[quote="seki"]The current Maor of LA made an insane list of often contradictory
campaign promises to get himself elected. At his first press
conference as Mayor, he was asked when he would begin implementing his
fantasy wish list.

His reply? "I didn't promise to do them all in my first term"

Sam didn't promise one million scholastic members in his first term.
We lost a great opportunity by not giving him a second term. [/
quote]

I personally believe that I could get one million scholastic members
by 2009 (which was my campaign promise) and I would have done that if
I had been elected along with three others who share my vision.

The basic steps of my plan a

1. Get elementary schools to buy blocks of 100 memberships (at a
discount of course).

2. Send bundles of Chess Life for Kids magazines to the schools for
distribution to their student members.

3. Teach teachers how to run USCF rated tournaments.

4. Make videos and DVDs of our National Elementary Championships and
send them to the schools for promotional purposes and post them on
youtube.com

These steps, fairly easy to implement, would have brought us a million
members over time in my opinion. I made the above proposals several
times when I was on the board and they were voted down every time.

Instead, the new board has suggested no new ideas. The only thing the
new board had done in the one month that has passed since taking
office is debate on how to bring about "civility" on the USCF Forums
and how stop any criticism of them.

Sam Sloan