ICCF AMICI No. 07, 2005 (correspondence chess)

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Germany we really took advantage of the many events and walked lots. Most
weekends, I would usually walk one or two marathons (52km) and was really
getting into shape. Sadly, there are not as many events in the U.S. and I
have a list of excuses that prevent me from enjoying this sport more.
3. What is your background and experience that qualifies you for the work of a
Financial Director? Do you have educational and/or work experience in this
area?
Well, educational wise - I believe I'm qualified. I have a Master's Degree in
Business with majors in both Finance and Accounting, and am currently
pursuing (about 68% complete) a PhD in Business with a specialty in
organizational management. I have also taught business and investment
courses at the college level.
Experience wise - perhaps less since my chosen career field isn't necessarily
aligned with accounting and finance. However, as a manager for more than
15 years, I have supervised many sections and work groups including
financial planning and budget responsibilities. In two different companies, I
have had sole responsibility and authority for annual working budgets of over
$1 million (USD).
4. You have taken the additional position as Direct Entry coordinator. John
Knudsen has described this as a full-time job. Do you anticipate being able to
perform both jobs, or will you be recruiting additional people to help you? I
believe John is already acting as a consultant, based on his work as the
former DE director, but perhaps you have other people also lined up to help.
Notwithstanding all politics and opinions surrounding the Direct Entry
(DE) program, I note two things: 1) it was approved by Congress, and 2) I
think it is critical to recruit new chess players to ICCF.
I view the DE program as one of the major responsibilities of the Finance
Director (FD) and how it is ultimately setup and managed will certainly be my
responsibility. John has done an incredible amount of work and has provided
me excellent opinions and recommendations. John and I have spoken
several times and it will be his decision how and to what extent (if any) he
wants to continue in the future. John is an example of one of the many
tireless volunteers who has given more than expected to make ICCF function
as great as it does.
I have already had some excellent qualified people volunteer to help and
shortly I'll be forming a DE working group to implement the DE program. My
thinking is that some (many) of the things that John was having to do
manually could be integrated into the web pages and performed
automatically. Along with that, I've been actively searching for reasonable
payment systems and am meeting with several bank managers to look into
merchant accounts and explore payment methods in multiple currencies.
Another idea I'm toying with (and will be running this by the Marketing and
Public Relations Commissioner) is possibly tying some elements of the DE
program into both offices. Since we are targeting new members, perhaps we
can do more than facilitate their entry into a couple of tournaments. We want
them involved in more tournaments and to get affiliated with their National
Federations. Perhaps a periodic automatically generated e-mail from the
President or National federation thanking them for participating and offering
suggestions and directions for joining or future participation. Just some
random thoughts on the long flight home.
5. How did you get involved with Ruth Ann and the financial work you did for
ICCF before Congress?
About three years ago, I was inclined to start giving back to this wonderful
organization. I had contacted Ruth Ann and chatted with her about different
ways I could help either my federation and/or ICCF. She suggested a start in
directing tournaments and referred me to several organizers. Since then, I
have been directing some Thematic Tournaments for Leonardo Madonia
(who runs the excellent Thematic Tournaments office) and Master Norm
tournaments for Daniel Finkelstein as the Title Tournaments Commissioner. I
added some Team Captain duties as well and was looking for a bit more.
When John announced his resignation from the DE position, I thought this
might be an excellent opportunity to step up even more. I expressed my
desire at first as a Direct Entry Assistant with the caveat that if anyone else
was interested in the position, I would gladly assist him or her. Ruth Ann
accepted my offer and told me she would relay that to the EB. In the
meantime, she began sending me some general and background information
so I could be more prepared for the duties.
6. Apparently you were not nominated for office, but given the lack of candidates
you stepped forward and volunteered during Congress. Can you give us the
real story of what happened? Why did you decide to commit yourself to such
an important and time-consuming job? I've heard conflicting reports about
whether or not you had already volunteered for the job before Congress
started.
Continuing from the previous question, although early in 2005 I was ready to
start working on some DE issues, I invariably ran into situations where the FD
needed to make a decision. Of course, you all know what happened there.
So, until Congress, I continued to read, correspond, and formulate some
initial plans of how to successfully revitalize the DE program.
In late summer, I guess Ruth Ann realized that the finances weren't going to
get finalized for Congress so she started to delve into the matters of
collecting, preparing, and transitioning all the books to the new FD. By the
time nominations were due and nobody had volunteered, panic started to
slowly set in. That was when Ruth Ann suggested I should consider attending
Congress.
So I started to do the research and as many of you realized, this was no easy [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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