*** My local pizza store has no sponsors -- it does just fine on a "pays
its
own way" basis.

Well that is very nice Eric. But does it get on national tv, into
mainstream education, or 'push-pizzas' for their no doubt efficacious
merit, to the nation? You see, that is the function of a non-profit
organisation for chess [not for pizzas]. And while being a private
member's club is very well, would you mind if anyone else had a bash at
the Mission Statement?


You have an odd idea of USCF's mission statement. It says nothing about
"going on TV" or "pushing chess" or anything about the actual mechanics of
how it promotes chess as part of American culture.


Neither do /you/ say anything about the mission statement! - of course what
I suggest are the /means/ by which it can fulfill its mission, and what you
write below are your ideas on the same subject.

What I completely fail to understand is why you object to anyone else doing
things that USCF does not do, and which technically it cannot well perform
with its current structure.

It fulfills its mission by publishing a magazine, running a rating system,
holding a national championship, holding a major open tournament, and
related activities. It fulfills its mission by *being* a national
membership organization -- just as National Geographic sells "memberships"
and publishes a magazine and does good deeds to fulfill its mission.

Your beef is that USCF doesn't do things *you* want it to do. What it
*does do* is quite sufficient to satisfy its mission.

That is not my beef - it is yours! Your orientation is only to USCF, even if
USCF can't do something. Mine is to include those areas where USCF have
failed and given up trying to perform, as well as things it never attempted.

What I want to know is why you constantly object to anyone doing more than
what you personally are happy with - either within USCF or outside it?
Period.

Because you can't address that subject honestly, and the board can
[literally] address nothing in a cogent way, other people are simply
pointing this out in a National newspaper - including Moskow and Anderson -
who, so it seems to me - would both be happy to fund something that is not
currently happening. If you are not interested in that, why object to other
people doing it?

In Sloan-parlance, what I write is to 'attack' USCF, which is the attitude
you yourself adopt. But the attack is not so much for what it does, but for
what is not happening in chess in the USA. And there need be no necessary
conflict here - since obviously USCF can hardly object that anything is
being taken away from it, since there is nothing to take from it in the
potential areas of investment.

Phil Innes

ECJ