We’re now 9  months into Chess Victoria’s new committee what do we find? Some good and some same-old-same-old…

The Good

• Interclub Teams Event is up and running! Great work Carl Gorka (check out his blog)
• It looks as if the Vic Championships will run this year
• CV isn’t bankrupt, yet

The Same

• The website – ouch! After promising at the AGM a new website, budgeting $3000 for it there was a Presidential decision (not a committee one) that it was OK as it was…
• The vacant Secretary position
• The lack of enthusiasm by some committee members (no vision and no leadership = no enthusiasm)
• Worse still, committee members are not wanting to do anything unless they get paid. This culture shift will cause long term damage.

The Worry

• The budget presented at the last AGM was clearly Pie-in-the-Sky and to have not known that it was made up is worse than incompetent.
• Payments made to committee members undeclared and unreported
• All the financially profitable CV events are ‘awarded’ to a business or club to run (and profit from)
• All un-profitable events CV pays someone to run and loses twice
• If things continue the way they are for much longer clubs will get sick of subsidising private businesses and committee members and find an alternative.

ChessClub.com.au has sprung up as a potential alternative to CV affiliation for clubs (although it isn’t being pitched like that at the moment). For $100 per year (cheaper than CV affiliation) they provide a decent central website, a printed newsletter (On The Move) and really the only thing missing is ratings… it will be interesting to see what developments emerge to fill the gap.

Admittedly it is a private site and not subject to the same democratic process as CV – but then look where that has taken CV?!

Action without a vision is a nightmare.

What would you call it without a Vision or Action?

I have recently sent Chess Victoria a document (CV school teams recommendations) which shows them how to increase their revenue from school-events from $1011 (2009) to around $20,000.

The proposal also offers almost $10,000 to clubs and earmarks some $4000 for junior development; still leaving a tidy profit for Chess Victoria.

I wonder if it will make it to a vote?

Major benefits

• Chess Victoria will create a unique identity with a school-teams event
• Provide chess clubs with regular stream of potential new members
• Income of $20,000+ with opportunity to fund beneficial junior programs
• Consistent format with ACF schools event
• Focus on ‘better’ players; those most likely to join clubs
• Up to $10,500 contribution from Chess Victoria to clubs

This type of event is definitely needed. Should CV miss this opportunity I am certain another organisation will come along and fill this need in the market. Can you afford for Chess Victoria to play catch-up again, rather than leading the way?

Format of event

• Events hosted by Chess Clubs
• 7 games over a school term
• 2 events held at each club; during Term 2 and Term 3 (Primary and Secondary)
• 8 teams per event (round-robin)
• 4 players per team, playing Olympiad style (as per ACF)
• Time control 25m +10s (min.) and ACF rated
• Team Entry fee $150 – $195
• One winning team from each Zone goes to CV Finals (again hosted by a club)
• Optional (my recommendation) minimum rating per team of 3400 for primary and 3800 for secondary
• Contribution of $60-$100 per game to the host club (per division)

First I am very impressed with the CV attitude towards meetings/minutes this year. But this is a small positive under a much bigger disaster strategy.

a) Excellent to have publicly available minutes – great to start getting some transparency into the organisation.

b) Very good idea to write the minutes BEFORE the meeting (as they’ve done). A meeting should be reporting on the progress made and making commitments for the next job to do.

c) Appalling attitude of denying responsibility for everything and still providing nothing to MEMBERS

What I’d like to see happening is still some STRATEGIC thinking. Bigger picture stuff. I’ll keep saying it.

Added. Noted decision that the building of invoicing and booking functionality, for Interschool events, has been declared out-of-scope for any review of the CV web-site.

I don’t even know where this idea (also mentioned in the CV bulletin) came from. Improving the CV website to make the school-events organisers jobs easier wouldn’t have been suggested by anyone; they’d not even have considered it.

I wonder if Sandler/Johansen see CV as a means by which their small businesses can compete with other interschool events with some ‘credibility’ (a convenient vehicle for a ‘business consotium’ to use Sandler’s words) and are looking at the things which other websites do (making the running interschool events easy) and were considering copying and having CV foot the bill?

Most of the new Executive were unaware of the two options presented to the Presidents meeting, and there was a need get the Gorka proposal understood by the newcomers. The agenda item was probably too presumptive. The minutes call for a review point on tournament structure and plans at the end of January. If that structure is to be pursued then a Tournament Organiser needs to be found/appointed.

