One day in the life....Part 1

After that fateful date in Perak chess, March 15th 2009, where some members showed their disapproval and spoke heatedly about past abuses, a new team was elected (comprising both old and new members). The previous President did not contest and was later nominated as Treasurer by the new President. And new committee members were mandated by dissatisfied members to bring about change. I'll fast forward a little into the story here. (And so as not to be cheong hei, I'll abbreviate the stories.)

ACT 1, SCENE 1

After some ado, committees were formed - A change from the old structure where the President held all power and authority. A change for the better, I thought. My committee was Education and Training. I was also the webmaster. The first major struggle was when it came to deciding the selection committee. This is not part of the official structure and so was open for debate. To me this was an important matter as I have personally seen abuses during selection. For eg. my son, Mark, was barred from a selection a few years back even though he was the U12 champion at MSSPK. After being invited by one official to attend, he was thrown out by another official when he arrived. And this was not an isolated event. So I argued for strict criteria for the selection committee to prevent future abuses for I believed I represented the voices for change and I sit in the committee on their behalf. The first criteria was that officials in that committee should be ones that are present in most Perak tournaments and know the players well. The second was that those officials that have been implicated in past transgressions of this nature are not in that committee. This was important as the players will represent the State and no hint of impropriety should raise questions of the selection committee's decisions. Of course, all hell broke loose. Since that meant only Zaki Mahmud (then the new PT for Perak) and I qualified under those conditions... guess what happened?

More in Part 2.