Draft of Minutes of the last part of the Congress

[David Levy]

Dear Mr Koyfman

May I comment on some of your points raised in relation to my previous posting.

I referred to the way in Mr van Beek asked the meeting to accept the nomination of his rival even though this nomination had been made very late. I agree with you that the late nomination was legal, I merely wished to point out that Mr van Beek was being very fair by proposing to the meeting that the nomination be accepted. He could, for example have proposed to the meeting that it not be accepted, and if the majority of conytries present had agreed with that suggestion then there would have been no need for any election. But Mr van Beek made absolutely no attempt to prevent the candidacy.

Regarding your reference to Senegal not having "fulfilled their financial obligations". You interpret this purely in terms of the annual membership fee for each federation but as Mr van Beek pointed out, Senegal had paid many, many times more than that in its support of Draughts events in recent years. When considering the emaning of the expression "fulfilled their financial obligations" one must surely take into account all monies paid.

You ask why I left the meeting after the election and whether I was interested only in the election. In fact the election was not the reason why I was present. I came to Zwartsluis only to collaborate with Mr Walker in order to present the by-laws of the Checkers section, which I helped to create. Normally someone else would have come from England but for different reasons the usual people were not available on that day. If it had not been for the presentation of these by-laws and the other related proposals by England and the USA regarding the Checkers section, I would not have been in Zwartsluis at all. So my interest in attending the meeting was not the election. It just happens that the election took place while I was there. I had always intended to return to England on the evening of the 17th.

You say some very negative things about Mr van beek. You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but clearly your view is in the minority, otherwise Mr van Beek would not have got more votes than his rival in the election. If the majority of countries were against Mr van Beek then there would now be a new President.

I am really an observer in all this. I am not an active participant. I wish only the best for the game and for the FMJD. I do not wish anyone any harm. But I believe strongly in democracy and if the best is truly that the FMJD has a new President then it must come as a result of an election by the majority, not as a result of a revolution by a minority.

Kind Regards,

David Levy

[Nicolas Guibert]

Dear Ygal,

As Mr Levy, I am here only as an observer. I don't support either Mr van Beek nor Mr Shovkoplyas. However, I hope my point of view is of some help.

Then, may I ask you a few things ?

1) Who is Mr Shovkoplyas ? What is he doing ? Has he been in charge of any club, federation in the past ? As I already said, I had never heard of this person before last week. I know many people in the draughts world, so you will understand that I am a bit surprized that I don't know him. So please give us some background.

2) If Mr Shovkoplyas wants to be the new president and wants to appear as a stable and respectable person, then he has to do whatever he can to show this. If I wanted myself to become the president of the World federation, I would definitely publish a program long before the General Assembly. Actually, I would probably have used this forum to present it and asked people to react. I don't think it is too late, and I would very much appreciate if Mr Shovkoplyas could provide us with this program.

3) This comes as a logical following of 2) : if Mr Shovkoplyas says that he will most likely be helped by the Ukranian government (and Sergeï Bubka) for the benefit of the FMJD, then he should easily be able to give some proof of that. Especially if the government has already helped in the past, I expect documents to be published. For doing that, it is easy to scan documents and publish them on the net (here or somewhere else whatever). If required, someone neutral could even certify that he saw the originals of these documents.

Of course being president of the FMJD is an important task that requires seriousness. Replying to my 3 points would definitely show that Mr Shovkoplyas and his team have what it takes for this responsibility.

You will admit that considering the importance of the president election, my 3 points are not too much to ask.

I am pretty sure this is also your opinion and look forward to reading you about this.

Kind regards,

Nicolas.

PS : my experience is that in case of conflicts, the statutes are not very helpful. Indeed, most of the time, each party has his own interpretation of them and can use it in its favor. That is a shame, but what can we do about that ? Voting for deciding what the statutes mean ? Voting for deciding who has the right to vote ? Hmmm, that's the snake who bites his own tail.

[A.Presman]

Nicolas, I publish the program of Mr. Shovkoplias as it was presented during the General Assembly. I put it into separated topic as this one is about the published draft of Minutes.

[David Levy]

M Guibert makes a good point. A candidate whose previous work within the FMJD is not well known needs to provide some proof to support his claims about Ukrainian government money. Such proof can only be seen to exist when it is in the form of significant amounts of money sent to the FMJD bank account, otherwise it is nothing more than promises that the candidate will try to get such money and a statement that he believes it to be possible.

I do understand that the Ukrainian government supports Draughts with money in the Ukraine, but it is a far, far cry from supporting its own players and tournaments to providing money for the FMJD to use in other countries. Almost every government in the world gives some money to support sports in their own country, but which countries give significant money to support such sports in other countries?