I don’t know if anyone else remembers the Presidents’ meeting; but the review of tournament structure was exactly what was disucssed!! Now we’ve forgotten it ever happened and are starting again. It wasn’t the “Gorka” proposal that was ultimately accepted — it was a modified version which the club presidents preferred.

It seems that Interclub cannot be resurrected because of the fundamental flaw that conflicts with ‘Club nights’ and scheduled Club calendar events have left no available time-slots. On the other hand, the Teams Competition proposed monthly games, and has the need to find a suitable time for only two Clubs at a time; and all this seemed much more manageable.

If a structure document can be given to a tournament organiser, as of 1/2/10, then there are improved prospects of success.

Which is CV talk for “we give up”. Too much time being put into school-teams chess and not enough into benefits for the MEMEBERS; the clubs and the players. This is why I’ve been banging on about CV needing a focus and to pick their target audience.

Darryl Johansen =Clubs Liaison Officer; David Hacche=Trophies Officer; Leonid Sandler and Darryl Johansen=Directors Junior Chess; Victor Kildisas=Arbiter; Trevor Stanning =Newsletter Editor and Archivist.

Just looking at this gives us no idea what the CV long-term plan is (maybe there isn’t one?). Clearly some on the committee have no intention of acutally doing anything; Trophies Officer…um, CV runs 2 tournaments a year (Vic Champs and Juniors) and is hoping get rid of those too … does that really need a trophy officer who is on the committee?? Arbiter? What sort of CV position is that – isn’t that a tournament role? Clubs Liaison could be a good one – we’ll have to wait and see how actively it is persued (and what agenda’s are to be liaised about), otherwise it could be a very wishy-washy, ultimately meaningless (think Presidents’ Meeting) sort of role.

It’s a shame we don’t see any firm plans, results or measurements suggested. How does a Liaison Officer know he’s met the expectations of the association. What if he visits a club; is that enough? Is there an outcome which is to be achieved from all of this and if so what is it and how will it be measured?

The big thumbs up to Trevor for taking on Newsletter Editor (although he needs to be careful he doesn’t become a “censor” and that all clubs get a voice) – I expect big things (reading my previous posts he’ll notice Regular, Beneficial and Relevant communication) because he is a highly capable person.

Sandler/Johansen = Commercial exploitment officers, I mean come on … the only 2 people making any money from CV junior events and now are joint decision makers to ensure their own busness interests are protected and CV gets as little as possible from them? I’ve heard mention of possible conflicts of interest before; but this is pretty blatant. Got to make sure that arbiters fees for junior events are high and that the right people get the well paid jobs. Got to keep the CV fees for school-teams events down and the benefits for businesses thick.

Have a look at the school-teams revenue split from 2009 :

Total revenue: $19,500

Into Sandler/Johansen businesses $15,800 (81%)

Into ‘other’ organisers (businesses, not clubs) pockets $2600

To CV $1011 (before expenses, equipment depreciation etc)

And of the $5500 in potential revenue from School-Finals only $2205 showed up on the income statement for CV — and no clear way to tell what the associated expenses were or if the other $3000 will ever show up. Overall CV made a loss in the 08/09 year while their new President and VP walked away $15,800 richer.

Why is CV giving away all their tournaments (or at least all the ones which make a profit) – why don’t they run some themselves? And why are they putting in charge of this decision the two people with most to personally gain by CV giving it all away?

You can’t say they don’t have the skills or knowledge – their President and VP ran 17 school events between them last year (with plans to run 30 this year!).

The CV preferred position is for Clubs to run many of these events so that any profits end in Club books. If no Club bids for an event, then the next preferred option is to offer the events to suitable individual promoters. The default fall-back position is that CV will act as tournament organiser and pay for the management of the event.

You are joking right?

The CV preferred position is that Clubs do everything that CV should be doing; so that CV doesn’t have to do anything at all (and the Pres and VP can get on with milking school-kids under the CV logo). AND clubs should be paying affiliation fees to CV for the privilidge of running the Vic Champs, Interclub, Vic Junior (but funily enough, not school-teams because there are a couple of businesses guarding the profits there)!!

