A professional MCF.

Without doubt a professional MCF will change our fortunes in a big way. But how can this be done? That is the million dollar question. So let me take a stab at finding some answers.

MCF is an NGO. An NGO cannot exist for profit. That is illegal. So how will this work?

As I mentioned earlier, a solution is to pay those committee members who are working. A way would be to salary them and to pay for cetain expenses. And that fund can come in part from big organisers.

But big organisers can come with strings. Look at what Peter is doing. He is actually telling MCF what he wants national policies and procedures to be. Strange but true. So how can this happen? And how can that type of abuse be placed in check?

OK, we now come to the nuts and bolts. The key to the whole thing lies with the Secretary position. This is how it works. So read carefully.

The power of the Secretary lies in these areas. First he controls the calling of meetings. He also controls the Agenda and minutes. This most of us know. But his real power lies in making out of sitting decisions.

Now what is that? This is how it works. If there is no call for regular meetings with a proper agenda, then there are no minuted decisions. No policies and no proper guidelines.

Note: The Secretary cannot go against minuted guidelines and policies. He can only move in the grey areas.

So without it explicitly stated he has executive powers outside of meetings. Are you starting to see? No national policies on who participants can be, no policies on enrolment quailifications and prodedures etc etc. The more grey areas the more powerful the Secretary. Why? Because when the committee is not sitting and have not set out clear criteria, he is BOSS.

This leave the Secretary a lot of room to make deals. He can educate you on how to play the loopholes. He can delay meetings, influence agendas etc.

So the very first step to a professional MCF is to state clearly what the Secretary's role is. Also to have proper guidelines and policies. Once those are in place, we will have an ordered and professional MCF. So have those meetings to clear up the confusion by removing the grey areas and 2012 will see Malaysian Chess move another step forward.