Bill Brock states on the New York Times Gambit Blog, "Mr. Channing had
a vision, and a sense of the concrete steps USCF needed to take". I
would like Mr. Brock to tell us what his vision was and what those
steps were, because I never heard Mr. Channing state those things. In
his nearly three years on the board, Mr. Channing never made a motion
that failed to pass. The board repeatedly deferred to his wishes,
based on his supposed superior business experience and judgment. For
example, the USCF changed its entire accounting system to the way Mr.
Channing wanted it done. This all had to be changed back after all the
accountants stated that this was wrong. Mr. Channing supervised the
construction of the new USCF headquarters in Crossville, Tennessee,
which we were subsequently informed we are not allowed to sell. All of
Mr. Channing's motions involved spending money on some aimless
boondoggle, flying 20 USCF insiders to Florida being one example. In
three years on the board, Mr. Channing never made a proposal either to
reduce expenses or increase revenues, even though the USCF was
suffering horrific financial losses. Meanwhile, during my one year on
the board, I made many proposals both to increase revenues and cut
expenses. Every motion I made for those purposes was voted down,
because Mr. Channing openly stated that he would vote against anything
that I was for, thereby nullifying my presence on the board.

The two things that I accomplished that definitely would not have
happened had I not been on the board were getting all the old Chess
Life newspapers going back to 1946 scanned and preserved on CD and
getting the Expulsion of Bobby Fischer that had taken place before I
got on the board vacated. However, due to the strong opposition of
Mr. Channing, I was never able to get Bobby Fischer fully reinstated
as a USCF member, so Mr. Fischer died without being a USCF member.
Every other proposal I made, such as making and broadcasting videos of
our national scholastic championships featuring thousands of screaming
kids, failed because of the knee-jerk opposition of Mr. Channing.

The remarks by Jim Eade, a former USCF Board member, are right on
point. The insistence of Mr. Channing on buying something called
"internet insurance" cannot have been the real reason he resigned. The
real reason was that the board finally stood up to Mr. Channing and
refused to go along with yet another expenditure of USCF membership
dues money that Mr. Channing wanted to make. Mr. Channing realized
that he would no longer be given carte blanche on anything he wanted
to do, and so he resigned.

Sam Sloan

On Apr 14, 5:32 am, samsloan wrote:
Bill Brock states on the New York Times Gambit Blog, "Mr. Channing had
a vision, and a sense of the concrete steps USCF needed to take". I
would like Mr. Brock to tell us what his vision was and what those
steps were, because I never heard Mr. Channing state those things. In
his nearly three years on the board, Mr. Channing never made a motion
that failed to pass. The board repeatedly deferred to his wishes,
based on his supposed superior business experience and judgment. For
example, the USCF changed its entire accounting system to the way Mr.
Channing wanted it done. This all had to be changed back after all the
accountants stated that this was wrong. Mr. Channing supervised the
construction of the new USCF headquarters in Crossville, Tennessee,
which we were subsequently informed we are not allowed to sell. All of
Mr. Channing's motions involved spending money on some aimless
boondoggle, flying 20 USCF insiders to Florida being one example. In
three years on the board, Mr. Channing never made a proposal either to
reduce expenses or increase revenues, even though the USCF was
suffering horrific financial losses. Meanwhile, during my one year on
the board, I made many proposals both to increase revenues and cut
expenses. Every motion I made for those purposes was voted down,
because Mr. Channing openly stated that he would vote against anything
that I was for, thereby nullifying my presence on the board.

The two things that I accomplished that definitely would not have
happened had I not been on the board were getting all the old Chess
Life newspapers going back to 1946 scanned and preserved on CD and
getting the Expulsion of Bobby Fischer that had taken place before I
got on the board vacated. However, due to the strong opposition of
Mr. Channing, I was never able to get Bobby Fischer fully reinstated
as a USCF member, so Mr. Fischer died without being a USCF member.
Every other proposal I made, such as making and broadcasting videos of
our national scholastic championships featuring thousands of screaming
kids, failed because of the knee-jerk opposition of Mr. Channing.

The remarks by Jim Eade, a former USCF Board member, are right on
point. The insistence of Mr. Channing on buying something called
"internet insurance" cannot have been the real reason he resigned. The
real reason was that the board finally stood up to Mr. Channing and
refused to go along with yet another expenditure of USCF membership
dues money that Mr. Channing wanted to make. Mr. Channing realized
that he would no longer be given carte blanche on anything he wanted
to do, and so he resigned.

Sam Sloan

Because of the screwed up mess people of your ilk have made of things.
Congrats!

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 10:12 AM, wrote:

Sam,

Can you or any other board member cite some of Joel Channing's
achievements during his tenure on the board?


None. He claimed to have brought in "sponsors". However, those
"sponsors" only exchanged banner ads with the http://www.uschess.org
website. This was a bad deal for the USCF because we do not want
banner ads for other organizations on the USCF Home Page nor do we
want to be seen as suggesting that potential donors give money to
other outside organizations.

None of these so-called "sponsors" that Joel Channing claimed to have
brought in provided even one dime of money or any other thing of value
to the USCF.

Sam Sloan

What about the imagination to figure out ways to make the organization
bigger and better?

I had lots of ideas on how to improve the USCF when I was on the
board. Unfortunately, my ideas were effectively vetoed by Joel
Channing who openly stated that he would vote against anything that I
was for, and Bill Goichberg who only likes his own ideas, not anybody
else's, and Randy Hough, who always votes the same way Bill Goichberg
does even when he realizes that Goichberg is wrong.

With three votes always against me, I could not get anything passed.
Too bad Tanner had to leave. He might have broken some of the ties in
my favor. For example, Tanner voted with me on my first motion to
reinstate Fischer. However, when it came time for my second Fischer
motion, Tanner was no longer on the board and without his vote my
motion failed.

Sam Sloan