And when clubs (rightly) don’t stand up to run the CV events then CV will pay a fee to the CV President or VP as ‘manager’ for the event!

Wow!

What an amazing organisation to charge fees from clubs in order that clubs can do more work!

The President advised the CV Treasurer that the consensus was that the $3000 budget item for a new web-site should be taken out of the current budget. Most issues identified arose from (lack of) provision of timely-content rather than lack of web-site functionality.

Good to see that the President can “advise” what the consensus is (no voting required). And wasn’t he one of the key members of the CV committee that only one month ago recommended to the AGM that they needed $3000 to spend on a site?? The executive is 50% the same people as a month ago — yet decisions are being reversed at the first meeting (with one of the new additions not even at this meeting)?

Clearly nothing is being thought through… nothing has changed.

A little slow off the mark (their first meeting only a couple of days ago) but some positive signs!

Congratulations are due for:

• News bulletin from the President
• Agenda posted on the website for all to see
• Promises of speedy minutes of the meeting in a public forum

This is a massive improvement in communication and hopefully in the transparency of the processes existing in Chess Victoria.

Before we do a critical analysis of the agenda from their first meeting (and again on the minutes when they are available) I’d like to ask everyone to step back and consider:

How does CV know WHAT they are meant to be doing, HOW, WHY, IN WHAT ORDER and how do they know when they SUCCEED?

There is still no VISION for the organisation. No PLAN with steps for how to achieve it. You’ll see from the agenda below it is all very much reactionary and detail focused. Significant change cannot come without leadership; and that starts with a Vision and Strategy.

Onto the agenda…

Outwards correspondence

• To note Presidents bulletin #1 for this year

Congratulations due to the President for getting a bulletin out. We can read between the lines and see the true priorities of the CV President … I’d like to see CV taking more responsibility for the communication and not ‘passing the buck’ to clubs. Also a Strategic Vision and planning role from the President; but I’ll try not to keep on about that.

To confirm decisions taken

• a) Web-site changes to current version
• i. Upgrade frequency and timeliness of providing content to the web-master
• ii. Review navigation
• iii. Continue use until a resource identified who is will to volunteer to build, migrate, and manage a replacement web-site.

There was a budget put to the Clubs at the AGM which included a significant item to redevelop the website. Why is the Executive recommending clubs pass a budget and then “confirming decisions” to do substantially nothing once the money has been allocated. I would like to believe that the budget item was created after considerable thought, planning and even quotes? This was THE major budget item in CV and it wasn’t even up for discussion at their first meeting? Who is making these decisions?

Why budget $3000 and then not follow through. Smells a bit like election promises with no substance behind them. Thankfully a new website, ChessClub.com.au, has sprung up to provide clubs with the opportunity to communicate easily and will also be reporting on CV happenings.

• Advise ATO our updated business location, contact number, public officer, and mailing address. Probably similar action required with Victorian Consumer Affairs.

Good, and the ABN stuff; but I’m sure the new treasurer will have this all under control.

• Note appointed Carl Gorka to have authority to be Tournament manager of the 2010 Team Championship.

Without Carl’s knowledge or consent. Hmm….

There was a President’s meeting in August last year to (supposedly) settle the Interclub format for this year. With a substantially similar committee why are we seemingly back at square one distributing proposals? Let’s just hope that an event actually happens this year.

Each member of the Executive is required to occupy an operational position on the attached Organisation chart. Executive Members to advise their personal selection. Second, the Secretary to bring the chart up-to-date. Third, Executive members to note that each position on the chart has an accompanying job description, originally drafted by Gary Wastell; samples provided.

Excellent that there is a structure and job descriptions in place! Put in some performance indicators and we’re starting to really hum. (Imagine if these were all linked up with the Vision and Plan and not just relics drafted by a President a decade or more ago).

I’m sure clubs would like to see early evidence of new committee members Johansen and Hacche pulling their (considerable) weight. It’s the first time in a long time these two have been on a committee and it will be important to see that it is not just to protect and increase Chess Ideas commercial benefits from CV events at the expense of CV and clubs.

The rental agreement with the Canterbury Juniors Chess Club lapses on the 31st of December. The agreement essentially bundled a collection of tasks

• Clock maintenance and repair
• Clocks on loan to Clubs service

And to Sandler and Johansen to run their private business operations?

