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I was reviewing Van Dusen's comments and he said something to the effect that he found it hard to keep up with all the existing CFC programs. I was also thinking the CFC has a massive amount of people officially doing something although it isn't always clear what that is.
Then something occurred to me. Look at the CFC budget. This is an organization with a budget less then $100,000 ( if I read the numbers right ) for the whole nation. This makes the first few points absurd. Something doesn't add up in this whole situation. Noting the budget and the recent emergence of decent projects totally outside the CFC realm I can only come to the conclusion that :
a. Van Dusen is an incompetant manager who has no idea how to prioritize
tasks, delegate, and manage a business.
b. The organization is structured in a way that it can't help but fail.
The most incredible thing is how long the CFC holds onto old habits and structures for decades when obviously it doesn't work. The CFC has actually successfully shrunk its mandate ( in good ways and bad ) and budget, outsourced a good deal of its activities, but still had a President that was clearly "overwhelmed" by the role and a bloated political structure.
Re " b " - I disagree that the CFC structure is the problem. The governor system is representative of the CFC membership across the country, via seats allocated to provinces. The CFC members get to elect all the governors from their province ( in Ontario, from their region ). As such, it is very democratic.
I do think we have too many governors though. I tried to get the Provincial representative governors cut in half, but the governors shot that idea down at an AGM. I also have Motion 2010-03 coming on at the July AGM to eliminate the 10 past president life governors. But in the meantime, I can live with what we have.
The problem is getting good activist governors. We have too much deadwood. I have Motion 2010-05 coming on at the AGM, which is the Governor Activity Rule - don't participate , and you will be terminated. If this passes, we'll have the power to start turfing bad governors elected by some of the provinces. Then we will hopefully see more activity, and the system will show that it can work better.
I was reviewing Van Dusen's comments and he said something to the effect that he found it hard to keep up with all the existing CFC programs. I was also thinking the CFC has a massive amount of people officially doing something although it isn't always clear what that is.
Then something occurred to me. Look at the CFC budget. This is an organization with a budget less then $100,000 ( if I read the numbers right ) for the whole nation. This makes the first few points absurd. Something doesn't add up in this whole situation. Noting the budget and the recent emergence of decent projects totally outside the CFC realm I can only come to the conclusion that :
a. Van Dusen is an incompetant manager who has no idea how to prioritize
tasks, delegate, and manage a business.
b. The organization is structured in a way that it can't help but fail.
The most incredible thing is how long the CFC holds onto old habits and structures for decades when obviously it doesn't work. The CFC has actually successfully shrunk its mandate ( in good ways and bad ) and budget, outsourced a good deal of its activities, but still had a President that was clearly "overwhelmed" by the role and a bloated political structure.
Regarding point a.:
I happen to know that the current CFC President is a man who likes to burn the candle at both ends, besides having an ongoing health issue. However, even when the current Vice-Prez (a clearly competent individual and organizer) for a period looked after tasks meant for the current Prez, he too found himself to be very stretched.
At least the current CFC Prez is not leaving the CFC in much worse shape than it already was. It has bottomed out, after taking a ~$150K or so haircut in the space of about four years, because a certain past President didn't seem to at any time emphatically hit the panic button and try to stop the CFC from bleeding away its membership by all means possible - e.g. a membership drive (I wouldn't go so far as a past CFC Prez who said that the CFC had been destroyed). Membership levels should be a priority for any CFC Prez, that's clear, especially when losing ~1000 members means losing the physical office, print magazine, and for all practical purposes the book and equipment business.
Regarding point b.:
I've felt that the CFC would be better off as a private business rather than as an organization for volunteers. I've been told online more than once that volunteer organizations similar to the CFC have worked, but I've yet to be shown a comparable example. Perhaps at the least the CFC Presidency should be a paid position, if/when the CFC can afford it. Running a chess Federation in such a vast country seems better to be a full-time job if it is to be done well.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Murphy's law, by Edward A. Murphy Jr., USAF, Aerospace Engineer
Kevin, let's be real here. What you are saying simply supports my contention that neither individual is a good manager of a business. If you are too busy well you need to delegate most tasks to others. Who you could delegate is obvious; there is a small army of CFC governors available to get things done.
Last edited by Duncan Smith; Saturday, 19th June, 2010, 06:49 PM.
The problem is getting good activist governors. We have too much deadwood.
Bob
Bob,
It's easy to spot the deadwood: their pictures are missing from the CFC's Contact Us web site (http://www.chess.ca/contactus.shtml). Are these people so disconnected from the CFC that they're even ashamed to be seen on the CFC's own web pages? If yes, why are they still Governors? If no, what are they waiting for? (I know you and John Coleman and 1 or two others didn't need to be asked to send in your photo.)
I put the Products and Services on one web page (http://www.chess.ca/products_services.shtml) so that everyone would see what the CFC does for its members and for the Canadian Chess community.
If you want active CFC Governors who will do the work necessary to carry out those tasks, it's simple to start with. Permit only those who send in their photos, bios and a pledge to do 10 hours of volunteer work per month to become CFC Governors. Then, build it up from there.
