. Small groups will form of players who only
play each other and nobody else, thereby insuring much higher ratings
for every member of the group.
In the history of the USCF, there has never been a recall of elected
officials, in part because the recall provision was first put in the
by-laws in 1998. I believe that the only solution is to recall the
four members of the Executive Board who are causing all these
problems, namely: Tim Redman, Helen Warren, Doris Barry and Jim
Pechac. They all have different backgrounds and are not in agreement
in all issues, but they have formed an alliance and a bloc which now
controls the USCF.
In each case, there is a specific reason which pertains primarily to
one Executive Board member. For example, the problem of no financial
reports is clearly caused by Jim Pechac. Tim Redman, the new
president, has expressed little interest in the numbers aspect of the
USCF. The problem of spyware in US ChessLive must be laid at the door
of Doris Barry, because she is the person who brought in the US
ChessLive group. The problem of the fiddle points has been caused by
Tim Redman, because this was his brainchild. Helen Warren is the main
proponent of a proposal to close down the books business and to stop
USCF correspondence chess. She tried to stop a US Team from being sent
to the World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul and she voted against allowing
George DeFeis to negotiate with the Seirawan group to hold the US
Championship in Seattle. These four Executive Board members vote for
each other's plans and secure their passage.
Under the USCF by-laws, in order for there to be a recall, first 75
voting members must sign the recall petition. I am confident that I
can get 75 signatures, but I need your help. I could also use a little
money. After that, the member who is the subject of the Recall
Petition has 30 days to communicate his or her views to the voters,
and then there is an election.
The recall provision states:
Section 10. Removal and Recall. Members of the Executive Board are
subject to removal through recall by Petition for Recall.
Petition for Recall. A Petition for Recall bearing the signatures of
at least seventy five of the electors may be filed with the USCF
Secretary, except that a Petition to Recall the USCF Secretary shall
be filed with the USCF President. Upon certification of the petition,
timely notice of the recall shall be provided to the Electors by mail
and the Executive Board Member who is subject to recall shall have no
less than thirty days to communicate his/her views to the Electors. At
the end of that period a recall ballot shall be mailed to the Electors
providing for its return within 21 days to the Business Office. At the
end of that period the ballots shall be opened and tabulated in the
presence of three tellers, one appointed by the Executive Board member
who is subject to recall, one appointed by the first available signer
of a recall question, and one appointed by the other two tellers. If
at least 250 ballots are received and at least 2/3 of those voting
support recall, the Executive Board Member is recalled.
I am sending you a separate recall petition for each of the four
members of the Executive Board who I feel that should be recalled. I
am doing it this way because some, for example, may favor keeping
Helen Warren while wanting Tim Redman to be recalled. Also, if you
want any of the remaining three members of the Executive Board
recalled, just draw up your own petition. If I get 75 signatures to
have any of them recalled, I will submit those as well, in the
interest of being even-handed to all sides.
I want to explain that I have nothing personally against any of the
four Executive Board members whom I want recalled. I personally posted
the campaign letters of Tim Redman on the chess newsgroups at his
request, because he did not know how to do it himself. I campaigned
for Jim Pechac and often said that I thought he would make an
excellent Executive Board member. I used to exchange friendly
correspondence with Helen Warren, until I expressed opposition to some
of her policies and she cut off the correspondence and blocked me from
sending her e-mail. I also had positive feelings about Doris Barry and
I thought that she was a nice old lady who knew a lot about chess. I
thought that she was going to make an excellent board member.
Several people have expressed the view that the recall petition will
be unsuccessful and will only strengthen their position. My response
to this is that at least if 75 voters sign the petition, the members
subject to the recall will have to hold themselves accountable. When
they campaigned for election, they sent us all those finely printed
letters about the great things they were going to do if elected.
Needless to say, they have done none of the things that they promised
to do and instead have sent the USCF off in a completely opposite
direction.
