At this moment, if someone wants to run for the USCF Executive Board, all he / she basically has to do is pay a fee of $250 and get 30 random USCF members over the age of 16 to sign his / her nomination form.
This is why we get some of the most unqualified candidates with no business experience or records of success. This is one of the major reasons why the USCF has so many problems with unqualified board members and as the result of this, the USCF lost money in 9 of the last 11 years as well as losing so many sponsors, volunteers, supporters and members.
If this candidate gets elected, the USCF has to reimburse his / her expenses to attend board meetings in the following 4 years. This can mean thousands of dollars each year. This is costly to the USCF and we are not getting qualified candidates.
What I would like to see is to have this fee raise to $5,000. Then the USCF can use this $5,000 to reimburse the expenses of the elected board members for those 4 years. Candidates who do not get elected do not get a refund.
This way, there would be little or no out of pocket costs to the USCF and chances are, we would get much more qualified or much more successful candidates.
In addition, Paul Truong suggested last August requiring every candidate / board member to supply a verifiable resume. It would not be published to the public but the ED or his assistant should verify all information, including criminal records.
His proposal was rejected by the USCF President Bill Goichberg. However, I think we should revisit this issue.
Shouldn’t we do everything possible to protect the integrity of the USCF, an organization with 84,000+ members? Shouldn’t we do more to protect our 40,000+ young members?
What do you think? I am just tossing out ideas to improve the quality of the Executive Board. Do you have other ideas to improve the quality of board members?
Great idea! I like it. If you’re a loser and can’t afford the fees, you shouldn’t run.
If we have this rule for this election, it would come down to Jones, Berry, Bauer, Truong, Polgar and Korenman.
A really bad idea. Sorry Susan
I’m not sure that requiring candidates to be rich is going to necessarily ensure a better grade of candidate.
The idea about the resume might have more promise, but if the public never sees it, what is its purpose? Sloan’s criminal record is no secret. But that hasn’t kept him off the board.
I like the idea of potential candidates providing resumes that must be truthful. I don’t believe in a large entrance fee.
btw, it was monday…. where is the weekly Paul Truong article?
There was supposed to be a weekly Paul Truong blog post topic, no!?
the ability to raise money or to be rich is not the only a qualification for an EB member. There may be qualified people for an EB position, which are not good in fund raising, but have other valuable abilities.
I don’t like this idea !
A good candidate may convince voters by his accomplishments, his ideas or his personality,…
Your proposed fees are way too high, limiting candidacies to those who either are themselves wealthy, or have wealthy backers.
Very good idea. It will mean we will have professional people running for the board.
I do not have “other ideas” for improving the USCF, because this was not one of them.
Anything that improves the quality of the candidates and makes the election process more open and transparent is fine. Asking candidatess to put $’000s on the line is not.
‘Quality’ and disposable-bank-balance are not the same thing.
What a terrible idea!
Why the need to have everything so ‘pro’ ??
So someone who has great skills and great love for chess can’t go for it then because he has no personal extra funds of thousands of dollars?
Bad idea!
Susan
You are a genius. I have recognized that the way new candidates are taken was terrible way to go. But I could not come up with a solution. I want to congratulate you on seeing the problem and mostly for coming up with a solution.
I support you 1000% on this one. Yes 1000% which is more than 100%.
I am sure your proposal for a solution will get bounced around but something has to be done to get good candidates.
I think we need to discuss taking people from OUTSIDE chess like most corporations do. They simply take successful business people who usually do not have experience in their own company but the Board of Directors works.
If we had this one we could have raised $50,000 and the USCF would have made a profit.
The bottom line. We must have positive successful people on the EB not a bunch of negative back stabbers. The reasons we want successful people is because they show they have what it takes to be successful. The USCF can not become successful following a leadership of losers.
Go for it Susan.
If we had the Chairman of the Board of Coke a Cola company on the EB then he just might get Coke to sponsor some $100 million dollar chess grad prix etc. These are the kind of people we need.
I remember Babson College put on the President of Home Depot. Mr Honda founder of Honda motors. President of Pepsi got on for $10,000,000 donation to the school back in 1980. probably takes $25 million now to get honored.
These people will donate when you honor them for their accomplishments.
Susan what about the idea of an Honorary Grand Master title. These guys paid millions to get to be a commencement speaker at Babson and get an honorary degree. We need an honorary degree for these successful people.
Goichber would have paid $5,000 to put Lux up. Goichberg wants the votes so he can maintain control. Worth it to Goichberg.
