9 a.m.: Call to order. The chair announced that committee reports would be deferred to the end (which probably means never) unless they have motions included.
9:05: Budget adopted, no debate. CL editor Dan Lucas is now speaking. Printing contract stuff, important but not glamorous. (E.g., unit cost of
CL reduced from ~$.46 to $.37.) No US Open program book this year because they were too busy. Lucas seems to think it's unimportant. I disagree, but that's just me.
9:15: Harold Winston reporting on the
Chess Trust. Give till it hurts -- there's a $4900 matching grant. The Hall of Fame is probably going to have to move because of Excalibur's financial troubles, possibly to St. Louis.
9:20: Don Schultz presents a FIDE report. Nothing significant.
9:22: Reappointment of Delegate-selected committees. No controversies. Donna Alarie and John Hillery added to Bylaws. Heh.
9:25: Committee reports:
PPHBF proposes guidelines for those seeking support. The text is shown on a big screen, but some of the Dels can't see it and John McCrary has to read it. Passed without debate.
Rules has several proposals, confusingly worded and poorly presented. I suspect we'll find we've voted something we didn't mean. Motion to adopt the FIDE rule that anyone whose cell phone rings loses the game. Failed. A confusing motion which looks to me like it's pretty much the same as the current rule is next. An amendment to make penalties harsher fails. Main motion passed. Next, a motion which would make it illegal to speak to anyone on a telephone during the game, even outside the playing hall. I think it's impractical and grossly punitive. Oh, and David Kuhns just mentioned in passing that the Workshop opposed this 1-20. The Delegates agreed. Failed. Lastly, a redundant motion saying that you can't
get advice from an electronic device. Failed 26-28. We're up to 9:50 now.
9:55: Old business. Motion requiring voter registration. Starting to drag, as everybody wants to debate minutiae. Kicked back to committee.
10:00: Post minutes on the web site, charge for hard copy. Common sense. Passed. Transfer "secretary" function to someone other than the Secretary. Passed.
10:05: Arcane motions about recognition of income. Referred back to committee. Boilerplate authorizing promotional memberships. Passed.
10:10: Recall motions against Truong and Polgar. Argument about whether it's moot. My opinion: always go with suspenders
and belt. Tabled until the lawyer is present.
10:25: Motion to make it possible to go after 501(c)(3) status. Lots of "Whereases." Everyone wants to speak to this, God knows why. Referred to Bylaws.
10:37: Raise non-magazine Adult membership from $29 to $34. Some really dumb arguments about what the new number should be. The floor of the Delegates Meeting is
not the place to argue about this, no matter how smart the debater thinks he is. Passed.
10:45: Decrease the number of Delegates. Alarie's original proposal was dropping from 125 to 100, now changed to 120. This isn't going anywhere. (Will the proposers of such motions volunteer to be downsized?) Failed.
10:55: Anti-nepotism amendment. (Anti-Polgar amendment?) Some pointless nit-picking about whether you could have three siblings but not two. Now they're arguing about whether a "legal relationship" is required rather than simple cohabitation. (Is the USCF encouraging living in sin?) Bill is being a little too tolerant of people who want to keep talking. Postponed for language cleanup.
11:02: Another major Bylaws revision, changing EB terms to three years. Passed. Because, you know, making major changes without much thought has worked so well in the past.
11:05: ... And reconsidered, to add a change in the term limit from eight years to nine. Now we're debating this thing again. Randy Bauer is complaining that he might not be able to run for a third term. What a waste of time. Passed, again.
11:15: Anti-nepotism redux. Passed.
11:20: Motion by Frank Camaratta to have the Bylaws Committee prepare proposal for getting rid of OMOV. At least they didn't try to do it on the floor.
11:30: Proposal to reduce affiliate commissions from $3 to $2. Failed.
11:35: Request for indemnification of Polgar and Alexander for being sued by USCF. Answer: no.
11:58: Motion to create a Blitz rating system. Failed. Instead we passed a motion saying that Blitz can be rated under the Quick rating system, which everyone except David Kuhns thinks we were doing already.
12:14: Motion to abolish 14H. Heated debate. Failed. A small change was adopted, making the insertion of a delay clock the preferred option. Probably a good idea, as it helps to get TDs out of the business of adjudication.
12:40: A lot of time-wasting and posturing. We're now arguing whether P&L reports for individual tournaments should be supplied to the Dels. Referred.
1:02: Presentation of certificates to outgoing EB members. Installation of new EB members.
1:05: Adjournment. Finally. Oh, yeah, we never got around to the Polgar/Truong recall motions. Either because they couldn't find the attorney or because everyone forgot about it.
We cam na here to view your warks,In hopes to be mair wise,But only, lest we gang to hell,It may be nae surprise.
