From the USCF Issues Forum, including a message from me that has been pulled
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EB Meeting Discussion Pension and Profit Sharing
A forum to discuss general USCF issues (Open to USCF members only.)

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by samsloan on Tue Nov 06, 2007 2:09 pm #77818

Donna Alarie is Bad Bad Bad mp3 file

http://boomp3.com/m/bb4ff72a09dd

In this audio tape, several members of the USCF Executive Board openly
attack concerned USCF member Donna Alarie. The audio tape starts with USCF
President Bill Goichberg expressing concern that there will be "tremendous
outcry" if something is not done about the Pension and Profit Sharing Crisis
soon. Paul Truong then counters that it will be "tremendous outcries by the
same 6 to 10 people". Note that Paul Truong, who campaigned on a platform to
"clean up the USCF", now defends the corrupt insiders.

Then, from the audience, Jack LeMoine, a certified public accountant who
traveled from Georgia to be present at this meeting in Crossville,
Tennessee, says "Bill Hall's characterizations of the questions that were
asked" "dismiss serious concerns". Jack LeMoine then points out that Donna
Alarie came all the way from Massachusetts to attend the meeting "on her
dime" and then went to the warehouse to search for documents pertaining to
the pension or profit sharing plan "because you didn't want to do it".
LeMoine expresses concern that Donna's questions are being brushed aside and
ignored.

Before Jack LeMoine can even finish what he is saying, Executive Director
Bill Hall interrupts to say, "you are being disingenuous" and "you have no
concept of what you are talking about about Miss Alarie". "Be careful what
you believe", says Bill Hall.

Joel Channing chimes in to add that concerning the notorious meeting of
"Joel Channing in his Nine Wise Men" in Crossville last May, Channing
"didn't
want her to come" because she was "making trouble" and then "she spent a
huge amount of time going to the warehouse" and she "shoots off like a
machine gun". This causes Truong to jump in with remarks criticizing Jack
LeMoine for making his statement.

The entire tape lasts 5 minutes 25 seconds.

I personally find it difficult to imagine that any Executive Director of any
public not-for-profit corporation could make the abusive comments that Bill
Hall made towards concerned members Jack LeMoine and Donna Alarie and not be
fired on the spot.

Sam Sloan
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by Harry Payne on Tue Nov 06, 2007 2:46 pm #77821

I don't know about being fired on the spot! But I do wonder as the list
grows of members that have raised concerns ,why the modus op. is to always
attempt to attack their credability. There seems to be a popensity in that
area. I have always considered it wise when I believed one way, and 10
people's opinon differed, it was prudent to at least consider what they are
saying. Not claiming I always listen, or the the majority is always correct.
But prudence demands at the very least to consider the other side of a
question. When you cut off the questioner before he even finishes(as was
done to Jacklemoine) that is usually an attempt to confuse, or muddy the
issue with force. Stateing that Jack was being disingenious, before knowing
and/or hearing in complete his comment was exactly that tactic.IMHO.

P.S. I was told that my credibility was even called into question ,by a
person I have defended several times on this forum, mostly from statements
that you have made concerning him Sam. Which makes me to wonder if you may
not be correct about that person.I also changed my mind about voting for
Susan and Paul based in some degree (not the total reason) on what he had
said. Funny is it not.
" Be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap."
When young we sow our wild oats, as we get older we pray for crop failure.
In love of the game. Harry Payne
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by DACP on Tue Nov 06, 2007 3:11 pm #77822

I don't think the title of this thread is really helping the image of USCF
nor do I appreciate seeing my name utilized in this fashion.

Moderators, I would greatly appreciate it if you would either rename the
thread or pull it as a personal attack - even though I know that's not Mr.
Sloan's intention in wording it this way. Thank you.
Donna Alarie
Massachusetts Delegate
DACP

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by Harry Payne on Tue Nov 06, 2007 3:26 pm #77824

DACP wrote:I don't think the title of this thread is really helping the
image of USCF nor do I appreciate seeing my name utilized in this fashion.