• Trophy purchase and engravings
• Venue available at no charge to run licenced Interschool events

Events which were run by Sandler or Johansen as private business operations? Why was CV paying for this in the first place?

• Venue available for CV events
• Tournament Organiser of the Victorian junior titles events
• Tournament Organiser of the Victorian Open weekender
• Equipment storage

It’s time to put the CV tables into the hard-rubbish!

• It is clear Clubs want this opportunity to be advertised for bids. Likely to be no bundled solution.
• Action necessary to seek expressions of interest from Clubs to be involved in the provision of these services. Appointment of Action Officer on this task.

I think transparency and clarity is all that clubs are looking for. I am sure there would be no problem having a ‘bundled’ solution offered and for CV to take the option which suited them best (remembering they are representatives of Clubs). There will be some clubs I’m sure who want the opportunity to ’share’ around the Vic Open – but really one has to ask; why isn’t this a CV run event? Why are they farming it out to clubs in the first place?

The issues of the past stemmed from lack of clarity and communication, but no real resentment towards Box Hill for their contribution to CV.

Inwards Correspondence

• From David Cordover; re web-site offer.

Sorry to say, but they didn’t take my advice (see above decision made before the meeting) … my correspondence was an explanation of how to setup a new CV site at a minimal cost.

(from Trevor Stanning) “The Committee has the option to use a free Google calendar software application. This calendar can easily ‘bolt on’ to any existing web-site and changing to this free Google option needs a bit of examination as to best timing.”

The best timing is almost always NOW. There is now an active calendar which includes all Victorian events (club, CV and weekender) and some help videos to show clubs how to update the calendars and add them to clubs’ own sites.

From the Previous CV President in Feb 2008

Please keep an eye on our website as we will use this as one of the best means of communicating to all our committed members, therefore we will be updating it on a regular basis with current news, events, ideas and programs – we look forward to your assistance and support!

And the website never happened…
President’s meeting in August, but still no Interclub event.

Take action NOW!

Congratulations to Sandler and Johansen for becoming Chess Victoria president and vice-president.

I look forward to the changes they promise to bring, the ideas to be implemented and particularly a new website and interclub compeitions! There is significant public pressure on them to perform after the election.

We’re watching you!

With only a week to go before the Chess Victoria AGM I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the clubs I’ve visited for their hospitality. It has been a fun few months for me getting to know chess clubs again after half a decade absent! It was great to see some familiar faces and particularly good to see the high levels of energy and enthusiasm from both stalwarts and new members. I’m confident the future of chess in Victoria is strong.

Thanks to those who have supported and encouraged me (more than expected!) and to those who will be nominating for Executive Positions alongside me. I look forward to serving all clubs in the coming year, should I be elected, and leave you with a summary of the direction I intend to take CV.

I leave the decision in your capable hands and encourage you to attend the AGM and take an interest in the future of Chess Victoria.

Download the Policy Platform 2010 or

Chess Victoria 2010

Policy Platform from David Cordover
Supported by Executive Committee nominees; Russell de la Lande (Frankston), David Grenness (Frankston) and Chris Potter (Dandenong)

In the past few months I have travelled to many chess clubs to seek feedback and start developing strategic plans for Chess Victoria in 2010. It is not appropriate to present detailed specific plans in this document; but rather it is designed to give a general indication of the direction we intend to take Chess Victoria should we be elected.

Culture Change

Chess Victoria must undergo a cultural change. It will become clear that CV has two distinct customers to whom we must provide exceptional service and be held accountable:
a) Chess Clubs of Victoria
b) Individual players (generally rated between 1600 – 2000; note this does not EXCLUDE anyone but provides a focus for the types of events that CV puts our energy and resources towards)

Chess Victoria is not simply a Tax Collector.

What are the Most Important goals for Chess Victoria?

1. Improved Communication

Chess Victoria must provide regular, relevant and beneficial communication with our customers. Remembering that communication goes 2-ways, we will both listen and share.