If you will sign this petition, that will help guarantee that at least
you will receive a letter from your elected officials explaining their
actions and their conduct up until now. Then you will be able to
decide whether you want to vote for or against the recall.
Signed copies of the petition should be sent to me at my address,
which is as follows:
Sam Sloan
2356 Pitkin Avenue
Brooklyn NY 11207-3822
January 16, 2001
Very Truly Yours,
Sam Sloan
============ Next Page =======================
Petition to Recall Tim Redman from the USCF Executive Board
I am a voting member of the United States Chess Federation and I
hereby petition for a recall of Tim Redman as member of the Executive
Board on the following grounds [add, cross out or change grounds as
appropriate]:
Tim Redman and his political allies got elected by claiming that there
was a "financial crisis in the USCF" and that the financial figures
being presented to the delegates were false and misleading.
However, under Redman, the delegates have been presented with no
meaningful financial figures at all! From time to time, spreadsheets
are posted on the USCF web site showing specific selected financial
figures. However, these figures are virtually useless when determining
the overall health of the organization.
Since August, 1999, when the current Executive Board took office,
there has never been a consolidated financial statement issued by the
USCF. The USCF annual report was supposed to have come out in August,
2000. It has not come out yet. This is the first time in history that
the USCF has not issued a timely annual report.
In October, Redman got a motion passed awarding two rating points to
every rated player for every chess game played. Redman calls these
"activity points", but the general membership calls them "fiddle
points", because that is the name given to similar points by George
Cunningham when he was USCF ratings administrator in the late 1970s.
The USCF now has 87788 members. Among those, five are in favor of
fiddle points. The remaining 87783 are opposed.
Redman mislead the Executive Board when he presented his fiddle points
plan at the October 6, 2000 meeting. He said: "I circulated this idea
for discussion. I had a very productive and good e-mail correspondence
with Professor Mark Glickman, who is the Chair of the Ratings
Committee."
This clearly implied that Mark Glickman was in favor of fiddle points
or at least not strongly against it. Redman also said that other
members of the Rating Committee had expressed support for the idea "as
individuals". This was a lie. The entire Ratings Committee was
unanimously and vehemently opposed to fiddle points and Redman knew
that. If he did not know it then, he certainly knows it now, and yet
he has been pressing forward with his fiddle points system and
insisting upon prompt implementation.
Redman also advocated removing TLAs ("tournament life announcements")
from the pages of Chess Life and a drastic reduction in the size of
Chess Life.
[Write in Other Grounds]
On these or other grounds, I petition for Tim Redman to be recalled.
____________________
USCF Voting Member
ID No.
============ Next Page =======================
Petition to Recall Jim Pechac from the USCF Executive Board
I am a voting member of the United States Chess Federation and I
hereby petition for a recall of Jim Pechac as member of the Executive
Board on the following grounds [add, cross out or change grounds as
appropriate]:
Jim Pechac and his political allies got elected by claiming that there
was a "financial crisis in the USCF" and that the financial figures
being presented to the delegates were false and misleading.
However, under Pechac, the delegates have been presented with no
meaningful financial figures at all! From time to time, spreadsheets
are posted on the USCF web site showing specific selected financial
figures. However, these figures are virtually useless when determining
the overall health of the organization.
Since August, 1999, when the current Executive Board took office and
Jim Pechac became Vice-President for Finance, there has never been a
consolidated financial statement issued by the USCF. The USCF annual
report was supposed to have come out in August, 2000. It has not come
out yet. This is the first time in history that the USCF has not
issued a timely annual report.
Although some financial figures are available, they are utterly
without meaning without the full financial figures. For example, one
spreadsheet includes the following items:
November 2000 Finance Reports (Operations)
Total revenue (Year-to-date) 2,310,050.95
Cost of Sales 598,201.89
Gross Profit 1,711,849.06
Total Expenses 1,724,067.35
Net income <12,218.29>
While these figures are mildly interesting, they are utterly
meaningless without a balance sheet. The last balance sheet the USCF
issued was dated May, 1999. More than one and a half years have passed
with no balance sheet.
