USCF Chess in Education workshop to be held in Dallas, August 7, 2008
Contact: Alexey Root alexey.root@gmail.com
Release date: June 7, 2008.
The United States Chess Federation (USCF) Chess in Education workshop is open for registration.
USCF workshop: co-organizers Dr. Alexey Root and Dr. Tim Redman, sponsors USCF, U.S. Chess Trust, The University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB), Texas Tech University (TTU), and The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD)
Thursday, August 7, 2008:
1:00-1:30 USCF Chess in Education committee business meeting (John Buky and Joseph Eberhard, co-chairs).
1:30-2:00 Dr. Alexey Root, author of Science, Math, Checkmate: 32 Chess Activities for Inquiry and Problem Solving, presents a classroom activity.
Looking to combine educational goals with chess? Dr. Root presents an activity from her most recent book that teaches the geometry of the board along with the particular way in which knights move, all wrapped up in a fun story. Come hear, and participate in, “Coco Can’t Wait.”
2:00-3:00 Keynote Speaker Russell Harwood, Chess Program Director
UTB/TSC, presents, The Chess Boom in Brownsville, Texas, and Tips for Duplicating it Where You Live.
Scholastic chess is booming in Brownsville, Texas, and the surrounding communities. Of the 50 schools in the Brownsville Independent School District, at least 35 have active chess programs. Six different Brownsville ISD schools have won national chess championships, led by Dr. Americo Paredes Elementary’s seven national titles. Two elementary school students have tied for individual national championships, and many others have finished in the top five. The chess success of our local schools got the attention of Dr. Juliet Garcia, President of The University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College, who formed a chess program at UTB/TSC so that area students would have the opportunity to earn scholarships and compete in chess at the university level. The Brownsville Independent School District has gotten onboard, and now allocates about $400,000 per year to their chess program. Chess has become a source of pride to BISD, UTB/TSC, and our community, and is now part of our identity. How did all of this come about? How can these results be duplicated elsewhere? Are there other successful models in our area? How does the future look? These questions and more will be addressed during this informative presentation.
3:00-3:30 Break for refreshments.
3:30-4:00 Jerry Nash, Scholastic and FIDE Director for USCF, presents Strategies to Introduce Chess as an Educational Tool: Coordinating the Five Communities.
Scholastic chess has seen a dramatic increase within the last twenty years. In 1988, the United States Chess Federation’s youth and scholastic members totaled approximately 7000. By 2002, the two age groups combined for over 53,000 members. The state of chess in education may be characterized by its status as two types of programs: after-school and curriculum instruction. By far the majority of scholastic chess programs fall within the after-school category. The coordination of four communities – educational, civic, business, and political communities – along with the chess community is critical for the development of opportunities to demonstrate the value of chess for instruction.
4:00-4:30 Rosalyn B. Katz, author of The New Jersey Chess Bill; Chess in the Classroom; Start Playing Chess; and, Play Better Chess, presents Make it Legal – Chess Legislation and Application.
New Jersey’s Chess Bill was passed in 1993. Fifteen years later, we examine such questions as: What good did it do? How and why was it done? How did we overcome obstacles and constraints? Is similar activity a viable option for your state? How can we go even further? Those interested in expanding chess in their own states in a legalistic and practical way, will find an organized approach to success. Booklets about the process will be provided for those in attendance by the NJ State Chess Federation. Roz will offer individual consultation, at no additional charge, from August 6th through August 11th for promoters developing action plans for their own states.
4:30-5:00 Dr. Tim Redman, editor of Chess and Education: Selected Essays from the Koltanowski Conference, presents Chess and Syntax: Some practical applications for teachers.
In his talk for the Chess in the Schools and Communities Conference (CISCCON) http://www.abdn.ac.uk/rowangroup/cisccon.shtml, Professor Redman spoke on “Chess and Syntax: An Hypothesis.” In that paper, he noted that among the counterintuitive results coming from valid research in chess and education was the effect that chess had on increasing reading scores among young chess players. He offered as an hypothesis explaining this result that chess possesses a kind of syntax, and that learning this para-syntactic system indirectly but noticeably helps students. In this paper, Dr. Redman furthers his work on that question. Agreeing with his colleague Dr. Alexey Root that we must modify chess instruction to meet educational goals, he will explain some lesson plans that teach chess through emphasizing instruction that explains it in syntactic and rhetorical terms relevant to language arts instruction.