• The CV website must become a focal point for all chess activities in Victoria
• Communicate in multiple media (web, newsletter, email & print)
• Direct contact with individuals
• Transparency and accountability to all members

2. Help clubs increase membership

Chess Victoria must be a valuable partner of every chess club. Anything which more than one club has to do CV should attempt to make it easier for that club. Some examples:

• Bulk-purchasing power on insurances, banners, signage, scoresheets, web-hosting
• Training sessions for committees and members (eg. websites, digital boards, junior clubs, using ChessBase/Fritz, member satisfaction, arbiters, running a weekender)
• Assistance with resources; digital boards, clocks, sets, arbiters, documentation
• Act as a conduit for information sharing between clubs. Whatever situation your club is in some other club has faced the same situation. We can assist you through the challenges and help you build on your strengths.

3. Interclub / Leagues Event

With a clearer focus on the type of players to whom Chess Victoria should be catering, we will see the CV tournament calendar evolve. One obvious event which CV must give a high priority to resume is an interclub event or league style matches (both senior and junior).

This is not an exhaustive list of what Chess Victoria can do for you or for your club. We want to hear from you on a regular basis – how can we help?

Imagine a time when every game in the Vic Open weekender was being displayed live online… Well,  it isn’t that far away. Next year we might just see the Geelong Open or Victorian Country Championships with every games displayed live online and saved into a CV ‘club-player-games’ database.

There must already be at least 10 digital chess boards in Victoria. How hard could it be to get them all together and make sure they are at every weekender in Victoria? The ACF has some as well, so we could borrow them too.

Not only could we have the top 10 boards from every tournament broadcast live online (maybe through the CV website) but we’d also start building up a CV database of games (again, available and searchable on the CV website). Then it won’t be only the top players who have database resources to prepare for oponents, the average chess player will have that luxury too!

CV can budget to increase their stock of digital boards by say 3 or 4 per year and before you know it the bottom board in the Vic Open will be preserved in a database for all time.

Welcome to the future.

Finally we’re starting to get somewhere!

When I was first asking around clubs for ideas to improve chess I was getting a lot of blank stares. It seemed that nobody had ever considered the possibility of doing anything differently. Just recently things have been improving.

There are some individuals and some clubs who have some great ideas. Here are a few that we’ve picked up in the last week:

• Best and fairest or player of the year award (decided by votes through the year, Brownlow style)
• Best game of the year award; with games being nominated (and published) from every tournament
• Training session for CV members for how to use Fritz and ChessBase (or extend that to technology and chess)
• Build an online database of all Victorian games played
• Annual Victorian conference/get-together (a BIG event)

I’m excited that we’re starting to get some people thinking about what could possibly happen. That is the first step.

Our next critical step is for a few people to step forwards and volunteer their services for the CV executive committee and to take on some roles for implementing the ideas we’re generating. I understand how time-poor most people are these days and would intend the committee meetings to remain brief and for as many people as possible to share the workload.

Do you have just one hour a week for chess? Could you bear to give up just one TV show?

Imagine if no chess opening theory had ever been written down. How well would you play in the opening?

You could ask people what they play and try to remember some of it … but you’d also be trying “new” ideas like replying to 1.e4 with 1…d5! What a novelty!

There was a lot of excitement in Tasmania when they decided that after 35 years Hobart would again host the Australian Junior Chess Championships!

The first thing that the new organisers said to me was “So, how do you run an Australian Junior?”

It does seem a little insane that after 60 Australian Junior Chess Championship events there is nothing to help the organisers of the Australian Junior in 2010. If they are lucky they will find an entry form from last year to copy and perhaps get a chance to talk to the previous organisers. They will also be coming up with “novelties” of their own. Some of which will be good and some may not be so good (and some ideas that probably were first tried 40 years ago).

How much better could it be if there was a document “How to run the Australian Junior” and if it were updated each year with the new ideas that are developed by each uniquely talented organiser? A compilation of 60 years worth of development! It would have to make life easier for the new organiser and couldn’t help but improve the event.

This is just a single example; but the same problem exists at all levels of chess. Even more powerful a concept would be if clubs or states who did document something were open and willingly shared the information! We’re all working towards the same ultimate goal; why not help each other get there? With easy to create and maintain websites, comprehensive search and massive disk storage there is no excuse not to do this!

A culture of systematic documentation of processes and then posting this on the web for all to see (and find easily) is what we need. I’d like to see Victoria lead the way in this respect over the next year or two.

Information sharing between all clubs, states and even countries (at least share with NZ if we don’t want the Russians to get all our secrets).

Now imagine 60 years of sharing and documentation – how will your opening theory look now?