It's easy to spot the deadwood: their pictures are missing from the CFC's Contact Us web site (http://www.chess.ca/contactus.shtml). Are these people so disconnected from the CFC that they're even ashamed to be seen on the CFC's own web pages? If yes, why are they still Governors? If no, what are they waiting for? (I know you and John Coleman and 1 or two others didn't need to be asked to send in your photo.)
I put the Products and Services on one web page (http://www.chess.ca/products_services.shtml) so that everyone would see what the CFC does for its members and for the Canadian Chess community.
If you want active CFC Governors who will do the work necessary to carry out those tasks, it's simple to start with. Permit only those who send in their photos, bios and a pledge to do 10 hours of volunteer work per month to become CFC Governors. Then, build it up from there.
David
I must be missing something here? Somehow it is a bad thing when someone declines to have their picture plastered all over a site on the internet?
Internet security gurus will strongly advise against such exposure, personal decision, but not one to be ridiculed. A perspective adjustment mught be in order?
Kevin, let's be real here. What you are saying simply supports my contention that neither individual is a good manager of a business. If you are too busy well you need to delegate most tasks to others. Who you could delegate is obvious; there is a small army of CFC governors available to get things done.
Duncan, the reality is that the President cannot officially delegate to ordinary governors under the current CFC constitution afaik, though he could always ask nicely :). He can possibly delegate work to fellow Executive officers or non-Executive officers, and that work ought to fall within the (often narrow) job description of such an officer. The Vice Prez is in practice, as far as I can surmise, the main go-to-guy that the Prez might hope to depend on.
In any case, because of the CFC being an organization of volunteers, rather than being a private business, individual officers really aren't forced to do as much work as the President might wish. In fact they can do practically nothing, even if it is in their job description to do some particular task, as for example some past Rating Auditor(s) have, even when the position of Rating Auditor was still part of the Executive.
btw, Provincial Associations have the power to remove deadwood/undesirable governors (as does the CFC in some cases nowadays, I think), but usually they don't bother, and they even keep re-electing them (not counting Life Governors that might be deadwood).
Last edited by Kevin Pacey; Saturday, 19th June, 2010, 09:21 PM.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Murphy's law, by Edward A. Murphy Jr., USAF, Aerospace Engineer
For anyone who wants to check it out, the CFC Constitution (aka the CFC Handbook), Section 2 defines the roles and responsibilities of the Governors, the Executive, what Officers do, and more...
The OCA cannot remove elected CFC Governors. The OCA Bylaws do allow, however, the OCA to remove for non-participation, OCA Governors. Now this was before all the CFC Governors automatically became the OCA Governors.
So Michael von Keitz, OCA President, has struck an OCA Constitutional Review Committee ( me as chair, William Doubleday and Stuart Brammall ) to review the Constitution, and this is one of the things we must clear up now.
The CFC cannot remove a CFC Governor for non-participation, only for status issues, like an expired CFC membership. Motion 2010-05, Governor Activity Rule, coming on for vote at the AGM, will try to remedy this.
The OCA cannot remove elected CFC Governors. The OCA Bylaws do allow, however, the OCA to remove for non-participation, OCA Governors. Now this was before all the CFC Governors automatically became the OCA Governors.
So Michael von Keitz, OCA President, has struck an OCA Constitutional Review Committee ( me as chair, William Doubleday and Stuart Brammall ) to review the Constitution, and this is one of the things we must clear up now.
The CFC cannot remove a CFC Governor for non-participation, only for status issues, like an expired CFC membership. Motion 2010-05, Governor Activity Rule, coming on for vote at the AGM, will try to remedy this.
Bob
Hi Bob
The OCA constitution has been changed a number of times over the years, so please pardon me if I haven't boned up on the latest.
The expired CFC membership status issue for Governors was in fact what I was thinking of for the exceptional case of the CFC removing a CFC Governor. I happened to see that was a relatively recent amendment/motion, that Ken Craft was one of the movers of, when I recently visually skimmed through Section 2 of the Handbook. I didn't notice if there were any other cases the CFC could remove a Governor offhand, and besides there may be amendments/motions yet to make it into the next/final(?) version of the revised online Handbook.
Last edited by Kevin Pacey; Saturday, 19th June, 2010, 10:12 PM.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Murphy's law, by Edward A. Murphy Jr., USAF, Aerospace Engineer
Looking at Section 2 of the Handbook again, I see that even the CFC itself makes sure that once a Governor is elected by a Provincial Association, they can't be replaced until the end of their term (if they don't leave by resigning, or they have a membership expiry status issue) by a Provincial Association. My bad.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Murphy's law, by Edward A. Murphy Jr., USAF, Aerospace Engineer
Internet security gurus will strongly advise against such exposure, personal decision, but not one to be ridiculed. A perspective adjustment mught be in order?
Perhaps a better solution is required to identify governors of the CFC on the website. ( esp the missing ones ) Lets try for example:
Last edited by Anthony Cheron; Monday, 21st June, 2010, 07:37 AM.
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