Location: Held during the U.S. Open, August 2-August 10, 2008The Westin Park Central12720 Merit DriveDallas, TX 752511-888-627-7032$99 Chess Rate
Participant fee information:
For the U.S. Open workshop: $10 for participants post-marked by July 24th, $15 at the U.S. Open site.
Address for participant registration:
For USCF workshop, send advance fees (made out to U.S. Chess Trust Chess in Education fund) to:
Dr. Alexey Root
500 Sunrise Cove
Denton, TX 76209
940-484-2265
alexey.root@gmail.com
About The USCF The United States Chess Federation, founded in 1939, serves as the governing body for chess in the United States and is devoted to extending the role of chess in American society. It promotes the study and knowledge of the game of chess, for its own sake as an art and enjoyment, and as a means for the improvement of society. The USCF is a not-for-profit membership organization with more than 90,000 members. For more information, please see http://www.uschess.org
About the U.S. Chess Trust
The U.S. Chess Trust is an independent 501(c)(3), non-profit organization.
Created in 1967, the Trust was organized to promote, stimulate and encourage the study and play of the game of chess as a means of intellectual development. The Trust uses its resources for charitable purposes, including social, educational, scientific, historical endeavors. Our Trustees act without compensation, and are dedicated to the U.S. Chess Trust’s mission. The U.S. Chess Trust’s focus is an outgrowth of similar activities formerly carried out by the U.S. Chess Federation. We promote and support chess in the community through our programs, and by providing resources that help support our mission. In addition, we also actively support charities conducted by the USCF and other chess organizations. For more information about the U.S. Chess Trust, visit http://www.uschesstrust.org/WP/
About UT Brownsville
The University of Texas at Brownsville has been a member of The University of Texas System since 1991. In cooperation with Texas Southmost College, The University serves more than 12,000 students at its campus located in Brownsville, Texas. In Partnership with Texas Southmost College, The University offers a wide range of courses from Associate and Baccalaureate degrees to graduate classes and continuing education. For additional information about UT Brownsville, please visit the University’s website at http://www.utb.edu/
About Texas Tech University
With nearly 29,000 students yet a cozy-feeling campus, Texas Tech students get the benefits of a major research institution without getting lost in the crowd. Texas Tech offers more than 150 degree programs through ten colleges. Texas Tech has a top-ranked School of Law, a Graduate School, and a Health Sciences Center that leads the country in areas such as aging and border health. They’re all located on the same campus. In 2007, TTU established the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE) with its mission being
• To promote chess as vehicle for enriching education
• To serve as the global center for chess research, education and development
• To support and promote competitive chess at the college level
• To recruit outstanding undergraduate and graduate studentsFor additional information about TTU, please visit the University’s website at http://www.ttu.edu
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor, enrolls more than 14,500 students. The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The University offers a broad assortment of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UT Dallas, please visit the University’s website at http://www.www.utdallas.edu
A bunch of delegates will be in Dallas for the annual meeting. You should have your lawyers have everything ready to serve anyone who lied about you and Paul. This will clearly teach these bozos not to mess with people’s lives and reputation. Texas law won’t allow garbage like this.
It’s sad that it has to come down to this. Time for a new federation.
by BrianLafferty on Thu Jun 12, 2008 4:42 am #105356
chessoffice wrote:
BrianLafferty wrote:We have an opinion of counsel from an
attorney consulted by Mr. Praeder advising that the Board of Delegates
is in fact the corporate directorial authority of the USCF. That being
the case, I have some questions for the ED and EB:
1. Is there an A&O liability policy covering the 150 delegates
who are the directors of the USCF corporation?
*Our D & O policy covers the delegates.*
2. Does that policy, if it exists, run for the term of all
elected Bd. of Delegate members in-as-much-as they are the repository of
all corporate authority throughout their terms of office as delegates,
not just at one meeting each year?