Any schmuck can get elected now and collect $5,000 or more in expenses in 4 years. Who will pay for this? Sam Sloan squeezed every dollar from the USCF for his expenses. Why not use their own money to pay for their expenses? Either that or have a policy of no reimbursement. This way, we won’t have losers trying to screw the USCF.
Being able to pay $5,000 means that someone is successful. Do we want successful board members or do we want losers who collect food stamps and welfare running a multimillion dollar organization?
Terrible idea. This isn’t a presidential election, and the figures you’re tossing around are simply too steep. Big money brings it’s own set of problems (and those problems aren’t small).
Talk about discouraging people from ruing for an otherwise thankless job.
Would you rather have Jones, Berry and Bauer who are very successful or Sloan, Goodall and Lux who have done very little with their lives? Sorry but Susan is right. I would want to have Jones, Berry and Bauer.
I don’t like the idea of high fees just to run, but a verifiable resume is a no brainer. I know what people like you or Mr. Goichberg have accomplished in Chess, but it would be very beneficial to have additional information to make good choices about the other candidates.
I don’t think $5,000 is a lot of money considering that the USCF has to reimburse each board member thousands of dollars each of the 4 years. This can save the USCF $10,000 per board member and we also get more successful people. If you elect junk, how do you expect the USCF to get better? Brilliant idea!
We need to save the USCF and we can’t afford to elect people like Sloan. We need serious business people who know what they’re doing. I fully support this idea.
I love this!
I feel it will help greatly minimize the possiblity of getting burned by poor unqualified candidtates for the board.
Great idea! Losers should not apply. Excellent! It’s time for a real board instead of jobless losers killing the reputation of the USCF.
Susan,
As you can see this idea of $5,000 has mixed reception on your board. One alternate idea is a Special Committee which would be responsible for approval of all candidates before elections. The Committe would consist of say 5 members, high quality individuals selected by a defined selection process (it could include chess player representatives for different categories, such as top 20 player representative; top 10 women player representative and other known chess personalities). Details could be worked out.
I agree that this is not the way to go. The entry fee could eliminate otherwise qualified candidates and doesn’t guarantee a qualified candidate. (As you noted, someone could put up the entry fee for an otherwise unqualified candidate.) The two non-profit boards that I have served on both had nominating committees that reviewed resumes and interviewed candidates before approving them. The problem here is that you don’t want the entrenched USCF leadership to be able to control the nominating committee so you need to have a mechanism for drawing committee members from a diverse group of delegates as well as a cross section of the membership — representing different constituencies (titled players, women, collegiate, scholastic, etc.). But pick people who are actually active, contributing members of the chess community rather than the bombastic know-it-alls who populate the USCF issues forum.
Dear Susan,
I normally agree with you, but on this I disagree. However, I agree on the problems you are trying to address. I think $5000 is too high of a barrier to run for the board. I would like to think that even a average “joe” like me could run, though I doubt I would get many votes! Perhaps increasing the number of signatures to 75 would show that the person has some support already in the community. In regards to the travel expenses, I don’t know their current policies, but I hope they have guidelines on how much people are allowed to spend. Also, perhaps they can agree to meet in places that aren’t too expensive.
What a terrible idea!
Why the need to have everything so ‘pro’ ??
I don’t think having 10 candidates on the ballot posed an unnecessary burden on the voters. I say the more candidates, the better. This particularly hits home since I live in the one state in the Union that couldn’t vote for Ralph Nader due to Oklahoma’s pernicious ballot access laws.
I like the resume idea, tho.
I vehemently disagree with your suggestion that a candidate for the USCF executive board should be required to post a $5000 fee to be eligible for election.
You are saying in effect that only the wealthy should run the USCF, and that anyone who isn’t wealthy should have no voice.
Next we’ll insist that U.S. Presidential candidates put forth $10,000,000 in order to run.
Sorry, but this idea is contary to the basic principles of democracy. A high barrier-to-entry for a candidate typically favors elite, wealthy, “establishment-backed” candidates. Instead, the voters should ferret out which candidate(s) are superior.
Hi Susan:
If you are concerned about the integrity and image of the USCF Executive Board, then you should absolutely verify the candidates’ resumes. It is cost effective and also deters the less-than-genuine from applying.
Please have the board contact me with their concerns and I can absolutely answer questions regarding resume verification, disclosure, etc. It doesn’t cost much for this piece of mind.
Joelle
http://www.verify-ed.com
info@verify-ed.com