wrote in message
ups.com...
I'LL TAKE THAT BET!

Anyone wanna bet that Liarry's source is none other than 1900-rated but
self-proclaimed 2200+ ELO Mack Truck NM Sam Sloan? -- Matt Nemmers

Translation of Matt Nemmers' argument: above all else, try to
black out what is happening re the ChessCafe deal.

I provided a report with plenty of caveats about my source, who
is known by name but who is not yet known to be reliable.

News of the debt has been out for what, 5 months? No one had any idea how
chesscafe could actually pay it and continue.

The last bit of information leaking out of the basement was that there would
be a negotiation downward of the owed sum, together with a gigantic
reduction of future guaranteed income. Fears were that chesscafe would dump
it completely. Then we'd be in Crossville without a paddle.

I have a hunch, which I hope is wrong, that the current Board
will try to kill my report with silence in the hope that I will not
receive further information.

If my source is substantially accurate, then any deal handing B
&E another seven years to ChessCafe will mean the effective end of the
USCF as a
company that can market products.

This was the 'discussion item' at the beginning of the deal. But all was
blue-skys then, and my suggestion to the proposer of the deal, VP Sgt.
Hanke, that there was no 'plan B' to the current deal was scorned, since
making a nice income for several years was 'guaranteed'! Right.

To grant such a contract without Delegate approval would be as
irresponsible as Beatriz Marinello's decision to relegate the
Federation to a methamphetamine
capital known as Crossville.

I seem to have different spies than you - in the recent open session the
board spent 2 hours discussing if the scholastic membership fee could be
raised by ... 2 bucks a year. They ignored a comment from the floor that
scholastic parents often spend $200 on a weekend tourney.

In the corridors the conversation turned to income - and a whaddawedonow?
series of conversations, because costs are higher than were supposed and the
guaranteed income stream to support running costs has evaporated - and
perhaps inevitably, the conversation turned to staffing levels, the high
cost of, these days...

But other comments should be contributed to the 'moderated forum' thread,
since even George John agreed that more not less light and air were
necessary at USCF, and that any admitted current ills were less likely to
occur if plans were aired and made [remember 'transparent'?] than hatched in
the dark basement of some old church down thair...

Phil Innes