*They are covered for all official actions on behalf of USCF. This
means mainly the delegates meeting, but it would include other official
acts the delegates might take in the future.*
3. Was a list of Bd. of Delegate members as elected this year
on the ordered lists for the upcoming annual meeting provided to
underwriters for their due diligence investigations for issuing a
Delegate/Director A&O policy.
*I’m not certain, but think the insurance carrier insures them by
position and doesn’t ask for their names. Certainly delegates named at
the annual meeting are covered even though the insurer doesn’t have
their names.
Bill Goichberg*
Given the propensity of certain members to commence or to
threaten to commence litigation against the USCF and its directors, it
would be good to know that the Delegates attending the Dallas meeting in
August are covered by liability insurance as delegate/directors in the
event that some litigious USCF member decides to sue in the Texas courts
or Federal court in Texas.
I anticipate a prompt response to this inquiry from Mr. Hall on
behalf of the Executive Board.
Thank you in advance for your reply.
Thank you for your reply, Bill. Could you verify your last point and
make a copy of the policy available to the delegates? Thanks.
BL
Why is it a big deal? Board members get sued. Delegates get sued. So what?
If delegates behave irresponsibly, injured parties should go after them. Here’s an example:
Bill,
It has come to my attention that there is a proposal that would reduce the number of copies of Chess Life distributed to the membership. Although I appreciate the board’s desire to cut expenses in these trying economic times, this idea is a bad one for several reasons.
Without the magazine arriving each month, any stimulus for members to become more active, participate in chess events, follow the goings-on in American chess, not to mention purchase chess books and equipment from their national federation, will slowly but surely erode. The identity of the USCF will be at risk, becoming only the custodian of a chess rating system, not the face for the history and culture of chess. A monthly publication encourages a sense of community, an affiliation with others which a bare bones organization can never hope to achieve.
It will also reinforce the perception, real or otherwise, that the weakened financial position of the USCF is only getting worse. This will hardly be a situation that will encourage more people to join or renew.
There are several ways to deal with declining revenues. Attempts may be made to cut expenses, increase revenues, or seek somehow to combine the two. It seems to me that the emphasis should be on increasing memberships, and therefore revenues. The real problem facing the USCF is that memberships are either declining or at best, remaining stagnant.
The decline or stagnation of core memberships should be the real concern, for regardless of any steps taken to cut expenses, such measures are bound to fail if the number of members continues to decline.
From the point of view of retail sales to USCF members, this is another discouraging development. We have already had to bring in legal counsel as a result of what I considered an egregious material breach of the agreement relating to a secret arrangement with the House of Staunton. For over a year, the USCF was paid by the House of Staunton to include promotional material to new members, including but not necessarily limited to discount coupons, which promoted and directed new members to patronize the House of Staunton.
Considering that the group of new members has historically and demographically been the highest spending group per capita for retail sales, this clandestine arrangement was particularly appalling. This strategy was short sighted, seeking quick gains in ad revenues and overlooking potential deep losses in sales revenues. This purchasing pattern of new members was known, or should have been known by the USCF when entering into this arrangement with the USCF, and it almost certainly was known by the House of Staunton.
When a letter from our attorney demanded that this cease and desist, not only did it continue (and my information is that it continues to this day), we did not even get the courtesy of a response. Nothing at all. Be advised that matter is still very much active, pending the results of legal research that is still ongoing.
Now it appears that one of the significant vehicles for USCF Sales to promote and market books and equipment is being reduced, perhaps even eventually eliminated. There seems to be no regard or even realization that this may have the effect of rendering the USCF brand worthless as USCF Sales tries to promote retail sales on behalf of the federation. USCF Sales relies on the ability to reach members with catalogs that are bound into Chess Life as well as monthly advertisements in Chess Life. Equally discouraging is the USCF’s inability to understand and appreciate the value of Chess Life to the chess community.
To my knowledge, there is no member of the board, or any officer, who has any meaningful retail sales experience or marketing skills. Yet the board appears to take steps – intentionally or unintentionally, it hardly matters which – to undercut the efforts of USCF Sales to sell, promote and market on behalf of the USCF, while of course it simultaneously deplores the decreasing revenue sales generated and assumes that these actions should have no bearing on minimum guarantees or other indicia of performance. In fact, these actions have the effect of gutting some of the core provisions of an agreement that is already is under pressure.
