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I just received this message from Barry Thorvardson (President of the OCA):
The Annual General Meeting of the OCA will be 10am on Saturday, 7th June, 2008 at the Brampton Chess Club Location, Heart Lake United Church, 85 Sandalwood Parkway East, Brampton, Ontario. (NOT at the Rose Theatre which was considered).
All OCA Governors, new OCA Governor nominees, and chess players and supporters are welcome.
My name is Gary Gladstone, I am currently on the GTCL Board, OCA Governor and CFC Governor. Those of you who know me, are aware that I don’t play chess, I am merely involved as I want to ensure that there are viable chess organizations for my son, Simon, to continue to be involved with.
I have been involved in charities and non profits over the past 20 years as a volunteer, board member, executive member, chair and of the past 10 years as a professional staff person.
I am a board member of the York Simcoe Grant Review Team for the Ontario Trillium Foundation and it was my pleasure to introduce Barry Thorvardson to the parties that be as he applied for the Trillium Grant, that he was successful in obtaining for the OCA.
I also had a signed agreement with the OCA to be retained on a contractual basis if book keeping services were required if a certain fundraising plan was approved. To this date it has not been approved and I have never received a cent from the OCA. If it were to be approved and I were to be retained, I would immediately resign from my governorship.
I would like to bring the following to everyone’s attention in advance of the meeting:
1) Please accept my apologies, I have another function that I must attend and I can’t be in two places at once
2) Meeting Notice may have been posted on Chess Talk some time ago, the only official notice I got was in my e-mail today – Not the 15 days as per Article 4.20 of the constitution
3) As a governor of the OCA, I e-mailed Barry to inquire as to what I should be doing during the year. The response was, nothing unless I call you, see you at the AGM, and continue to represent the OCA as a CFC governor
4) I notice on the meeting notice that nominations for executive positions are posted on the meeting notice, yet I have no idea under what authority they are presented as a slate, as there is no mention of a nominations committee in the constitution that I could find
5) At the time that the secretary resigned to move to BC, notice was posted on the website and other places that a new secretary and new VP were required. Why, because Barry decided that Hal Bond, current VP, would be resigning as he was CFC president. For those interested, Hal was never consulted, never had an intention of resigning and Barry retracted.
6) The constitutional changes, although discussed at last years AGM are documented in the minutes on the OCA site as follows: It was agreed to defer discussion of constitutional change to a full governors email vote with 2/3 majority of those voting required for acceptance. Moved by Barry Thovardson seconded by Gillanders. Carried It is inappropriate to bring them up at the AGM with only 7 days notice which is contrary to what was voted on at the last AGM. I agree that the role of governor needs to change, but as a governor, I’d like input into the discussion rather than being presented with a fait accompli. Perhaps we should learn something from the CFC and engage in discussion before a decision is made
7) It is inappropriate for me to comment on a meeting that I was not present at, but due to serious allegations of misuse of Trillium funds, there was a very rare meeting after the grant was completed between Hal Bond, Barry Thorvardson and Trillium Staff. Please ensure that Barry and Hal report on this meeting to the general body.
Process, communication and governance will go a long way to resolve most of these issues.
PLEASE RESCHEDULE THE MEETING, AS PROPER NOTICE WAS NOT GIVEN.
In the event that the meeting is not rescheduled:
At the election, please elect someone who will follow due process, who will communicate effectively with the membership and who will follow proper board governance.
Sorry for rambling, I had a lot on my chest and felt that the general OCA membership needed to know all of this.
Good luck at the meeting and it will be my pleasure to serve as OCA governor for another year. However, it is inappropriate to change the requirements of me serving, after the fact, i.e. after I have been elected as GTCL governor.
When the Ontario Chess Association applied for a Trillium grant, I was included as one of the references. When Trillium called me, I gave a positive review with a caveat...that I had confidence the grant money would be well used as long as Barry was President of the OCA.
As it turned out, I was wrong. The grant was awarded for chess development (with an emphasis on scholastic chess) in York region which is located north of Toronto. This region, prior to the grant, was already one of the more active scholastic chess regions in Ontario. At first, Barry set out on the right track. He advertised for people to do the work. He received a number of applications including Mark Dutton and Leslie Armstrong. Leslie has been the CMA Ontario coordinator for the Canadian Chess Challenge for a number of years and is also a school teacher in York region. Mark Dutton was an excellent organizer in the Greater Toronto area.
At the beginning Leslie was given a small project of doing an inventory of schools which had chess clubs in the area. Barry also associated himself with Roman Pelts, who is a very qualified individual in chess training. Again both were good moves on his part. The OCA bought chess sets and clocks for loan to OCA and other chess events in Ontario. Again another good move.
Then things began to go downhill. Barry avertised a number of events in York region which resulted in either poor attendance or cancellation. Then none of the above contracts were renewed. None of the very competent people who had applied for the job of developing the region were being used. Then we pretty much stopped hearing anything from the OCA. It was only a number of months ago that it was revealed that Barry had hired himself in the position and had collected the lion's share of the grant money.
