In the course of the year since our last AGM, I represented Ireland (at zero cost to the ICU) in the FIDE meetings in Krakow (Executive Board the "off year" Congress - October 2011) and Istanbul (Congress, including ECU & FIDE General Assemblies September 2012). Following those events, I circulated notes of the relevant items raised to our Executive. I also replied to a variety of miscellaneous queries about various FIDE regulations.
Specific contributions included:
- Mediating (directly with my old friend Ignatius Leong, FIDE General Secretary) on the contentious proposal "33" concerning rating fees and the proposal was quietly dropped.
- Correcting the wrong contact details (both in the Secretariat and on the FIDE web site). This may sound trivial, but it was important. Health reasons had prompted me to resign as Delegate in the summer of 2010 and, in the year that followed, details were never updated (the ICU failing to respond to the annual FIDE Questionnaire) and so the Secretary's address had remained as Nicky Bensons home address. Several important communications (sent by surface mail) disappeared because of the lack of update (Nicky had moved home). Small details can have major consequences.
- I was regrettably unable to assist with any title applications during the year, because there were none as such. However, there were three "automatic" titles to celebrate: FM for David Fitzsimons and excellent performances in the Women's Olympiad qualified Monika Gedvilaite for the WFM title and Karina Kruk for the WCM title; automatic titles do not go through the same procedure as the GM, IM, WGM, WIM, IA, FA and IO titles.
Most important of all was the outcome(s) of me wearing three hats: FIDE & ECU Delegate, Chairman of MfL (Chess Moves for Life) and Executive Secretary of FIDE's Chess in Schools Commission.
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I invented a new kind of cooperation scheme between CiS and federations the Partnership
Agreement, normally involving a CiS10/100, meaning:
- The ICU Partners FIDE to develop the Student Membership scheme
- MfL will mainly be responsible for handling this (in conjunction with Chess for All and other interested parties)
- We receive 5,000 of funding from FIDE
- We receive 10 excellent Demo boards (retail 100 each) and 100 boards and sets for distribution to 10 schools selected for a pilot project
- The ICU will promote FIDE Student Membership on its web site, in the ICJ and at all ICU tournaments (especially junior ones)
- The ICU will benefit from the income generated by the PSMs (Premium Student Members) who pay for the privilege of accessing all the goodies on their web site psm.fide.com (you can get an idea of whats on offer by browsing the "look inside" version: psm.demo.fide.com)
- We will all benefit from the increase in numbers (attractive to sponsors) thanks to the SMs (free) who receive fewer benefits than the paying members
- Parents and teachers will benefit from the support (and training) they receive at pta.fide.com when it goes live at the end of the year
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Watch for developments that will be announced on the various web sites
- icu.ie
- cis.fide.com
- sm.fide.com
- and the MfL site that should go live during the weekend of the AGM