| The Michigan Chess Association is able to exist
and to provide services such as Michigan Chess because we have members
willing to devote enormous amounts of their time and effort.
When David Moody was editor, he took a week's vacation from his job six
times a year to work full time on producing each issue. Before him,
Van Vandenburg basically worked full time all the time. Our current
editor, Paul Grams, doesn't have the luxury of having that much time available.
The December issue was late because the help that he had counted on wasn't
there when he needed it, and he refused to compromise on the quality. |
| Paul has stepped up to this challenge by reaching
into his own pocket and is making a significant monetary contribution
for the next one to two years to pay for professional assistance in producing
the magazine. The goal is to maintain the quality and once again
deliver the magazine on time. The MCA Board commends Paul for his
dedication and commitment. |
| If you haven't visited the MCA website, you've been
missing out on Michigan Chess Online and many other features. An
extensive Tournament Calendar, games from many events, directories
of city and scholastic clubs, links to other chess sites, and more are
available at the click of a button. Our webmaster, Nick Pope, has
built an impressive site. The USCF was impressed enough with
this and the other sites that he has built that they offered Nick the job
of USCF webmaster. Nick is still here, and we are the winners. |
| Nick's commitment to a quality website doesn't end
there. He is going to acquire his own webserver and is now in the
process of getting the lines set up. Once it's up and running on
the new server, the website should be able to offer more features, and
be easier to maintain. There is so much information now that it's
become almost overwhelming to maintain. Clubs and organizers that
sponsor many events can greatly reduce the burden on Nick by taking on
the responsibility of creating and maintaining the pages with the information
about your events. Contact Nick at webmaster@michess.org
to find out how. |
| If you've been involved in any way with scholastic
chess over the last several years, then your program has benefitted from
the extraordinary amount of time and effort that Mike Skidmore has devoted
to MCA Scholastics. As chair of the Scholastic Committee, he has
done it all - found sites, arranged for the trophies, printed flyers, taken
entries, recruited TDs, made pairings, filled out wallcharts, arranged
for concessions, and even gotten rounds started on time. |
| Mike has retired from the Scholastic Committee so
that he can devote more time to coaching, and MCA has discovered that we
don't have nearly enough people to replace him. We are in urgent
need of volunteers to serve on the Scholastic Committee so that scholastic
chess can contimue to grow. |
| We need you to join with us so that we can make
MCA a stronger, more vital organization. It doesn't have to be an
extraordinary commitment, such as these three have made. Print
up and post a few flyers about a tournament, and you could make it more
successful. Donate a $10 upset prize, and you could encourage a new
player. Spend an hour teaching a kid how to play chess, and
you've given a gift that lasts a lifetime. |
|
Victor D. Asbury, Jr.
|
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