USCF / ICCF-US Update

On Thursday USCF President Bill Goichberg wrote the following on the USCF Forums:

The new EB discussed the issue of international correspondence chess at its meeting on August 5. Everyone agreed that unless there is substantial cost (which no one expects), it is appropriate for USCF to represent the correspondence chess players of the US, or to be part of a group that represents them. Subsequently, Bill Hall appointed Joan Dubois to speak to Ruth Ann Fay and work out details.

Bill Goichberg

I also received communication that has been BINFO'd from Joan Dubois on Thursday dated August 15, 2007 stating the facts as presented by President Goichberg as well as the following:

• Both positions held are still open (ICCF-US Secretary and NAPZ Director).
  
• The system is in place and running. All that is needed are interested persons for Ruth Ann Fay to train.
  
• Ruth Ann Fay is willing to stay on to make sure the person(s) taking over are properly trained.
  
• Joan Dubois is speaking to possible candidates and welcomes suggestions for those best able to fill the positions.
  
• "The USCF will take care of the travel expense to send one person to represent us at the Congress..."
  

If you wish to pursue a position or know someone who would fill the bill please contact Joan Dubois at the USCF office:

Joan DuBois
U.S. Chess Director of:
Communications, Affiliate Relations &
Correspondence Chess
PO Box 3967
Crossville, TN 38557
(931) 787-1234 #123 or #130
(931) 787-1200 (Fax)
jdubois@uschess.org

The following is a description by Ruth Ann Fay of what both positions entail and what is needed:

Responsibilities Max had which included representing the US at the annual Congress:

Requirements include computers skills in Word, Excel, and DOS databases (both the ICCF Eloquery and the ICCF-US databases are DOS). Since this has been a break even most years type of an operation, ability to pay one's own way to the ICCF Congress is also needed. Historically the ICCF-US Secretary has been the NAPZ Zonal Director, which is a seat on the ICCF Executive Board. Such participation is necessary if we are to provide top service to our players. Language skills are not necessary, but some knowledge of German and Spanish can help.

ICCF-US Secretary

Max Zavanelli has been ICCF-US Secretary since 1987, and I have been helping him for the last 9 of those 19 years. Due to business and personal reasons, we are now ready to retire from these duties. Our hope would be that we could provide a seamless transfer of duties to the next ICCF-US Secretary. Any player interested in this position should send their questions to Ruth Ann Fay and their resume to their domestic chess club with a copy to Ruth Ann Fay at zprchess@aol.com .
The position requires these minimum duties and skills:

Email skills - I have over 5000 emails sorted and "filed" in about 125 folders. OK, I admit, if I had time, a lot could be deleted. I receive 10-50 emails a day, depending on what is happening at the time.

Processing entries: Players, some through the ICCF Webserver, send emails regarding tournament entry. I reply with payment procedures. I then receive PayPal payments or checks. Probably 90% of correspondence is by email, but there are still some players who write and send checks.

Answer other inquiries: I have set up generic responses to cut and paste into the replies or to print out for postal inquiries. Post has greatly diminished over the years, most of what I receive now is from prisoners.

Organize USCCC, historically a bi-annual event. We switched to alternating post and server events.

Form USA teams for the ICCF Olympiads and other zonal team events. Jason Bokar as Deputy Zonal Director has been helping with this.

Organize country matches. I haven't had the time for this job. It could be moved to an assistant. It's great for the player looking for fun rather than titles.

Host Invitationals and team matches for NAPZ and PATT: The best way to get our players into a tournament with title norms is to organize them. I haven't had enough time to do this well.

Find players for Invitational matches. One needs to know the top players and to keep track to some extent of their game load. When we receive an Invitation from another country, we sometimes have very little time to provide a player. These are for players looking for title norms.

Keep Website updated, I haven't been good at this...

Publish "Top 50" list twice a year.

Ability to use DOS databases. Both the ICCF Eloquery database and the USA Database are DOS programs. For the USA database, we use Alpha 4. It is time to move the USA players up to either a newer version or another program, but this would be very time consuming.

Note that with every inquiry and entry, I check the player's contact information. For entries, I verify the ICCF number and rating. I must make certain that the players enter the correct level of event. The players frequently click on "Open Class" through server entry system when they belong in a Higher or Master Class section.

Keep track qualifications: ICCF now has a Qualifications report, but it is not updated often enough. I need to be able to tell players what their result in a certain tournament qualifies them for.

Fairly award the USA federation nominations to the ICCF World Championship Cycle.

Apply for ICCF Titles: The federation must make formal application for titles once the players have earned the correct number of norms. I maintain a log of players who only have 1 norm and try to get them into tournaments in which they can earn the remaining norm(s).

Forward announcements and updated Order Forms to the Webmaster for Posting. For example, World Cups and Champions League start in alternating years.

Recruit, advise, and otherwise help Td's.

Sale of postcards and scoresheets. I plan to stop this activity once the remaining stock is sold. Most players have moved to the server environment and do not require postcards and scoresheets.

Pay ICCF annual dues - only after verifying that we are paying on the correct number of players and entries. The financial object on the above duties has been to mark up tournament entries enough to cover the headcount portion of the ICCF dues. We do not charge separate, annual player dues as all players should be paying USA club dues.

NAPZ Director: The USA has about 75% of the players in the North America/Pacific Zone. This has traditionally been the ICCF-US delegate. This position is a seat on the ICCF Executive Board. This position can only be done properly by attending ICCF Congresses and being active on ICCF Committees. This is the only way to represent and protect USA interests and to keep our players informed of ICCF changes and events. We have been on Statutes, Appeals, and Rules Committees, for example. This could be handled by a second person. This is obviously the expensive portion of the job. The person has to be willing to make his vacation into a working vacation. Most Congresses have been in Europe, but we have also been to Argentina and India and hosted here in Daytona Beach in 2000. The Congresses are usually in the fall.
I cannot properly allocate the time I spend on these duties. I spend 3-4 hours most days, but to do everything, I could easily spend more.

Ruth Ann Fay NAPZ Director