FAQ's on Thematics.

I was asked many questions by parents and players this morning concerning the Thematics. So let me try to answer them here as well for the benefit of others.

Please realise that FGM is a private entity with our own small group of like minded sponsors. I made the decision to head in that direction partly because I had found it very hard to get effective cohesion when I was in a State Affiliate with many differing and sometimes even polar opposite opinions there.

Also note that in the past FGM events were met with a lot of resistance. For instance when we brought in the GM to train our Juniors going to Asean, we were told by MCF that there would be approximately 40 players going. And in the end only 13 went. I was informed then that there was a member of Council who told parents to go to another event. On top of that FGM was double charged for normal services rendered. And so our costings were way out and we ended up in financial deficit.

Our past Thematic events were also met with threats to arbiters and bloggers for them not to support our events.

So I hope you realise that there is a lot more than meets the eye to organising these events. There are also venues to secure, arbiters to get and chess sets and clocks to obtain.

And then there are the new sponsors that needs to be convinced and the old ones reassured again. I secured one old sponsor a couple of months ago and am now waiting for the other sponsor to come back to me. I am informed that this will be on Wed/Thurs this coming week.

But whatever happens the event will go on, even if I end up funding the Thematics again, so I need to also plan for contingencies. So in short, those are the dates I can secure for now. I hope for your understanding and support.

Yes, the Thematics are important. This much we know. Even the Filipino trainer I am working with now finds it hard to understand why we have so much resistance to something so important to our progress. But that is our chess culture to date isn't it? Even our sponsors were publicly attacked on the blogs.

Hopefully with the new Council in MCF we will see some changes with the beginnings of a more winning culture and I am counting on that to happen even as I organise again.

So please be patient and the announcement and prospectus will come out later this week k.

All my best and this time Malaysia truly boleh.