24 March 2015

More FIDE Reports from Tromso

What? More documents from the August 2014 FIDE General Assembly in Tromso? So says a recent news item from FIDE, 2014 Tromso Commissions Reports (March 2015), making these reports almost eight months old! No one has ever accused FIDE of moving too quickly and this reminds us why. According to my post FIDE's 'Chess in Schools' 2014 (CIS; December 2014),

Documents from the CIS commission have been released at three separate occasions: at the announcement for the General Assembly in Tromso (GA, coinciding with the Olympiad), at the minutes of the GA in August, and at the Presidential Board (PB) in November.

This makes four occasions, doesn't it? After looking at the documents and comparing them with my CIS post plus another post from the end of last year, FIDE's 'Principles of Chess Journalism', I determined that the new set of documents have already been released and are now (mostly) 'approved'.

While I was reviewing the March 2015 reports, I looked at a few commissions to which I had never paid much attention. What, for example, is the difference between the 'Social Action Commission' and the 'Social Project Commission'? According to FIDE's Handbook > A. Administrative Subjects > 02. Non-Elected Commissions,

2.10: Social Projects Commission (SPC) shall promote chess as a powerful tool for prevention, including areas such as: drug prevention, disease control and prison chess.

and

2.11: Social Action Commission (SAC) shall promote the use of chess as an aid for persons at risk from dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and other mental illnesses particularly among seniors. Overall this Commission should deal with issues related to brain aging.

Sounds like the subjects could have been handled with a single commission, but what do I know? There is undoubtedly political infighting involved.

Another unclear topic is the 'Central Board of Commission’s [sic] report'. According to the FIDE > Minutes overview, the 'CBC' report appears to be a follow-up of actions presented at the October 2013 Executive Board, making it a commission to overview other commisssions, a higher level meta-commission. FIDE might not be fast, but the group is trying to be transparent.

No comments: