Greater Toronto Chess League

Minutes - Annual Meeting

Saturday, April 15, 2005
Location: in the Library of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Toronto, GOMT, 86 Overlea Blvd.

Executives present:

• President: Barry Thorvardson
• Vice-President: Michael Barron
• League Co-ordinator: Caesar Posylek
• Director of Communications: Mark S. Dutton
• Treasurer: Nicholas J. Varmazis
• Secretary: Erik Malmsten
• Executive at Large: David Cohen
• Executive at Large: Fred Henderson
• Executive at Large: Martin Jaeger

Other organizers present:

• Larry Bevand, Chess 'n Math
• Wilf Ferner, Seniors
• Bryan Lamb, Scarborough Chess Club
• Ari Mendinos, Oriole Chess Club
• Yevhen Molchanov, Willowdale Chess Club
• Omar Shah, tournament director
• Maurice Smith, West Rouge Chess Club
• Ted Winick, Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre Chess Club

Outgoing Chair: Barry Thorvardson, Minutes: Erik Malmsten, Coffee and cookies: Nicholas Varmazis

Agenda

1. Announcements
2. GTCL Tournaments Update by Barry Thorvardson
3. OCA Awards Submissions
4. Executive Reports:
   a. Team Coordinator - Caesar Posylek
   b. Director of Communications - Mark S. Dutton
   c. Secretary - Erik Malmsten
   d. Treasurer - Nicholas J. Varmazis
   e. Vice-President - Michael Barron
   f. Outgoing President - Barry Thorvardson
5. Election of 2005-6 GTCL Executive and 3 Directors at Large
6. Nomination of OCA/ CFC Governors
7. Visioning Input:
   a. What can the GTCL do to help you, and any chess group you belong to, meet your goals?
   b. How can we maintain the participation of our chess masters/ strong juniors?
   c. How can we help non-tournament players find a place to play?
8. 2005-6 Budget
9. Sponsorship and Trillium
10. New items and discussion of implementing any of the visioning ideas
11. 2005-6 GTCL Tournaments Tartu events

Discussion

1. Announcements

Bryan distributed flyers for the Canada Day Open at Tartu, then left his proxy with Maurice Smith. There will be no Ontario Open in Ottawa in May. An Alternate site for an AGM meeting in Toronto is being considered for May 28. (Subsequently details for the Ontario Open have been publicized. The OCA AGM will be in Ottawa on Saturday, May 21 during the Ontario Open.)

2. GTCL Tournaments Update by Barry Thorvardson

Last year the tournaments at Tartu spread the workload among several TDs. Unfortunately, the discount price is no longer available. Omar reported that getting into schools involves lots of red tape. Ted will look into providing the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre. There are still two $500 Lotto Bonus prizes left to be won this year, for Under 2200 and Under 2000.

Last year was a period of excellent chess activity, with many good GTCL weekend events, and the Canadian Closed Event. Bayview Chess Club and others also had many tournaments. This current year has less tournaments planned, primarily for a shortage of TDs volunteering to run the events. We particularly acknowledge Brian Lamb who is running the next two events, the Canada Day Open, and the Macedonian Open. Larry Bevand will be running the Thanksgiving Open.

3. OCA Awards Submissions

Barry presented Erik Malmsten with the OCA Achievement Award for over 30 years of organizational leadership. In the last year his research uncovered the founding of the OCA 150 years ago and he helped out at the Canadian Closed. Erik notes that everyone here has done more work.

Maurice Smith will pass on to Barry the list of 31 winners of OCA Awards in the past.

4. Executive Reports:

a. Team Coordinator — Caesar Posylek
There has been a few delayed matches and one floating team can't be pinned down for a match.

There are six strong teams. The Scarborough and Oriole CCs are interested in entering teams in a section for the 73% of players who are below 2000. Some players enjoy being paired up, while others don't enjoy getting beat up. The problem with a B section was that the players weren't as committed as the masters to travelling and playing over eight months. Each team needs six committed players.

One day or weekend team tournaments have been popular in the past and could be played in October to interest teams in the league competition.