There is no doubt that Barry was instrumental in getting the Trillium grant for the OCA with the help of Gary Gladstone...who was on the Trillium board in York region. We were not doing him any favours by recommending him and his project...we believed in him.
The bottom line for me is that most of the money was wasted. Barry had very competent people willing to do the work. Instead he chose to hire himself. I don't believe chess in York region is any better off today than it was before the $120,000 project began.
Of course, what Barry did also violated internal rules of the Ontario Chess Association.
Larry Bevand
The above is my personal opinion, based on what I know about the situation.
That lines up fairly closely with what I've been told also.
It seems obvious Barry likes his power. When he ran for CFC President last year he indicated that even if he became CFC President he would not resign as OCA President. How could you even pretend to be objective on a national scale if you're still personally responsible for chess in one particular province?
Thanks Larry for posting this information. There is precious little information around about the Trillium Grant and what was actually DONE with the money. Now it seems there might be good reason for that lack of information.
In the "2008 OCA Presidents Report" that Barry emailed around with the announcement of the upcoming OCA AGM, he provided NO information about Trillium other than this:
"The York Region Trillium Project successfully completed last July and the area continues to have great school programs and even more chess camps scheduled for this summer."
It is certainly NOT clear to me that the Trillium grant money was used to foster any of that alleged growth.
If Gary Gladstone is still on the Trillium board, he ought to seriously consider suggesting an investigation into the use of the grant. In an earlier post on CT some time ago, I also wondered if the grant money - used as salary - had been reported as income by Barry?
The upcoming OCA AGM was clearly not announced within the specified timeframe for the meeting and until recently the location was vaguely "Brampton"... in fact, if I recall correctly, the AGM must take place within a certain number of days (60) after the end of the OCA's fiscal year (March 31) - clearly that is not happening either.
A number of the OCA bylaws have been broken or ignored and it is time for this to stop.
The OCA Constitution was entirely Barry's doing, and as far as I'm aware in the last year or two he's broken at least FIVE bylaws. Possibly more.
Re. the Trillium thing, I know he had to have a meeting with Trillium to defend his actions. From what I know, Trillium only wanted to make sure the money was spent on Chess in York region (which nominally I suppose it was) .. whether or not OCA rules were broken isn't really their concern.
As Larry said, York region was already a hotbed.. so the fact that it's still a hotbed now doesn't really say a whole lot.
The upcoming OCA AGM was clearly not announced within the specified timeframe for the meeting and until recently the location was vaguely "Brampton"... in fact, if I recall correctly, the AGM must take place within a certain number of days (60) after the end of the OCA's fiscal year (March 31) - clearly that is not happening either.
The 60 days term after fiscal year end could be still satisfied:
"3.1 Fiscal Year – The fiscal year of the Corporation shall be April 1 to March 31, or such other period as the Board may from time to time determine."
Knowing the secrecy of the OCA's Board, it may be that the board had moved the fiscal year...
The OCA constitution isn't too bad per se. I do have a problem with the apparent disregard of the bylaws (by Barry) and the use of the Trillium funds. I don't know much about chess in York region, so I would have to take Larry's word for the lack of real progress - as you point out it was apparently already thriving.
The whole constitution is so vague... there are two Boards, the board of governors and the board of directors. Which one?
It is not in my power to interpret the Constitution (1.4 Ruling on Bylaws – The Board shall have the authority to interpret any provision of these bylaws that is contradictory, ambiguous or unclear, provided that such interpretation is consistent with the objects of the Corporation.), thus it is only my opinion:
The term "Board" is described in 1.2 Definitions: "Board – the Board of Directors of the Corporation". The "Board of Governors" is introduced after the "Fiscal Year", thus it would follow that only the Board of Directors can change the Fiscal Year dates.
I agree that the Constitution is not a coherent document...
From the president's email (the whole email in the President election" thread): "Constitutional changes should be done at an AGM were personal debate and discussion can be heard."
Have the President distributed the constitutional changes as they would go into the Constitution? As for me "a) To change roles of OCA Governors to be Chess Ambassadors" lacks the roles description, etc.
It seems like a name change with some additional proviso that the "Ambassadors" would be required to visit clubs/schools in their area and report to the OCA on their success/findings etc.
This, from the 2008-OCA-AGM agenda that Barry emailed:
14) Constitutional Change
a) To change roles of OCA Governors to be Chess Ambassadors
b) To change OCA voting rights and number of OCA Governors elected by League to be :
- 4 OCA Governors for GTCL, SWOCL, EOCA and 2 for NOCL
- 1 vote per each of the 5 OCA Executive Officers
- Additional vote to OCA President, in event of a tie
c) OCA Governors are designated Ambassadors either for area chess clubs, or area schools, and they must contact or visit designated groups in their area at least every six months and provide a written email status report to the OCA by the 1 Oct and 1 April each year (The OCA may remove any Governors who are not actively and effectively promoting chess in Ontario and representing the OCA and its programs and policies.)
d) Future OCA AGM meetings to be held, in June of each year, at the OCA official office or suitable central meeting place, with facilities to allow telephone and/or internet conference or communications capability.
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