Moderators, I would greatly appreciate it if you would either rename the
thread or pull it as a personal attack - even though I know that's not Mr.
Sloan's intention in wording it this way. Thank you.


Perhaps a better Title would have been "Is Jacklemoine Really Disingenuous?"
Hang in there Donna, but what ever you think is ok with me.
" Be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap."
When young we sow our wild oats, as we get older we pray for crop failure.
In love of the game. Harry Payne
Harry Payne

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by tsawmiller on Tue Nov 06, 2007 3:37 pm #77825

DACP wrote:I don't think the title of this thread is really helping the
image of USCF nor do I appreciate seeing my name utilized in this fashion.

Moderators, I would greatly appreciate it if you would either rename the
thread or pull it as a personal attack - even though I know that's not Mr.
Sloan's intention in wording it this way. Thank you.

How's this title? You will have to ask Mr. Sloan to edit the same title in
his post, if you so desire.

tsawmiller
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by DACP on Tue Nov 06, 2007 3:44 pm #77827

Thanks. I can live with or without Mr. Sloan's post as is...more important
fish to fry.
Donna Alarie
Massachusetts Delegate
DACP

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by Harry Payne on Tue Nov 06, 2007 4:09 pm #77830

DACP wrote:Thanks. I can live with or without Mr. Sloan's post as
is...more important fish to fry.

Hey!! Everyone! Fish Fry at Donna's house tonight!! She told us we are all
invited , Her and her hubby are suppying everything ,Donna announced on the
USCF, See you guys and girls at the fish fry at Donna's house tonight..

Amazing how a comment can be taken out of context
" Be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap."
When young we sow our wild oats, as we get older we pray for crop failure.
In love of the game. Harry Payne
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by jacklemoine on Tue Nov 06, 2007 5:44 pm #77833

Is there chips with the fish?
Jack Le Moine
jacklemoine.blogspot.com
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by joelchanning on Tue Nov 06, 2007 7:06 pm #77838

samsloan wrote:
Joel Channing chimes in to add that concerning the notorious meeting of
"Joel Channing in his Nine Wise Men" in Crossville last May, Channing
"didn't
want her to come" because she was "making trouble" and then "she spent a
huge amount of time going to the warehouse" and she "shoots off like a
machine gun".
Sam Sloan

It's true that I spoke disparagingly about Donna at the meeting. That was
improper, and for that I apologize. However, I am convinced that much of the
time she does not act in the best interests of the USCF. In fact, in the
case of the Profit Sharing/Pension fund question, I believe she has acted as
an adverse party, while portraying herself as a whistle blower: implying
corruption, thievery and jail terms for some, and smearing the good names of
others in the process. Now that we now have the positive opinions of both
our Profit Sharing Plan attorney and an indepent law firm hired at great
expense in order to investigate the legality of the documentation of our
plan, I wonder if she'll apologize to you for wasting your time and your
money; or to our staff; or to the board; or to Grant Perks, a decent
volunteer who has given freely of his national accounting expertise to help
us reorganize our finances and whose good name she smeared. I hope some of
you will be decent enough to admit you were far too ready to believe the
worst.

Joel Channing
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by Ron Suarez on Tue Nov 06, 2007 7:36 pm #77844

Joel,

It is interesting to see you apologize for making disparaging remarks about
Donna barely 2 days after uttering them. Why is it that you felt the need to
make those unprofessional remarks in the first place?

From everything that I have read on this forum, Donna has spent a lot of
time investigating this situation. In all this time she was posting on this
forum giving you and all the others that could possibly have any input on
this situation a good and viable opportunity to respond. You certainly could
have and should have held your tongue this past weekend as you have during
all this past.