Moreover, the above figures just represent Operations. The big money,
both in assets and liabilities, are in the LMA aspect of the financial
statements and are completely undisclosed. For example, all dues paid
by life and sustaining members goes into the LMA and does not reach
operations. The LMA also owns the building. The LMA transfers money
into operations from time to time. All of these financial
transactions, which involve millions of dollars (assuming that the
money is still there), are completely undisclosed to the voting
members.
[Write in Other Grounds]
On these or other grounds, I petition for Jim Pechac to be recalled.
____________________
USCF Voting Member
ID No.
============ Next Page =======================
Petition to Recall Helen Warren from the USCF Executive Board
I am a voting member of the United States Chess Federation and I
hereby petition for a recall of Helen Warren as member of the
Executive Board on the following grounds [add, cross out or change
grounds as appropriate]:
Helen Warren has taken positions which I and, I believe, the majority
of USCF voting members are against:
Helen Warren is the main proponent of a proposal to close down the
books and equipment business, to stop USCF correspondence chess, and
to halt the Grand Prix program. She tried to stop a US Team from being
sent to the World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul. She voted against
holding a US Championship for the year 2000 and then she voted against
allowing George DeFeis to negotiate with the Seirawan group to hold
the US Championship in Seattle.
She voted to establish the fiddle points rating system and she
ridiculed efforts to raise funds to save the Grand Prix.
Yet, before she was elected, Helen Warren asked that the USCF donate
$10,000 each year to her own private tournament which she renamed the
US Masters.
[Write in Other Grounds]
On these or other grounds, I petition for Helen Warren to be
recalled.
____________________
USCF Voting Member
ID No.
============ Next Page =======================
Petition to Recall Doris Barry from the USCF Executive Board
I am a voting member of the United States Chess Federation and I
hereby petition for a recall of Doris Barry as member of the Executive
Board on the following grounds [add, cross out or change grounds as
appropriate]:
Doris Barry brought the US ChessLive program into the USCF. US
ChessLive software is infected with spyware which when downloaded into
a computer enables the operators of US ChessLive to read the entire
hard drive of the subscriber, including credit card numbers and bank
account passwords.
Although the operators of US ChessLive promise only to extract "non-
identifying information" from the hard drive of subscribers, the fact
is that only USCF members are allowed to join US ChessLive, which
means that the operators already have access to a database containing
the name, address and ID number of every one of the 88,000 USCF
members. Thus, a subscriber when he signs up and provides his USCF ID
number, makes his identity known to US ChessLive.
This is precisely the reason why the operators of US ChessLive have
offered their software to USCF members "free of charge". They say that
they make their money from "advertising". This suggests that they are
advertising to USCF members, but what they are really doing is
advertising the contents of the hard drives of USCF members to
others.
Doris Barry led the fight to stop USCF from accepting the $500,000
scholarship offer from KasparovChess, a no risk opportunity. This
would have cost USCF nothing, and would have resulted in joint
Kasparov-USCF media opportunities.
In addition, Doris Barry tried to stop a US Team from being sent to
the World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul. She voted against holding a US
Championship for the year 2000 and then she voted against allowing
George DeFeis to negotiate with the Seirawan group to hold the US
Championship in Seattle. She also voted in favor of fiddle points.
[Write in Other Grounds]
On these or other grounds, I petition for Doris Barry to be recalled.
____________________
USCF Voting Member
ID No.
Editor's comment: Sam Sloan and I share a low opinion of the
performance of the four EB members he is trying to recall, and he
asked for my opinion regarding his planned mailing. I replied that I
thought it would probably be counterproductive, and recommended that
he abandon the effort.
Sloan went ahead anyway, and USCF President Tim Redman has since
claimed that I support the Sloan recall effort. While I think the
federation would benefit from the resignation of a few of Sloan's
targets, I am uncertain whether to support the recall or sign any of
the petitions.
