From chessdiscussion today under his own name. My comment begin and end
with *:
n a message dated 5/9/2008 7:59:35 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
Chessoffice (Bill Goichberg) writes:
Paul, I am not aware of a $30,000 offer. I do recall hearing you and/or
Susan say at a board meeting that you could sponsor the Grand Prix, but
never about a specific follow up. Please forward privately an email that
I was copied on regarding this $30,000 offer. I have emails I sent you
and Susan regarding the $1000 offer (which I did hear) and wonder why
there was no response to these.
Bill Goichberg
This was Paul's response:
Bill,
With all due respect to everything you have done for the USCF, this
demonstrated precisely the points Susan and I have tried to make for a
long time. No one person can handle everything and gigantic mistakes
will happen if things are not changed. We need to work as a team, not
only this board, but with many others who are copied on this
correspondence.
To give you an example of SPICE, we have a group of 7 people helping
SPICE. Two (Susan and I) are full time. The other 5 are professors /
employees of TTU volunteering their time to help SPICE because they
believe in this institute and what SPICE aims to accomplish. When people
work together instead of against each other, magic happens. Even with
the unprecedented success of SPICE, we still listen to the advice of the
people who have long been involved with college chess such as Dr. Redman
and others. In fact, many of the advices we received have been
implemented to make the institute bigger and better.
We also had 7 members (now 6) on this USCF board. Why can’t we
accomplish the same thing? The big difference at SPICE is each of the
seven of us handles different areas. One is a grant writing / writing
expert, one is a technical expert, one is a marketing / PR expert, and
so on. Each of us does our things and handles different area of needs.
However, we consult each other to make sure that everything is done
efficiently and properly. We all know what tasks / projects the others
are embarking on. There is no ego, personal agenda, politics, or
backstabbing.
This is what we wanted to create with this board and this is why we
endorsed Randy B, Mikhail K., and Jim B. Each has his own area of
expertise. This is also why after you insisting on having an op****tunity
to continue to be President, we voted unanimously to give you this
chance. We felt that peace and harmony is much more im****tant for the
USCF.
Unfortunately, you continue the pattern of micro-managing and making
decisions on your own without consulting the other 6 board members. This
started in September 2007. In the mean time, Bill Hall is swamped with
things which are clearly not a priority and things which must be done to
ensure the good health of this federation have been neglected for months.
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*Five long paragraphs of meaningless posturing that does not start to
answer Bill G's question.*
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When we were in Crossville for the board meeting, Bill H. mentioned that
he believes that the previous sponsor of the Grand Prix will stop the
sponsor****p. However, he thinks he may have another one lined up. During
this meeting, Susan and I told Bill H. that the SPF would be interested
in helping. He said thanks and promised to get us all the details
immediately. We even agreed that even if the potential sponsor he was
working with comes through, there is a possibility of a co-sponsor****p
to increase the prizes. We discussed both the regular and junior grand
prix. We said that our budget would be up to $30,000 cash but it can be
increased if needed. Three months went by and no information was given
to us. We did not even receive a phone call or email. We still never did.
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*Was this ever put in writing or in the BINFO? Apparently not. What
will Mr. Hall's recollection of the alleged conversation be? From the
description here, there does not appear to have been a concrete offer by
Trolgar/SPF to fund any event at the level of $30,000.00*
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In the following board meeting by phone, the idea of the College Chess
tournament was discussed. We immediately offered to sponsor $1,000 and
possibly more.
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*Can someone who has listened to the board meeting clarify, accurately,
what was said. Was an binding offer ever made in writing to fund $1,000?*
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Let me go back to the history of the problem. Joel Channing contacted
the SPF last year about a co-promotional agreement with the USCF. The
contract was signed and the USCF supposed to place the SPF logo on the
USCF website. It was done several weeks later. When the new website was
launched, the SPF logo was purposely removed. We immediately informed
Bill Hall. Joel Channing also discussed this issue with Bill H. a number
of times.
Nothing was done. We were given the run around that it will be done
soon. Months and months went by and then Bill H. finally gave the excuse
(during the board meeting by phone) that because Susan is on the board,
it may be a conflict of interest of have the SPF logo up. This was the
first reason given since September 2007. This board discussed and agreed
that it is not a problem. Bill H. was told to take care of it immediately.
Again, a lot of time went by and nothing happened. A deadline was then
given to Bill H. and the USCF by the SPF. Every single board member was
copied on every correspondence. She said that unless the USCF is doing
its job to honor a signed commitment by a certain date, the SPF will
withdraw all sponsor****ps. The deadline was passed and nothing happened.