Including Kitchener of the SWOCL into the league has been successful and in the future we may have teams from places like Barrie.

b. Director of Communications — Mark S. Dutton
Mark has been the Director of Communications for 10 years. Two years ago the torontochess.org website was registered through Cybersolutions and Mark updates it weekly. He is working on improving the navigation, making an index. He regularly sent out notices to a large email list, Chesstalk discussion board, and the CFC magazine. His media contact led to City TV making a video news item on the Canadian Closed and Bayview GC. He also quickly answers emails and phone calls.

c. Secretary — Erik Malmsten
Erik handed out a copy of his report. He noted that decisions made by email aren't being documented as these face-to-face meetings are. So, included in the record should be these decisions:

• Contributing $100 towards the expenses of the Todd Southam Memorial, passed 6-0.
• Selecting Shiyam Thavandiran to play in the Canadian Championship as the GTCL under 2200 junior, passed 3-1, but all the junior candidates got in anyway
• Changing the Team Cup tournament to an active event was defeated 1-4
• Selecting Yevhen Molchanov and Arthur Calugar to the Ontario Closed, passed 4-1 and 5-1, but the latter was declined by the organizers. Nikolay Noritsyn had qualified by rating.

He also would like to have data to measure changes year to year, the number of:

• CFC members in the GTCL area
• Players who played a CFC rated game
• Juniors who played a Chess n Math rated game
• CFC Rated games played in the GTCL
• Hits on the GTCLwebsite
• Mentions of local chess in the media

For the 2004 calendar year there were 142 tournaments, 22 tournament directors, 2,803 entries, 6,428 games, and 212 FIDE rated entrants. At some point Erik will go over the crosstables from 2003 and 2002 that are on the CFC website. This data isn't hard to assemble on a six months basis.

d. Treasurer — Nicholas J. Varmazis
Nicholas handed out the Financial statement for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2005 that has already been reviewed by the executive.

The outgoing President has in hand the $1,000 in Lotto Bonus and $120 in Grand Priz prizes.

The CFC passes funds onto the OCA twice a year, which passes on 30% to the leagues.

There was budgeted, but not spent, $400 on the Toronto Closed.

e. Vice-President — Michael Barron
Michael reported that he encouraged clubs to participate in the league matches, players from Antibes playing for Willowdale and the Chess Academy of Canada.

f. Outgoing President — Barry Thorvardson
Barry reported on the Lotto Bonus tournaments. The big first prize wasn't enough to attract the strong players; maybe we should be having matches and round-robins. Kitchener has recorded 100,000 participants in chess; A big city like Toronto should be able to get more. We have to share information better to avoid tournament conflicts. He urges support for the governor's motion to negotiate with Chess 'n Math to have one rating system and one equipment seller.

It was mentioned that A and B players would participate more if their money wasn't going to the master section. There were a few complaints of no annual Toronto Open on Easter; It could have been offered to club organizers. It is recommended that more of the future prizes be added to the lower categories where the players participate. A survey of players and analysis by group levels may allow us to better meet the needs of all players, perhaps with extra invitational smaller events for masters.

An excellent idea that came up to reduce weekend conflicts is to have an upcoming events calendar on the website, as many American chess organizations have.

The GTCL should look at holding OCA events such as The Ontario Youth Championship in Nov.-Dec. There's also the Ontario Closed, Ontario Women's, and Ontario Junior.

5. Election of 2005-6 GTCL Executive and 3 Directors at Large

a. President
Ari nominated Michael Barron, accepted.
Nicholas nominated Mark Dutton, declined.
Nicholas nominated Erik Malmsten, declined.
Michael Barron acclaimed.

Michael thanked Barry for his energy and wants to work on building strong clubs, having tournaments in clubs, better using of our experienced chess organizers, professional coaches, certified tournament directors, pay more attention to junior chess, and the most important —we all should act together, compete only over the chess board, help each other to develop chess. We in the Toronto area have a lot of experienced chess organizers, arbiters, coaches: Mark Dutton, David Cohen, Barry Thorvardson, Vladimir Dobrich, Martin Jaeger, Brian Lamb, Maurice Smith, Caesar Posylek, Nicholas Varmazis, Shivaharan Thurairasah, Leslie Armstrong, Roman Pelts, Corinna Wan, Goran Milicevic, Yan Teplitsky, Jura Ochkoos, Michael McArthur, and many others. Maybe we do not always agree with each other — but it's impossible: different people are entitled to have different opinions. But we all could and should do our common business — develop chess for the benefit of all chess lovers. We need to respect each other, only then Canadian society in general would respect the chess community and we could proudly describe ourselves as chess players.