There are a number of reasons why, even though I think this alliance
of four is doing great damage to USCF, I am hesitant to endorse the
recall.
First, as bad as they are, the idea of removing a majority of the
Board is a bit absurd as it would not even leave a quorum that is
necessary to conduct business, and a period of months could ensue
without replacement Board members.
Second, I fear that if a recall campaign that is supported by former
Board members and others prominent in USCF fails to obtain the
necessary signatures, this might politically strengthen the targets of
the recall attempt and their allies. And this effort could easily
fail because it is led by Sloan, who not only lacks popularity, but
also has a bad habit of not checking his facts carefully, and has made
some incorrect statements in his mailing, though probably fewer than
President Tim Redman claims. And if there is enough grassroots
support for the recall to ultimately succeed in obtaining a two-thirds
vote for removal, it should be possible to obtain 75 signatures
without having prominent opponents of the current Board majority
campaigning for voters to sign.
Third, once the targets of the recall and their allies are out of
power, they will probably seek retribution by attempting to have some
of the new Board members recalled. Frequent recall attempts are not a
productive way to run the federation.
On the other hand, an argument in favor of signing at least some
petitions is that this should not be a referendum on Sam Sloan, but
rather on the four Board members he has targeted. No matter how many
mistakes may be in Sloan's letter, it is undeniable that Redman,
Pechac, Barry and Warren all supported the horrendously unwise
decision to jack the TLA fees out of sight, driving perhaps a third of
the TLAs out of Chess Life, and persuading some organizers to spend
their time on something other than promoting chess.
At a time when attendance and USCF regular memberships were already
declining, and a pro-affiliate policy was desperately needed, these
four Board members poured gasoline on the fire by telling organizers,
already deprived of their affiliate commissions, that they could
either pay tripled or quadrupled TLA fees or take their publicity
elsewhere, even though many state publications have too small a
circulation or are issued too infrequently to be an acceptable
substitute, and many players are still not on the net. And this
decision was implemented right after the St. Paul delegates meeting,
without any attempt to consult the delegates, who are supposed to be
the ultimate governing authority in the federation. The conclusion is
inescapable that the delegates were not consulted because the Board
feared (correctly) that they would not have approved. What a contrast
to the way former ED Mike Cavallo handled a much smaller TLA fee
increase in 1997, explaining what he intended to do at the Orlando
meetings and later modifying his proposal before implementation in
reaction to criticism!
To make matters worse, our President told us that the outrageous TLA
fees were all part of a carefully constructed plan focusing heavily on
newsstand sales (which have never been significant despite a variety
of formats including a special insert about 1990) and designed to
recruit the "casual player," who is assumed to be interested in chess
art, chess fiction, chess poems, human interest, celebrities who play
chess, just about everything except the playing of serious chess.
This idea has been tried over and over again throughout USCF history
and has always been a total bust. Every reader survey ever taken,
including a very recent one, has shown that USCF members massively
prefer games, analysis, news and TLAs to art, fiction, human interest
and the like. For this Board to try yet another attempt to accomplish
what history shows cannot be done, at this critical time, at the
expense of popular and necessary features such as TLAs, is simply
incredible.
So what am I recommending the voter do? If you agree that the Board's
TLA and Chess Life policies are a disaster and lean towards signing
petitions to recall all four, please go ahead. I'm not trying to talk
you out of it, and it is unlikely that all four will actually be
recalled to make a quorum impossible. If you're in the middle and
want the alliance that is harming the federation broken up but don't
want a recall against a majority of the Board, you might consider
signing three petitions and omitting Helen Warren, because she was the
only one of the four that was open minded enough to first reconsider
"activity points," which would have destroyed the integrity of the
rating system. If you're only willing to sign one petition, I suggest
Tim Redman, not because he is the worst Board member, but because he
is the President and chief spokesman for the horrible TLA and Chess
Life changes; to force him to defend these policies in a recall
election would send a dramatic signal that the voters want these
changes reversed as soon as possible. And if you're afraid that any
recall election is unwise, I've given you some reasons above to
support that position, too.
