WCA President’s Report
2011 Annual Membership Meeting
Howard Johnson Inn & Conference Center, Wausau
September 4, 2011
The WCA had a good year. Our financial position continues to be strong although we lost about $450 last year. This year Wisconsin has gained clubs, organizers and TD’s. Make sure to check out the clubs’ page of our website to see if there is a new club in your area or to make sure your local club is listed. If not, please let me know.
We’re pleased to see a large number of events on our fall calendar but there is a lack of events in the spring and summer. A recent analysis of events by state showed that Wisconsin had twenty weekends with one event and five weekends with two events between June 1, 2010 and May 31, 2011. That means that there were 27 weekends without rated chess in Wisconsin. From October 1, 2011 thru December 18, 2011, a span of 12 weekends, there will be at least eleven events on eight weekends. Organizers need to consider spreading out these events more. We’re all competing for the same entry fee dollars. Spacing events out will encourage play and draw more players overall.
I want to thank everyone for their support this past summer in my reelection bid for the USCF Executive Board. I received a number of encouraging compliments from the Wisconsin chess community and I really appreciated it. Sadly fewer than 4000 USCF members took the time to register to vote; a little over ten percent of those eligible did register. Approximately seventy members from Wisconsin registered. We were the third highest in percentage of all the states. I was fortunate enough to place second in a four way race for three, three year seats on the EB. In the reorganization meeting after the Delegate’s Meeting, I was reelected USCF Secretary by the Board. I look forward to representing you in national affairs.
Following this meeting, in our next WCA Board of Director’s meeting we’ll be electing our two delegates for next year’s national meetings which will be held in Vancouver, Washington in August.
The USCF had a very good year financially. We finished ahead about $192,000. We’ve put together another budget with a projected surplus to offset some long term debt that we’ve accumulated mostly due to the lawsuits of recent years. (There is one current lawsuit involving the USCF dealing with this past election. The suit does not request monetary damages and we believe we have a strong position to win the case in the end.)
Unfortunately one of the necessities to produce this surplus budget will be a modest dues increase on January 1, 2012. Also this year, to enhance membership value, hopefully by January 1, USCF will launch an online play website. This will interest clubs and schools along with individuals as it’ll allow league play between clubs all over the nation.
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 and 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 regaining the team title at the State Scholastic Championships. They have now won eleven state titles since 1998. Congratulations to New Berlin Eisenhower Middle School for capturing their first K-8 State Team Championship and to Brookfield Swanson Elementary and New Berlin Glen Park Elementary for sharing the K-5 State Team Championship title. Last March 439 Wisconsin students participated at UW-Oshkosh. The event was moved from Gruenhagen Conference Center to Reeve Memorial Student Union and the comments were very favorable for the new venue.
The 2011 Arnold Denker Tournament of High School Champions was held in conjunction with the US Open in Orlando, FL. Our representative was Matthias Melcher of the Milwaukee School of Languages. Matthias was an exchange student from Germany last school year and came back over to the US with his parents and brother to play in the Denker. He finished 2-1-3 in a highly competitive event. In a new event, the Dewain Barber Tournament of K-8 State Champions, our representative, Brady Harder, finished 3-2-1 and that included a win over a master in round five.
Congratulations to David Jin for capturing the 2010 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. Tour standings are listed on the home page of our website www.wischess.org.
The terms of office of Ben Corcoran, Dennis Kosterman and Sandy Pahl expire today. I want to thank all of the Board members for their hard work and dedication this past year. I also regret to announce that board member Peter Webster has resigned his seat on the board. So, the fourth place finisher in today’s election shall assume the remaining one year of his term.
