First let me say I am honored to have been elected as your President and second, I would like to thank President Rios for his service to chess and TCA. Some of the things he did include getting our Web Site and Facebook pages updated by installing two people with exceptional skills in those are-as. We do however still have numerous things we need to address as an organization. One of these is taking Texas Knights on-line. Why? We currently have $18,000 in our account and we are burn-ing down at about $3,000 annually over the past four years. We could wait and not be fiscally pru-dent, or we can act. At the Southwest Open our membership voted to act. The last paper issue to be mailed out will be prior to Southwest Open next year. Texas Knights will be available on-line, just as it is now. This won’t be popular with some. If you have issues with this, please contact me directly and we can discuss the reasons for this action.
Background checks – this motion passed in both the North and the South but the mechanics of how to do this remain to be decided. This might seem like a simple thing to implement but let me assure you, it is not. Which leads to my next point – two membership meetings a year is too few to fully discuss the organizations business and issues. In order to more actively engage our membership and foster more active participation I am starting a conference call at a to-be-determined frequen-cy. One of the first items to be discussed will be how to implement the background checks. How often will we do these conference calls, as frequently as necessary to do our organizations business, notionally six times a year. Information, including an advance agenda, on when this call will be and how to dial in and participate will be made available in sufficient time for people to prepare. Any-one wanting to participate is invited. The first call will be in early October.
Metrics that we can measure – Membership. Our roles indicate we have three hundred plus or mi-nus members. A state that has 9520 total records in the USCF data base and less than 3% are TCA members. We need to fix this!!! Why – Since we are 501 (c) 3 we can get charitable contributions. One of the first things contributors ask is how many members do you have? Why else should you be a TCA member? Simple, you’re supporting chess. We all vote financially regarding what we’re committed to and believe in. When you buy a membership, we use your money to support chess!! Of course, the number one thing you can do to support chess is to play in and/or run tournaments as you can. I hope to see as many of you as I can at an event soon.
— Tom Crane