During your tenure as the Vice President of Finance, you acted primarily as
a person putting together a committee of experts that you, self admittedly,
were not a part. When I and others, including Donna, asked for you to
divulge accurate information regarding the finances of the USCF, including
the retirement plan, you effectively stonewalled, not divulging any
particulars. In fact you said we should give your team of experts time to
sort things out and come to the correct conclusions. Interestingly enough,
we never, ever received all the details you promised.

What you did do was to claim that I and others were being negative towards
you and others on this forum. You then came up with the decision that you
believed this forum should be shut down, because of the bad views expressed
here.

It appears to me that these bad viewpoints are nothing more than the
shedding of light on your lack of activity in getting the finances of the
USCF in order. Please feel free to disagree with me on this providing
accurate and real details of how you really did bring the sunshine of truth
to the USCF financial scene.

Now you are coming to us with the same tactic saying that your new "experts"
will clarify everything and show Donna to be the little girl that has cried,
"Wolf!", too many times. I am sorry to say, Joel, that you certainly appear
to be acting as a political hack in this attempting to hide and distract the
real situation.

Please see this post as one of a true questioning and challenge, Joel, not
one of negative attacking. Of course, the true light of the truth may
inevitably show some negativities, but those would be coming from your
"side" in this financial communication debacle.
....from the Middle,

Ron Suarez
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by sdo1 on Tue Nov 06, 2007 7:38 pm #77845

joelchanning wrote:In fact, in the case of the Profit Sharing/Pension fund
question, I believe she has acted as an adverse party, while portraying
herself as a whistle blower: implying corruption, thievery and jail terms
for some, and smearing the good names of others in the process.



May we have documentation for these charges? I believe the AUG demands it.
You know, for civil discourse and to keep from being an embarrassment to the
USCF. Don't want to lose that spirit of collegiality, do we?
Steve Owens in Tennessee - http://sdo1.blogspot.com -
http://chessusa.blogspot.com
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by Mulfish on Tue Nov 06, 2007 7:46 pm #77848

sdo1 wrote:
joelchanning wrote:In fact, in the case of the Profit Sharing/Pension
fund question, I believe she has acted as an adverse party, while portraying
herself as a whistle blower: implying corruption, thievery and jail terms
for some, and smearing the good names of others in the process.



May we have documentation for these charges? I believe the AUG demands it.
You know, for civil discourse and to keep from being an embarrassment to the
USCF. Don't want to lose that spirit of collegiality, do we?


You beat me to it, Steve. I've seen other people take the progress (or lack
thereof) reports and taken off in wild directions. But Donna? I don't think
so. Unless you can provide an example, Joel, I think a retraction is in
order. Failing that, I'd have to question the sincerity of the apology you
just gave.
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by DACP on Tue Nov 06, 2007 7:58 pm #77850

Perhaps Mr. Channing is not aware of the email which I sent to Mr. Bauer at
the exact time that he and Mr. Hall were attacking me.

Moderators, this is a quote from my email:

Bill Hall's response is unsatisfactory.

Legal Demand going to him again on Monday.

Employee is expecting to commence legal action.

I will be looking into reporting USCF to ERISA.

This issue will be on the forums this week.

Donna

In spite of all these attacks on my credibility, I was still working with
USCF's attorney in October, 2007 - and in fact provided the attorney contact
information for four individuals which USCF did not provide. Some of that
contact information was provided through the employees.

It was my hope that USCF would get the opinion from the attorney, rectify
the situation within a very short period of time - as in two weeks - and
that USCF would self report to the government agencies. That hope is dead.

This administration hired Spectrum in November, 2006 to resolve this issue.
That is a solid year ago folks. Most of those documents which Mr. Channing
talks about are documents I found while diving through the hundreds of boxes
of corporate records currently being maintained in a run down warehouse on
pallets in TN. I left originals with USCF and took copies for myself.

