A positive spin?

[Larry Bevand]

I have to admit...I don't get it!

Canada has many awesome organizers these days...yet we like to talk about the glitches. I was in Windsor for the CYCC...John Coleman and his team...as well as Patrick McDonald put on a great event! Then we went to Toronto where Brian Fiedler, Micheal Barron and their team presented an incredible event...the rates at the hotel were so delicious...(me Mr Cheapo LOL) that I asked my girlfriend to come with me :)...now we are doing the Quebec Open in Montreal...Marc Poulin, Richard Berube and their team continue to dazzle...look at the great opportunity they presented to our future stars ....

We have awesome folks like Brian Raymer, Mark Dutton and Roger Patterson and K-12... in B.C., Tony Ficzere and Bruce Thomas in Alberta, Don McKinnon in Saskatchewan, Peter Henson and the Piches in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec have way too many people to mention... (does that take me off the hook :) Ghyslaine Johnson in New Brunswick, my good friend Mr Dorrance in Nova Scotia (And his gang)...Fred McKim and Jeff Coakley and their team (what a team! in PEI) and Chris Dawson (his team) and Alec Tsui in NFLD.

The problem with naming names is that you will forget people. For that I am sorry...the point of this post is that we have great folks working very hard...for you!

A thank-you is in order!

Chess in Canada is getting better all the time thanks to many great people!

(I have a theory about this that we can discuss at the CMA 25th anniversary celebrations :)

Since I have been involved in chess in Canada..I honestly can not think of a time where we had so many great organizers offering quality events at the same time!


Larry

[Victoria Jung-Doknjas]

Re: A positive spin?

Very well put Larry and I agree with you totally.

It is so refreshing to hear positive comments for hard working people who truly deserve our heart-felt thank you's. My experience with:

CYCC:
John Coleman - amazing Chief Organizer and excellent communicator. If you have a problem, John makes it his problem too until he can find a solution for you.

Patrick McDonald - Chief Arbiter and SUPER nice and super knowledgeable! Even if he is super busy (which is all the time), he takes the time to provide a full explanation!

Zeljka Malobabic - Monroi representative; I don't think Zeljka sleeps...she works so hard to get timely information to the chess public consistently! Simply amazing!

The rest of the friendly, efficient, and accomodating crew who made this year's CYCC a truly memorable one:
Peter Porritt, Michael Oddy, Katrina Passador, Terry Coulombe, Melissa and Brendon Lee, Alex and Simon Tang, Samantha Scussolin, Carissa Long, Karen Demers, Carol Myers, Jill Kanswicher, Dan Passador, Frank Lee, Linda Deforest, Herb Alice, Denton Cockburn, Jim Demers, Vlad Drkulec, Manny Kocela, Simon Tang and Alex Tang, and Andrei Botez.

Canadian Open:
Michael Barron, Brian Fiedler - These Chief Organizers selected a wonderful, central location at an exceptional rate. The playing conditions were excellent. These men were always accessible to hear about concerns and issues. Well done!

Hal Bond - The Chief Arbiter ran a great tournament and took care of far too many details that the regular chess playing public has no idea needs to be dealt with in the wee hours of the night before the next round!

Congratulations for providing us with a well-run CO tournament that we will remember fondly for years to come.

BC Organizers
Brian Raymer, Roger Patterson, Paul Leblanc, and Mark Dutton are an amazingly well-organized team. They set their sights high and always achieve their goals. They are always interested in hearing your opinions and concerns. The first class tournaments that they have put on in more recent years: CYCC 2009, Keres Memorial, Grand Pacific Open, etc. have all been at great locations and focussed on making the chess players, happy chess players!

It has been a true joy to know these people and to see them in action.

Thank you all for giving of yourselves selflessly in order to make the Canadian chess community better.

Victoria

[Brad Thomson]

Re: A positive spin?

At the risk of being accused of buttering my own bread, I think Larry Bevand has accomplished remarkable things for Canadian chess over the past 25 years!

[Brad Thomson]

Re: A positive spin?

This might be a good time to reintroduce the Nickoloff Theory of Chess Corruption. Bryon told me that the reason chess is so corrupt and filled with negativity is the fact that people who can't take you off over the board will attempt to do so off of the board. I think he was correct.

I might add that while Nick was not adverse to voicing his opinions, he never criticized gratuitously. He often remarked that without men like Knox, Vujosevic, Vuchko, Jeager, Divinsky and others, there would be no chess tournaments for all of the complainers to play in.

[Jean Hébert]

Re : A positive spin?

Chess in Canada is getting better all the time thanks to many great people!

Larry,

What about the V.V. thing ? "Tomorrow" is long gone...

P.S. Maybe if I read the above statement a thousand times...