"samsloan" wrote in message
news:1ccc542d-6f58-4852-abf6-

Regarding Gregory Alexander, as he himself states, most of his
"volunteer" work was done before he became a USCF member. I do not see
how work by a non-member can be considered for USCF "Volunteer of the
Month". Will we be considering Larry Parr, Phil Innes, Rob Mitchell
and Tom Dorsch for this award soon?

And this indeed is a valid question; did the person do anything for chess in
the USA? Or does it depend on what Sam Sloan, Eric Johnson and Bill
Goichberg think they did for USCF?

Sam Sloan here makes a distinction between the two; on the one hand someone
does something for chess requiring no position, money nor authority to do
so, and on the other hand we here they didn't so something for USCF as an
organisation.

That's a clear orientation of doing something for chess players, not an
'organisation', and his USCF reward is to be rubbished for it in public by
Sam Sloan.

Most of the "volunteer" work by Gregory Alexander was for a political
candidate, Susan Polgar, in a hotly contested election. That is the
reason why Susan named him "Volunteer of the Month". He was
volunteering to work for her, not for the USCF.

And the rest of this mean commentary about a guy who spent 5 years launching
a college chess network, utterly ignored and unsupported by USCF, hardly
deserves more response than to note that Sloan hates it, for the same reason
he hates Susan Polgar.

Its not about some inert and dysfunctional organisation for everyone - its
not about Sam Sloan's role in things - its about promoting chess. Did
Gregory Alexander do that? I think so. What did USCF do in the same realm,
de nada!

Personally I would be proud to be ignored by those who do nothing in that
direction, as much as to be ignored by prize-winning 'journalists' at CJA,
who make wet jokes to their constituency, which seems to compromise, in both
senses, each other.

Heuch! It seems that the pettier it is, the harder it plays.

Phil Innes


By contrast, Richard Shorman, the person I nominated, has never been
involved politically and has never been paid. I have never heard him
express a political opinion. I have never seen or heard of him
expressing an opinion, for or against, anybody.

Yet, he comes to every chess tournament in Northern California, takes
thousands of pictures and saves and records the scoresheet of every
game he can find, many of which make it into the chess databases and
are eventually published by others.

Richard Shorman is a true volunteer and that is why I feel he should
have been named "Volunteer of the Month", rather than the other two.

Sam Sloan