Learn the rules first, then follow them.

It's all a question of where we place our energy. 

Lets look at a few examples. What actually took place at the meeting of MCF on Dec 2nd? I'm told nothing much. No accounts or minutes presented and Haslinda got a ticking off for writing to Jimmy without the authority of the main committee. It's simple, all authority comes from the main committee. It's in the Constitution.

So where has all the energy gone to? Preparing a set of accounts that will try to explain away all the discrepancies. And since that probably won't work, now energy has to be spent on trying to stop those that may question it. And to do that even the minutes of previous meetings cannot be released just in case they need to go back to rewrite the story. So where is the energy for development? Why not just learn the rules and then follow them? Isn't that better?

Lets look at selection. It's in the Constitution. So why not let kup chai fight for his place? Why allow Malaysia to be embarrassed by him and his protege's bad performance at the Olympiad when we have much better players? Surely they must know that they can't bullshit all the chess players in Malaysia who is watching the games. Why would MCF cause so much reaction against that false selection when it could have been open and transparent? Why did MCF break their own rules? Now this issue will be brought to the AGM. Diverted energy again. So when and where will time and energy be found to look at development?

Committee members. The States are not happy with no representation in MCF. And MCF is full of deadwood now. Committee members who have contributed nothing and have said nothing at the meetings even when they do attend. Committee members who don't even know that they have all the authority with them and don't even know the Constitution. Learn the rules and then follow them. Deal with it and then we have all the resources and energy to develop. Get rid of the deadwood. If they are business people ask them to leave to do business. An NGO is not for them. MCF is not there for them to make money. MCF is supposed to develop chess and not their pockets. Give the States their place on the main committee.

Take the simple matter of banning without grounds. The correct way is for MCF to write to the organiser for an explanation as to why a National player is banned. It's quite simple; that organiser/trainer needs to be encouraged to raise his standards till he can produce his own strong players instead of trying to recruit them after they have succeeded and then claiming their success, instead of trying to ban strong players developed by others. It's in the Constitution. Your personal opinions are your own. So learn the rules and then follow them.

Those 2 acts of back door selection and unconstitutional bannings have taken away all the energy from our chess players; from chess into learning how to kiss the butts of Jimmy and to a lesser extent Peter. Why bother to improve your chess when at the end of the day it is butt kissing that will carry you into the senior squad? Energy placed on the wrong skills yes?

Breaking the rules takes up too much energy. Then you are forever trying to cover your ass. Do it correctly and we have all we need to succeed. We have the talent and we have the resources. But we need to spend energy developing it instead of protecting kup chai's, lousy trainers and trying creative accounting that all already know won't fly.

So lets hope that the new committee of MCF elected at the AGM will have learnt the rules and will apply them.

Or all our energy will be spent running on the same spot or even running backwards, while the world of chess moves on. Further and further ahead.