Report of the Annual Meeting of CJA August 1998

Kona Surf resort Hawaii August 1998

A diminished contingent of journalists made it to Hawaii for the annual meeting. Members expressed general satisfaction with The Chess Journalist and voted to pay Editor M. L. Rantala a $100 per issue stipend contingent on timeliness.

Presiding in the absence of the other two officers, the Secretary-Treasurer noted that the bank account is now over $3,000, but membership has stagnated. The possibility of using state federation websites to get the word out about CJA was raised. The officers were instructed to explore the possibility of doing selected mailings to recruit members. (Note, however, that Peter Tamburro's recent mailing to state federations generated only one response.)

The highlight was the announcement of the annual awards. Hough pointed out that participation was down, in part because of the failure to announce the contest in Chess Life, which will be rectified next year. Potential judges should express interest as soon as possible so that we can have a bigger pool in 1999. The judges are named (save for categories which generated only one entry) with the complete awards list and the CJA thanked the judges for their service.

-- Submitted by Randy Hough Secretary-Treasurer