I still worry that Sloan's effort may backfire. But now that it is a
reality, let's see how many voters are upset enough about recent
events to sign at least one petition, if (as I expect) there are no
follow-up mailings by others designed to encourage signatures.
ChessNews.org homepage
samsloan
evidence (and we do [i]not[/i] have final numbers for the last fiscal
year yet) it is OK to use [i]unreliable[/i] numbers, or just make
something up? I doubt you would get very far with that theory in your
own profession. The "nutters" I see are those who consider Sam Sloan a
reliable source. Perhaps because they consider history irrelevant.
John Hillary[/quote]
The real nutter is John Hillary who keeps saying that these numbers
were provided by Sam Sloan and are therefore unreliable when everybody
else agrees that these numbers were actually provided by USCF
Executive Director Bill Hall. I simply posted the numbers that Bill
Hall provided to the board and to the finance committees.
And if Bill Goichberg is correct that the loss of $57,915 might turn
out to be a profit, that does not help his case because the office is
suppose to provide the correct numbers the first time. It should not
be the job of the auditors to find and correct errors made by the
office staff. The office staff is supposed to provide the correct
numbers the first time and the auditors should in principle only have
to confirm that the financial figures provided by the office are
correct. Otherwise, why are we paying salaries to a staff that just
gives us wrong numbers?
Sam Sloan
Rob
records. He is the USCF "Henny Penny". He attacks everyone. The goes
off on another tangent. Chess seems to have driven him insane, in my
opinion.
samsloan
is the only figure we will have until after the election has been held
and the results announced.
Up until the executive director provided us with this figure, we had
only the pronouncements by Joel Channing and Bill Goichberg that we
would be in the black to go by.
I do not see how it helps your side to say that minus $57,915 might be
wrong, since it is your side that provided the number and your side
that hired or fired the staff that provides the numbers.
Traditionally, the actual audited figures that come out after the
election show a $100,000 to $200,000 bigger loss than that reported by
the office staff.
If your claim proves true that the audited figures will turn out to be
better than the unaudited figures provided by the office, that will be
a first, not only for the USCF but for almost any company.
Sam Sloan
SBD
Such amateur psychoanalysis should be discouraged.
Hartston, for example, isn't the only one to think that chess keeps
chessplayers from getting nuttier than they already are..... it's
amazing how often the human mind cannot discern cause and effect......
But if you want to refute someone, take the time to refute the facts.
Your last statement is lazy, and ruins any attention one might have
paid to you otherwise. Not that anyone pays much attention to Sam: he
generates so much noise that the sprinkles of wheat get lost in the
voluminous chaff.... once a useful gadfly, he shows how a change in
roles - him going from outsider to insider - has totally crippled any
effectiveness he ever had, and only brings all of his negative baggage
(which in its current form could only be decribed as Polgar hatred) to
the fore.
In fact, chess would teach Sloan how to get his message across.
Instead of attacking here there and everywhere (which in chess we know
leads to failure unless your pieces are properly developed) , a
focused approach on the king or queenside might be needed.......or
perhaps even proper (self) development before trying to attack.......
Rob
Point well taken.
It was a lazy exchange. But one only need look at Sloan's hero,BF, to
recognize the pattern. Sloan's volumes of attacks spew forth more
regularly that "Old Faithful". And like the natural wonder, he is
interesting to watch for a period of time but serves on useful useful
lasting purpose in our lives.
If he were a radio, how long ago would his plug ahave been pulled?
Hope you are well Dr. D! I understand you have less water in your area
than I in mine.
Rob
The Truth.
> If he were a radio, how long ago would his plug ahave been pulled?
> Hope you are well Dr. D! I understand you have less water in your area
> than I in mine.
> Rob
Ew? - Rob's nose is all covered in icky brown-stuff.
TheTruth.