"Randy Bauer" wrote in message
oups.com...

Chess One wrote:

First to praise Randy Bauer for something - he is willing to show up in
public and argue his point, not just state it, but pursue it with some
conviction and determination - I would only wish his point were sharper!
But
rather than admit faint praise, he does not suffer from
fear-of-the-public,
which practically all other members of the board do, and as direct result
of
not-testing their precious opinions, are more-or-less intelligent
thereby.
What 'our' Randy needs to do is not run on his record of the past, but
run
on a program for the future. That, IMO, will decide his fate.

First, thanks to Phil for pointing out that I have been, even while on
the Board, willing to discuss and debate on RGCP. My time here has
been limited somewhat of late, because I think the fakes and trolls
have severely reduced the opportunity to have fair discussion of
issues. While I don't support Sam Sloan's candidacy or position on the
Executive Board of the USCF, I also do not support the fake postings
that he has been subjected to for the past year or so.

As to Phil's point about the future rather than the past as the focus,
I agree -- fair enough. I plan to run on strict adherance to financial
responsibility, improvement in member service (I think EVERY employee,
from the Executive Director on down, should have a performance plan
that is developed and reviewed on an annual basis and focused on their
contribution to membership service),

O! This is rare, after reading your comments Randy, I was about to ask, 'how
are you going to actually do what you aspire to' which is a fair question to
any politician! But you did it!

I remember a certain board-aspirant in a past election talking of greater
transparency at very great length, but he wasn't able to say exactly how he
would go about achieving it. But in this message you engage the topic of
'how', which is, IMO, of much greater weight than lots of 'whats'.

Elsewhere I just criticised both the current board and Sam Sloan for mixing
up a censure of Sloan for unwarranted speculations with this other topic of
revealing rating corruption - and said that the /apparent/ effect would be
to now view Sloan as being censured for outing the corruption, rather than
as the omnibus criticism it was intended to be. This rather clouds a more
important issue, IMO:-

What has still not really been answered from USCF's camp is how the accussed
got it through the ratings department in the first place, and then, without
apparent invigilation, the accused was awarded a life-title. Questions on
the extent of this problem have been, of course, dismissed, which is the
exact opposite of calling for performance measurements!

While I do not expect you to answer those specific questions from other than
general knowledge, or at all, I do admit a liking for this idea of yours of
asking department heads [and 'on down'] to have some performance criterion
for their pay - which I should like to call that by the normative phrase
'competency testing'.

better marketing of chess in this
country,

First time I've heard that in a while. Is there an operations person
currently employed at USCF to do this? If not, or if the person would not
have sufficient experience or competence to do an enhanced task or marketing
as you would wish, would you hire someone to become 'marketing manager'? In
other words, how will you deploy a marketing effort? As someone interested
in marketing, would you neverthless cede the board marketing role to Paul
Truong, a fellow board-aspirant?

Here is an older question which I agreed with Beatriz was important, nay!
crucial! during our interview - how are you going to retain more scholastic
players? The numbers indicate the same number in and out every year,
without significant or even measureable growth over 7 or 8 years [in fact a
skippage of almost all the cheap ticket memberships, as many as 10,000! of
them lost]

In another thread I asked for playing-rate of members, and I don't think
anyone knows the Stats for scholastic players who also cares to write them
here. It seems that 12,000 from 30,000 members conducted at least one rated
game in the past 12 months. So I wondered how many games-in-all they played?
Was it just one weekend tourney a year? Who knows? Can anyone say for those
12,000 what is the average number of games they played, and how many played
less than 10 rated games per year?

I also asked the same about rated-games for scholastic players.

These are two vital statistics to the health of USCF and US chess, so it
seems to me, and I compare them with UK stats from 35 years ago, when UK
chess was about to birth some 20 GMs from its national club system.

I am also writing to a PhD doctorate aspirant on these themes; someone who
lives in a substantially more populated country than USA, and he asks some
similar questions about ratings & membership [which is mostly an American
requirement for rating chess] and chess activity - to wit; what is that
relationship?

If you can help me with these datum I should be obliged, as well as perhaps
engaging us with your opinion on this subject independently as a factor of
the health in US chess.

and a firm foundation for the things the USCF should be
expected to provide -- national championships, support for state and
local affiliates, an honest, accurate and timely rating system, and top
notch magazines and other forms of communications with its members.

Which of those are money-dependent [in the sense that USCF needs to partner
with other agencies to fund them?]

Cordially, Phil Innes

Randy Bauer