Subject: Chess Activities in Israel [was Fwd: [Israel.pm] A severe offtopic]

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 19:50:22 +0300

I'm forwarding this message from the Perl-IL mailing list. It seems quite on 
topic on Hackers-IL.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish
----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: [Israel.pm] A severe offtopic
Date: Wednesday 14 July 2004 19:07
From: "Roman M. Parparov" <[email-masked]>
To: Perl in Israel <[email-masked]>

My dear fellow Mongers,

This is a severe offtopic, but hopefully you would understand it
and maybe even hopefully help me (to be precise, us) out with some
advice.

I am speaking now as the press officer of the Israeli Chess Federation,
an organization which represents the national sport of huge success but
of more than modest budget. And the pro-olympic elements of the
Israeli sportive authorities, relying on the fact chess is not an
olympic sport, are trying to inflict additional governmental subsidial
cuts to our Federation, so that our situation is becoming, to put it
bluntly, miserable.

To bring numbers, our budget has reduced from 2.5M NIS some five years
ago to 1.5M NIS, and that despite we raised membership rates and club
taxes. The local authorities also struggling in supporting their
municipal chess clubs and schools.

In spite of those severe problems, Israeli Chess continues to impress
the world, and reached its peak during last year when our national team
took the Silver medal in the European Championship and the Beer-Sheva
chess Club took very honorable fifth place in the European Club Cup
(something like Football Champions League), and our junior players
brought home successfull performances in continental and world events.

To these woes, the political one added recently: the World Championship
held in Libya recently was locked from the Israeli participants, all
of whom are real medal contenders. The government didn't provide any
significant diplomatic support in order to avoid this embarrassing
situation.

Therefore we decided to look for sponsors and patrons outside the
governmental structure, and first of all, being representatives of the
sport that has been called "the gymnastics of mind", we try to appeal
to the prospering technological companies in Israel.

So if your managers or yourselves are willing to sponsor any activities
of the Israel Chess Federation, we would be extremely grateful and would
try to reward the sponsors in whatever means we are capable of, first of
all, by holding various chess events explicitly for the sponsor.
Advertising contracts are, also, of course, welcome.

The examples of sponsorable activities would be:
* National teams (men, women, juniors, seniors)
* International tournaments in Israel
* Sponsorships for chess clubs
* Sponsorships for the Israeli League and the Israeli National Championship
* Patronizing of the young prodigies.
* General support for the Federation.

The Chairman of the Federation, International Master Innon Boim
and me would be glad to meet with anyone who may express the interest
in sponsorship

Thank you for your attention, and sorry again for the offtopic.
[To make everything clear, neither Mr. Boim, nor me are receiving
 any financial benefits from our Federation activities]

The site of the Israel Chess Federation is at http://www.chess.org.il

		Roman Parparov,
		Israel Chess Federation Press-Attachee
		and Federation Board member.
--
Roman M. Parparov - NASA EOSDIS project node at TAU technical manager.
Email: [email-masked]		   http://www.nasa.proj.ac.il/
Phone/Fax: +972-(0)3-6405205 (work),         +972-(0)51-34-18-34 (home)
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Knuth is not God! It took him two days to build the Roman Empire.

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:33:53 +0300

> I'm forwarding this message from the Perl-IL mailing list. It seems quite on 

I'm not trying to belittle chess, which is indeed an interesting and
challenging game, but why do some Chess people want to pass it off as a...
sport?

I mean, the country gives sports money not only so that they would "represent"
us, but also for the benefits on society, e.g., that a large number of kids
get to experience sports, team play, but most importantly: improve their
physical fitness and therefore health (as the Latin saying says, "mens sana
in corpore sano", a healthy mind in a healthy body). You may not agree with
this ideal (heck, I am not a sports fan either), but this still doesn't make
an intellectual game like Chess a sport, more than a game of luck like
Backgammon (shesh-besh) or Monopoly, a sport...

To get a bit on-topic, I wonder if "hacking" could be declared a sport.
It has all the characteristics of sport, except promoting health (hmm, you
might say it probably deteriorates your health). It promotes team-play,
competition, dedication, and successes in this area (free-software hacking,
I mean, not "cracking") represents our country.
Perhaps then Hamakor could have the budget in the millions, instead of the
hundred times smaller budget it has now. :)

So while I support the chess organization's attempts to get more funding,
I am not sure their comparison of themselves to sports is valid.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |    Thursday, Jul 15 2004, 26 Tammuz 5764
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |this bull before.

---

From: Jason Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 11:36:27 -0700 (PDT)

I know what you mean.
Here in the States they recognize Poker as a Sport, Right along with Golf (Yikes).

Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]> wrote:
I'm forwarding this message from the Perl-IL mailing list. It seems quite on 
topic on Hackers-IL.

Regards,

      Shlomi Fish
----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

My dear fellow Mongers,

            Roman Parparov,

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From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 09:54:30 +0300

> challenging game, but why do some Chess people want to pass it off as a...

And take a look at this link (linked on slashdot today):

	http://slate.msn.com/id/2103903/

It's an article about... Is math a sport?

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Sunday, Jul 18 2004, 29 Tammuz 5764
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |"Did you sleep well?" "No, I made a
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |couple of mistakes."