As the discussions about what to do with Chess Life and memberships continue, I felt I should weigh in on the matter. It is distressing that after more than four years of handling the retail sales for the USCF the relationship seems more adversarial than one of partnership. I understand that there will be those who will genuinely disagree and there will be those who will want to simply “circle the wagons,” rejecting any contrary views as they promote a personal agenda.
I am reminded of the one-liner that a camel is really a horse designed by committee. I fear the same is going on here with the redesign and restructure of the USCF, albeit by those who may mean well. Please re-think the proposed changes in Chess Life. If implemented, these changes will be essentially irrevocable. Consider hiring someone who has professional marketing and public relations experience with other organizations. Focus on reversing membership trends. I have been a member of the USCF for over 45 years and have actively supported it at all times. I very much want to see it continue and flourish.
Regards,
Hanon
Hanon W. Russell
USCF Sales.com
http://www.USCFSales.com
ChessCafe.com
http://www.ChessCafe.com
Toll-free (orders only please) 1-800-388-5464 (KING)
General Offices: 203-783-9866
Fax: 203-783-9673
234 Depot Road
P.O. Box 5460Milford, CT 06460 USA
47 USC 230 has been upheld by every federal circuit. It specifically overrules any state law or precedent to the contrary. (In fact, that was one of the reasons Congress adopted it — there was a New York case in the early 90s that went the other way, and the legislative history makes it clear that they wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again.) What you apparently mean is that it hasn’t reached the Supreme Court yet. The reason for that is there there is no disagreement among the lower courts to resolve. A number of those cases were appealed, and cert was denied every time. You’re baying at the moon, Gordon Roy.
If you need documentation ion this (since you apparently don’;t read
the law before making a nuisance of yourself, try Batzel v. Smith et al., 333 F.3d 1018, 9th Circuit, 2003 (cert. denied ,2004):
“Section 230 was first offered as an amendment by Representatives
Christopher Cox (R-Cal.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). See 141 Cong. Rec.
H4860 (August 4, 1995). The specific provision at issue here, § 230(c)(1), overrides the traditional treatment of publishers, distributors,
and speakers under statutory and common law. As a matter of policy,
“Congress decided not to treat providers of interactive computer
services like other information providers such as newspapers,
magazines or television and radio stations, all of which may be held
liable for publishing or distributing obscene or defamatory material written or prepared by others.” Blumenthal v.. Drudge, 992 F.Supp. 44, 49 (D.D.C.1998). Absent § 230, a person who published or distributed speech over the Internet could be held liable for defamation even if
he or she was not the author of the defamatory text, and, indeed, at least with regard to publishers, even if unaware of the statement. See, e.g., Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co., 1995 WL 323710 (N.Y.Sup. May 24, 1995) (pre-Communications Decency Act case holding internet service provider liable for posting by third party on one of its electronic bulletin boards). [FN 9] Congress, however, has
chosen to treat cyberspace differently. [FN 10]
Congress made this legislative choice for two primary reasons. First, Congress wanted to encourage the unfettered and unregulated development of free speech on the Internet, and to promote the development of e-commerce. Section 230(a), “Findings,” highlights
that:
(3) The Internet and other interactive computer services offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique
opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity.
(4) The Internet and other interactive computer services have
flourished, to the benefit of all Americans, with a minimum of
government regulation.
§ 230(a). Similarly, the listed policy objectives of the section
include:
(1) to promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services and other interactive media;
(2) to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that
presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer
services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation.
§ 230(b).
Consistent with these provisions, courts construing § 230 have
recognized as critical in applying the statute the concern that
lawsuits could threaten the “freedom of speech in the new and burgeoning Internet medium.” Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327, 330 (4th Cir.1997). “Section 230 was enacted, in part, to maintain the robust nature of Internet communication, and accordingly, to keep government interference in the medium to a minimum.” Id.; see
also Ben Ezra, Weinstein, and Co. v. America Online, Inc., 206 F.3d
980, 985n.3. Making interactive computer services and their users
liable for the speech of third parties would severely restrict the information available on the Internet. Section 230 therefore sought to prevent lawsuits from shutting down websites and other services on the Internet.”
Posted by JKH