Mr. Nanna is saying that it is going to take three weeks per year to resolve
this issue. He says that Spectrum has reconciled 2000 through 2002 in a
year's time. He says that it will take until January or February, 2008 in
order to calculate what is owed the individuals. What he omitted is that
Spectrum doesn't do the reconciliations until they get the documentation
from USCF. USCF provides the list of employees, how many hours they worked,
and how much they earned. USCF's record keeping is a disaster and this
involves many hours of manual labor. Then Spectrum simply does mathematical
calculations and issues financial forms and reports. I am confident that a
company that is in this business does not need three weeks per year to do
these calculations. And by the way, I had offered to do these calculations
for free for USCF once USCF received the information from the attorney on
its opinion.

The employees are done with the empty promises. They were promised by Mr.
Hall that this would be resolved several times. They have the emails and the
witnesses to conversations to back those facts up.

The only way this is going to be resolved is by asking ERISA to review this
situation. USCF seems to be incapable of doing so and in fact, somehow wants
to shift the blame of not paying employees who were fired in 2003 the
benefits to which they are entitled. The same attitude that the EB members
exhibited to me this weekend is the exact same attitude that former
employees have received for years. USCF would have been reported to
government agencies months ago had I not asked several employees to wait and
give USCF more time to sort through this disaster.

This attack on my integrity is beyond the pale and I will not idly sit by
and let it occur.
Donna Alarie
Massachusetts Delegate
DACP

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by Randy Bauer on Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:06 pm #77853

DACP wrote:Perhaps Mr. Channing is not aware of the email which I sent to
Mr. Bauer at the exact time that he and Mr. Hall were attacking me.

Moderators, this is a quote from my email:

Bill Hall's response is unsatisfactory.

Legal Demand going to him again on Monday.

Employee is expecting to commence legal action.

I will be looking into reporting USCF to ERISA.

This issue will be on the forums this week.

Donna

In spite of all these attacks on my credibility, I was still working with
USCF's attorney in October, 2007 - and in fact provided the attorney contact
information for four individuals which USCF did not provide. Some of that
contact information was provided through the employees.

It was my hope that USCF would get the opinion from the attorney, rectify
the situation within a very short period of time - as in two weeks - and
that USCF would self report to the government agencies. That hope is dead.

This administration hired Spectrum in November, 2006 to resolve this
issue. That is a solid year ago folks. Most of those documents which Mr.
Channing talks about are documents I found while diving through the hundreds
of boxes of corporate records currently being maintained in a run down
warehouse on pallets in TN. I left originals with USCF and took copies for
myself.

Mr. Nanna is saying that it is going to take three weeks per year to
resolve this issue. He says that Spectrum has reconciled 2000 through 2002
in a year's time. He says that it will take until January or February, 2008
in order to calculate what is owed the individuals. What he omitted is that
Spectrum doesn't do the reconciliations until they get the documentation
from USCF. USCF provides the list of employees, how many hours they worked,
and how much they earned. USCF's record keeping is a disaster and this
involves many hours of manual labor. Then Spectrum simply does mathematical
calculations and issues financial forms and reports. I am confident that a
company that is in this business does not need three weeks per year to do
these calculations. And by the way, I had offered to do these calculations
for free for USCF once USCF received the information from the attorney on
its opinion.

The employees are done with the empty promises. They were promised by Mr.
Hall that this would be resolved several times. They have the emails and the
witnesses to conversations to back those facts up.

The only way this is going to be resolved is by asking ERISA to review
this situation. USCF seems to be incapable of doing so and in fact, somehow
wants to shift the blame of not paying employees who were fired in 2003 the
benefits to which they are entitled. The same attitude that the EB members
exhibited to me this weekend is the exact same attitude that former
employees have received for years. USCF would have been reported to
government agencies months ago had I not asked several employees to wait and
give USCF more time to sort through this disaster.

This attack on my integrity is beyond the pale and I will not idly sit by
and let it occur.