b. Vice-President
Maurice Smith nominated Bryan Lamb, accepted, acclaimed.

c. Treasurer
Ari nominated Nicholas J. Varmazis, accepted, acclaimed.

d. Secretary
Barry nominated Erik Malmsten, accepted, acclaimed.

e. Director of Communications
Ari nominated Mark S. Dutton, accepted, acclaimed.

f. Team Coordinator
Barry nominated Caesar Posylek, accepted, acclaimed.

g. Directors at Large
Mark nominated Fred Henderson, accepted.
Barry nominated Ari Mendrinos, declined.
Barry nominates Lindsey Dickie, Regional Coordinator of Chess n Math. Barry suggests that a permanent position be created for a Chess n Math rep, but changes to the constitution require 30 days notice. Accepted by Larry.
Maurice nominates Barry Thorvardson, declined. Ted notices that there is no Past President position.
Mark nominates Wilf Ferner, accepted.
Henderson, Dickie, Ferner Acclaimed.

6. Ontario Open bid for 2006

The OCA has requested that these nominations be forwarded in a letter.

Michael Barron asked nominated OCA Governors to support Barry Thorvardson in the OCA President elections and asked nominated CFC Governors to support Chris Mallon in the CFC President elections.

7. Visioning Input:
a. What can the GTCL do to help you, and any chess group you belong to meet your goals?
b. How can we maintain the participation of our chess masters/ strong juniors?
c. How can we help non-tournament players find a place to play? Any team tourney concerns

Erik placed this on the agenda as an opportunity to hear from clubs things that we should be doing. A response from John Brown of the Peel Chess Club was that players under 2000 want to see more prizes.

To brainstorm new ideas, Erik distributed his list.
1) Players need to be emailed tournament notices. Mark does have an email database, as does the CFC and the Canada Day entry form has a line for an email address. We can ask for players' email addresses on the website and in Chess Canada Echecs.
2) Giving a plaque to a student volunteer/ organizer/ essay or project. It was brought up that there was a youth award when Roger Langen was on the Executive. It needs an administrator.

Michael would like to have regulations for team matches on the website and encourage clubs to have friendly matches with each other. Clubs can give first visits free.

8. 2005-6 Budget

The projected budget has entries for Sponsorships but nobody is working on getting them. If not obtained, then that amount will be taken out of the Invitational Events Expenses, they're linked.

Our website's domain name needs to be renewed. Barry recommends for five years @ $15 year. Barry will past the bill on to Nicholas. Approved.

The OCA would like to see a budget that includes all chess activity in Toronto, including clubs and schools.

9. Sponsorship and Trillium

The grant for chess in York (area north of Steeles) from the Trillium lottery fund should become available this summer. It will include paying for a full-time organizer and 100 sets and clocks. The organizer will work on getting an office from the municipality, setting up summer chess camps, and in getting corporate sponsors so that it will be a self-sustaining organization after four years. Money can't go to prizes. Once up and running, the successful model will be incorporated into other regions across the province. There are bases for chess in the Russian and Chinese populations. Last summer there was a Markham chess camp, there are strong juniors in Richmond Hill and the Chess Academy of Canada.

10. New items

Omar spoke of the need to keep good relations with Vlad Dobrich, the director of the most CFC rated games in 2004. Vlad doesn't want conflict, but to pay his rent. The costs of moving from a non-profit to a charity is $2,000. We can be linked to the OCA. This was not recommended at this time.

11. 2005-6 GTCL Tournaments

The bid for the Ontario Open 2006, Victoria Day weekend, needs details such as TD and Site. $500 comes from the OCA for this event. Also the GTCL should consider bidding for the Ontario Youth at the end of this year. GTCL should ask local organizers to bid for these events. Ted notes that the Miles Nadal JCCCC, Spadina and Bloor, is having a school tournament next week and may be a good site for future tournaments like the Ontario Open.

Ari ends the meeting writing in Greek on the blackboard, "Good day."

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