WCA President’s Report

2007 Annual Membership Meeting

Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel, Madison

May 27, 2007

After an exciting 2006 that saw us host the National High School Championships, the year since has been a relatively quiet one for the WCA. As you will see in the treasurer’s report, with the stipend from the USCF we had a very good year financially. We actually had a pretty good year without the National High School, and we’ll have to continue to have good financial results because if we are to host another national event, we most likely will not receive any funding from the USCF. The stipend was a reward for local organizers to produce plentiful and quality volunteers. Since some areas around the country have not done that, the USCF hired a Volunteer Organizer and now has him manage the volunteers at each event. These volunteers tend to be parents and coaches who’d rather do something than just sit around all weekend. They are usually fed but the financial bottom line is better for the USCF.

One interesting effect of the event last year is that after a very successful event in Milwaukee for state scholastic players, they traveled well to the three spring national events this year including being the fourth largest state contingent at the National High School in Kansas City behind Missouri, Kansas and New York!

Preliminary word is that the USCF will run a small deficit again this year. Membership numbers are strong with the continuation of the dues sales for $41 for adults. They also extended Youth memberships to age 25 and re-labeled them Young Adult. Work continues on Chess Life Online but much work still needs to be done.

Similar to the previous year the Executive Board didn’t do too much this year. Much of their time was spent responding to Board member Sam Sloan’s erroneous postings and assumptions. Sloan continues to violate Board ethics policies by releasing closed session information and by writing postings that are uninformed or even posting links to pornographic websites on the USCF Forums. His seat is up for election this year and I urge everyone not to vote for him.

The June issue of Chess Life will include a ballot for all eligible voters age 16 and over. The election will be for four members of the USCF Executive Board. (Three four-year terms and one two-year term.) The last two issues of Chess Life contained statements from the ten candidates. If you have any additional questions, please contact Guy Hoffman, Arlen Walker or myself for our input on the candidates. But do vote!

Once again Wisconsin tournament organizers seemed to have spaced out their events pretty well this past year. I did not hear of many conflicts. When deciding on when to hold an event tournament organizers should continue to contact the state tournament clearinghouse Guy Hoffman to find open dates on the tournament calendar. Guy can be reached at HYPERLINK "mailto: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The WCA sponsors the Marshall Rohland Memorial/Wisconsin Closed Championship, the Arpad Elo Open, the William Martz Memorial/North Central Open, the Wisconsin Memorial and the Junior Open/Veterans Tournaments. All are open for bids from state organizers and/or tournament directors. If you are interested in more details on how to bid for these events, please contact any board member.

Congratulations to Madison West for winning their fifth consecutive State Scholastic Team Championship. Last March 467 students participated. In a rare double University School of Milwaukee won both the K-8 and K-5 team championships.

Good luck to Chris Brown, Jr. of Fox Point in the 2007 Arnold Denker Tournament of High School Champions and to Anna Ganster of Tigerton in the Susan Polgar Invitational for Girls Tournament. Both of these events will be held during the US Open in Cherry Hill, New Jersey in August. The WCA uses the Wisconsin Junior Open as the qualifier for these nominations. Preliminary word for 2008 is that the Polgar and maybe the Denker may move to Texas Tech University as they may become the college scholarship sponsors of the events.

Congratulations to Guy Hoffman for recapturing the Wisconsin Chess Tour title. Organizers desiring to have their event considered for tour status need to contact Guy by November of the year before the tour.

Arlen Walker maintains our website free of charge to the WCA. He states that no one submits content to him. If anyone has any content to submit, please contact Arlen for details.

The terms of office of Dave Granik, Guy Hoffman and myself expire today. I want to thank all of the Board members for their hard work this past year.