Donna,

Actually, I did share your email with them in closed session. I can't
control Joel Channing, but none of the negative discussion of you came from
me. In fact, when Joel finished his diatribe and asked for my comment, I
said we were focusing too much on individuals and should get back to issues.
Afterward, Rachel Lieberman, who was sitting next to me, thanked me for that
comment and moving the discussion.

I don't think you and I have had any public flame wars of late, and I hope
we can keep to civil discourse - I appreciate your willingness to do so.
Again, please do not equate Joel and Bill Hall's comments with mine.
Randy Bauer
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by DACP on Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:19 pm #77859

Randy, I will agree that we are able to communicate and still are in spite
of this issue.

I also had a long conversation earlier today with Chuck Unruh, Chair of
Finance as well. I explained to him why I felt the need to go to ERISA.

You KNOW from last year that I have been up front with USCF every step of
the way and that my motivations have been purely to get the money out of
USCF's account and into the employees' own 401k and/or IRA plans.

The facts speak for themselves. You will also notice that although I sent
that email to you on Sunday, I did not post it here until Mr. Channing
started the personal attack tonight on my integrity. My rationale for
sending you that email at that time was so that you WOULD have the ability
to address the issue in closed session. I certainly didn't expect it to come
out in open session and I did want USCF to be able to prepare a strategic
plan to deal with the inevitable phone calls from ERISA and the NY Times.

You also know that the NY Times contacted me on 5/22/07 asking about the
pension issues and I asked the reporter to please give USCF time to resolve
this issue promising that he would have the full story once USCF addressed
the issue and self reported to governmental agencies. Same reporter
contacted me again on 10/15/07 and again I asked for time because I had the
demand notice out for 10/19/07, but also because I was involved in
co-ordinating a major Church Fair on 10/20/07 and really couldn't add
anything else to my plate.

I no longer feel compelled to try to work within USCF's system. The shoot
the messenger mentality has got to stop. The issue here is NOT me. Or Joel.
Or Grant. Or Bill Goichberg. Or anyone else. The issue is that former
employees left USCF in 2003, have repeatedly asked for statements and
settlement of their retirement plan funds and have not received those
settlements in over 4 years. Some believe that their statute of limitations
run out in 2008. They are not waiting to find out whether they are legally
right or wrong in that assumption and neither am I.

Again, this is one of those issues where I am embarrassed to call myself a
USCF member when I look at how leadership treats its members and the
employees.
Donna Alarie
Massachusetts Delegate
DACP

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by DACP on Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:27 pm #77860

I am asking Donna Alarie to post this for me as I have been, without notice
or reason given, placed once again the moderator prior-censorship list.

Mr. Channing's questioning of Donna's motives are totally out of line. I
think he knows that quite well. Having assisted Donna for the past four plus
month in trying to make sense and order out the the retirement plan, I can
tell you Mr. Channing, that Donna Alarie has only one interest---seeing the
USCF resolve it's retirement plan problems and other financial problems in a
prompt and professional manner so that the USCF can stop unnecessarily
carrying the financial millstone around its corporate neck. Donna has had
ONLY the best interests of the USCF in mind while doing hundred of hours of
volunteer financial review that would have, I my estimation, cost the USCF
at least $50,000 had a CPA firm be contracted to do what she did. Donna
Alarie is one of the most refreshingly honest persons I have ever had the
pleasure of meeting.

Mr. Channing, you should be ashamed of the character assassination you have
attempted on Donna. Your attempt to demean her in this forum is an insult to
the membership. I think the time has come for you to resign from the
Executive Board and head back to the bar you went to rather than attend the
finance workshop in Cherry Hill.

Brian Lafferty
Donna Alarie
Massachusetts Delegate

by artichoke on Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:28 pm #77861

Joel says we have a positive opinion from our Profit Sharing Plan attorney.
I haven't noticed any comment about that or maybe I missed it.

Donna, you say your sole motivation is to get the money out of USCF's
account. I assume you meant, to get exactly what we owe them from us to
them, no more and no less.



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