Friday, June 29, 2007

ACF Offers Cheap Carrot

At long last, the very late issue no. 405 of the ACF newsletter was delivered to subscribers' inboxes this afternoon. If you were wondering if these guys were still breathing, there's your proof. If you were wondering about the Australian Championships, what's happening, when, where, etc - there's not much to learn except that we see a desperately meagre carrot on offer.

As most readers will be aware, the ACF has not yet received a firm and formal bid for the Australian Championships 2007-2008. There is no date or organiser yet appounted for the event. Some negotiations had taken place with interested parties in Sydney but they have to date not been fruitful. There have also been other indications of some interest in the event but none of these has yet led to a formal bid.

I wonder where these other interests have come from. In another state perhaps? Down south maybe? If so, and it miraculously becomes a concrete and ultimately successful bid, Sydneysiders can be understadably miffed after all that excitement about a Championships right smack in their CBD or even by the glorious Bondi Beach. Whatever, wherever - in these desperate times, I suppose we have no choice but just to be happy that something will happen.

The ACF goes on...

The ACF wishes to ensure that the Championships are held – after all the need to have a body to ythat end was the reason why the ACF was formed in 1922.

Oh great, they remembered! So why the Berlin Wall treatment to Peter Parr. It may not have been a formal bid, but it sure was the best thing at the time and all these ACF crew had to do was get off their asses then, pick up the phone, talk and negotiate. Something could have began to happen then. Instead, what we have today, 29 June, just a short 6 months away from the Championships (that's if it ever happens!), is a Hail Mary.

Consequently the ACF Council,on19 June, passed the following motion:

That a final call for bids for the 2007/2008 Australian Championship is placed in the up coming newsletter with a closing date of 20th July and that we offer to cover any losses in the event up to an amount of $2000 with any profits from the event going totally to the organisers.

The purpose of the motion is not to discourage, but rather to encourage, any of those who mayhave been interested in bidding to pursue that couse quickly.

Yes, yes, quickly, quickly! So desperate are these guys that the normally thorough newsletter editor, former lawyer and ACF veep Denis Jessop, even forgot to switch on the spelling checker. With the current decline in tournament participation, I doubt if 2 grand is enough to "encourage" even the most eager organisers. But what the ACF is probably now hoping for is just a no-frills Championships sans sponsors, big prizes, big names or fancy venue. In other words, just a long glorified weekender!

On that note, have a happy weekend.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Watch as Gary Wastell kills the national chess scene.

Anonymous said...

There was no "Berlin Wall" treatment to Peter Parr, because there was no actual NSW bid to give such a treatment to.

Just an idea that Peter was happy to take credit for ... if someone else did it. No-one (including Parr) did. "Negotiation" (although attempted) was quite fruitless - there was never anything concrete to negotiate. Had there actually been a formal bid (even a bad one) then things might have been quite different.

As for comments about spellcheckers, perhaps if you could spell "appointed" correctly (or "asses"[sic] with the Australian spelling) then these might have more credibility ;)

The Closet Grandmaster said...

My friend, it wasn't I who spelt "appointed" incorrectly.

- TCG

Anonymous said...

My deepest apologies AR - strangely enough when I first read that it looked to me like the "appounted"[sic] was in your text rather than the quote, although as it currently appears it is very clearly in a quote.

Anonymous said...

Gary Wastell wont kill the national chess scene,cripple it maybe,but not kill it.

Anonymous said...

When the winning proposal is announced just play SNAP with who voted at the ACF level for these concessions.