I suggest the following test to prove the validity of the claims about Ukrainian government money. First the Ukraine government sends the FMJD a donation every year for 4 years of a significant amount of money. This would prove the claims of the recent candidate for election. Then a candidate from the Ukraine comes to the next Preidential election in the FMJD saying: "This is what my government has done up to now for the FMJD." With proof like this such a candidate will surely be believed.

David Levy

[Guest]

Pieter can you tell me the "illegal use" you refere to in "2. Illigal usage of the FMJD reglement is not acceptable, if even the chairman does not commit himself to these reglements that it is obvious
that he can not stay inplace. " that you posted?

It is illigal to use countries like Wales for having a voting Also the reglement says that contributions should be paid before the assembly
3rd It was unclear if payment was done and also unclear the correct
amount. So in fact there are several issues that are conflicting with the reglement

[Bat-Erdene]

Dear All,

Some preceding events showed FMJD is in a crisis, really.

1. The credit side of 2002 FMJD financial report is consisting only annual membership fee, entry-fees tournament and auspices-fees tournament. It shows the FMJD management did nothing for raising the finance of the federation. In my opinion the FMJD management has hidden accounts for financing some expenses. In last GA they (President and the Treasurer) answered that they are receiving some money from the Dutch Government, directly.
2. We have so many General Assemblies in last years. It shows there is a crisis in our organization. According to the Article 4.1. Ad 2.9 of the Statutes in the By-Law "... It is held during World Championships Seniors or other FMJD competitions, once every two years, or on the initiative of the Executive Board, or at the request of more than half of the member federations...", we must have one GA for 2 years, generally.
3. In many GAs, in which I participated, we always have one problem. It is the Presidency of Mr. van Beek. Even in Moscow GA the majority of representatives do not believe for the Presidency in the result of voting.
4. The GAs always have a problem related to voting rights, due to member federations' financial obligation. For example, in last GA we had a problem for Senegal federation. Of course, Senegal could not have a voting right. Discussion about this problem is unnecessary. For Mongolia case, we always paid all financial duties and of course did many things (expended much money) for the development for draughts sports, organizing continental championships (2 times) without any support from the FMJD, participating all tournaments and GAs. If we have discussion on this topic, there are different situations for various countries. It would be a beginning of big "quarrel". We must play the game by the rule.

Please, continue by your opinions.

Best regards,

Chimeddorj BAT-ERDENE

PS: I hope that new FMJD management can carry out from the crisis situation!!!Wish them a lot of success!

[Jacques PERMAL]

Now we must think about future of International Draughts governing body . As I said before, we could prepare a serious election calendar.
It is a mandatory process. Each federation could vote after a campaign where candidates would dicuss about programs.
It is necessary to legitimate a new governing team.
Without election, players won't recognize any self-declared leaders !!!!!

[Guest]

Dear All,

Some preceding events showed FMJD is in a crisis, really.

1. The credit side of 2002 FMJD financial report is consisting only annual membership fee, entry-fees tournament and auspices-fees tournament. It shows the FMJD management did nothing for raising the finance of the federation. In my opinion the FMJD management has hidden accounts for financing some expenses. In last GA they (President and the Treasurer) answered that they are receiving some money from the Dutch Government, directly.

Elsewhere I asked (with no answer yet):

Mister Presman, You said:
"Managing board of the FMJD is pure social (unpaid) work. No one (including President) receive for their work any money."

But all those worldwide trips of mister Van Beek (I just read his report 201-2003): Who paid that?

[A.Presman]

Mister Presman, You said:
"Managing board of the FMJD is pure social (unpaid) work. No one (including President) receive for their work any money."
But all those worldwide trips of mister Van Beek (I just read his report 201-2003): Who paid that?

According to the Bye-Laws of the FMJD :
Article XL Expenses
The various functions of the Board Members are non-paid. Yet, their costs may be reimbursed as far as incurred by their work for the FMJD, such as travels and duties assigned to them.

So FMJD MAY reimburse expenses for trips. But there is no doubt that a part of trips are paid by other means. According Mr. van Beek part of his trips is being paid by his University.

Once again - it is not the salary (payment for work) but compensation of expenses.
I don't like same as Mr. Bat-Erdene that a part of incomes and expenses isn't been showed to federations. That creates presumptions.
So let me correct my words a little and instead of
"Managing board of the FMJD is pure social (unpaid) work. No one (including President) receive for their work any money."
say carefully:
"Managing board of the FMJD is ACCORDING TO THE STATUTES social (unpaid) work. No one (including President) SHOULD NOT receive for their work any money. I never received any money for my work"