You are more than welcome to check the correspondences. I am absolutely
certain that all board members were copied as well as confidential binfo.
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*Since you, Mr. Truong, have now spoken of the substance of these
pur****tedly confidential writings, you have waived any confidentiality.
Produce the correspondence for all the USCF member****p to see.*
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The SPF has it own board members. The SPF has awarded hundreds of
thousands of dollars in scholar****ps thanks to UTD, Texas Tech, Texas
A&M Kingsville, etc. Earlier this year, the SPF awarded 9 state of the
art laptops at the SPNO event in Brownsville, TX earlier this year along
with a total of more than $100,000 in scholar****ps, cash prizes, and
chess prizes, etc. This is unprecedented for scholastic chess and it was
a major event.
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*There you go again. The SPF, as of its last IRS form 990EZ filing
had three board members; Susan Polgar, Paul Truong and Frank Nero.
IIRC, Frank Nero was on the SPF board, unknown to the USCF, while he was
ED of the USCF. An undisclosed, potential conflict of interest.
As was discussed during the election campaign when Susie was
questioned as to why all these "awards" are not reflected on the SPF
990, she claims that there are really not awards but in kind donations
facilitated by SPF. Now, recall if you will, that the SPF web page
listed donors who gave in excess of $10,000 to SPF. The total of such
donors would far exceed the re****ted income of SPF to the IRS. When
this was pointed out, the wording on the SPF web page was changed.
Perhaps only the IRS can determine the SPF income reality.*
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Even though it was an official qualifying event for the Susan Polgar
National Invitational for Girls, there was not even a word about it by
the USCF anywhere. Other USCF events were listed on the main page of the
USCF website for months while the SPNI national event was not even
listed until a week or so ago in some back pages where it is hard to
find. This causes plenty of problems because this would be the first
year that the SPNI is held at Texas Tech University and many players /
coaches still think that it will be held in Dallas at the US Open since
the USCF does not talk about this.
How should any sponsor perceive this? Was it negligence, incompetence,
or was it purposely omitted for political reasons? If the USCF chooses
not to or fails to promote or even cover its own major events, what does
it say about this organization? Can you imagine the NBA, PGA, MLB or
other major s****t not promoting or covering their own events?
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*Can we have do***entation of what Trolgar and/SPF communicated to the
USCF that was not given the publicity that Trolgar believes it warranted?*
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Susan gave Dr. Tim Redman some specific examples yesterday. I am giving
many more examples today. If this is how the USCF treats its valuable
partners and sponsors, what can you expect? If this sort of things takes
place in a normal company, heads would roll immediately. This is one of
the big reasons why the USCF is losing money, members, sponsors, and
partners year after year. The right hand has no clue of what the left
hand is doing and no one is there to make sure that the quality is
maintained.
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*Susie gave no such thing to Redman. Rather, it appears that Mr.
Truong, writing under his known nom de plume, said nothing of verifiable
substance.*
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The 1st SPICE Cup (category 12) had more than 50 sponsors / donors last
year. Regional network TVs, radios, and print media were there to cover
the event. The Mayor, Commissioner, Provost, Senior Vice Provost,
representatives from the Chancellor and President' office and many other
departments were there to sup****t the tournament. Susan did this in less
than one month and for a city which chess was little known or sup****ted
before that. She found more sponsors for this year's SPICE Cup (category
15 which is over 2600 FIDE average) and to eventually create a similar
format as the prestigious annual Wijk aan Zee Corus tournament.
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*Shall we discuss the withdrawal of Dr. Eric Moskow as the event's main
sponsor and his reasons for doing so? What was the prize list for that
event?*
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How much longer will USCF insiders continue to publicly trash her name
and reputation instead of reaching out and asking her to help,
especially when she kept on offering over and over again? She is just
one example. When will the USCF reach out and seek help from so many
others who are willing, ready, and able to help instead of relying on
the same old group of people who created the massive problems in the
first place?
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*If Ms. Polgar or Mr. Truong can not stand the heat of daylight, perhaps
it is time to crawl back under the shade of the rock.*
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Positive and professional changes are needed and it must be done now
before this organization disappear into the oblivion.
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*Agreed. The first such change is to recall and remove Mr. Paul
Pufferfish, aka Paul Truong, aka Paul Derazza(sp?) from the board.
Lastly, has anyone learned why Mr. Truong told the EB that he could not
enter the State of California?*
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PT
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