Opportunity For ICA Involvement; IL Open & IL Class Staffing

 

The Illinois Chess Association is a statewide non-profit helping to promote chess education and the enjoyment of chess competition. We're an all-volunteer organization, and although financially solid, it takes a lot of human capital for the organization to fulfill its mission.

Effective February 1, 2017, a new Executive Board was installed, and effective this week, three new at-large board members joined the oversight of the organization: Jeff Yasumoto, Eva Harrison and Paul Carey. David Rockwell has agreed to become Treasurer through the 2017-2018 calendar years.

These four are already keeping the President on his toes with insightful email exchanges!

One additional board seat remains available and that opportunity is designated for someone residing outside Cook County or its six collar counties. The ICA is hoping to fill that position shortly but nominees are welcome!

In order to fulfill its potential, the ICA needs folks with all sorts of skills -- and a bit of time to contribute, perhaps on a monthly basis or perhaps at peak times during the year. Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we'll find something to your liking.

Ability to work cooperatively with others is a must -- everything else is secondary!

Current committees include Youth Committee, Bid Committee, Warren Junior Committee, Awards Committee, Membership Committee, Website Committee and Veteran's Committee. As the ICA Board undertakes a strategic planning initiative, additional committees -- and/or a realignment of the above -- are envisioned. Again, your potential participation is only an email away.

As many may know, the ICA is recovering from a very difficult period where board minutes were not kept and/or published for over half a year, where an annual meeting was not held and where elections were neglected for many months beyond what the bylaws demand.

Furthermore, there is dispute among board members of that period as to what was formally decided and what was perhaps a gentleman's agreement. Efforts are underway to overcome these omissions and we hope that our service to community is fully realized as we gain control over critical operational functions.

I've received several inquiries regarding the 2017 Illinois Open and the 2017 Illinois Class. We have contracted for the hotel site spaces for those events and it is contemplated that these events will be run more-or-less as they were in the past. However, all roles for these events are open for discussion and if you have any interest in serving in some capacity with these events please do not hesitate to contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The ICA endeavors to promote more organizer and directing talent in the community and it's important that these opportunities be promoted fairly and openly.

Thanks for your patience as we try to come up to speed on the status of our event portfolio and I look forward to sharing the results of our board's strategic planning analysis for further feedback from our community.

The Call for Bids for the 2018 K-8 is posted elsewhere on the site (upstate preferred in 2018) with an April 28 deadline for submission.

It is vital that we put into place the checks and balances so that we do not have a repeat of matters occurring in the last half of 2016.