Liverpool Quadrangular Junior International Tournament

[Carl Hibbard]

Not standing for re-election isn't resigning

True - just a coincidence that the two Directors who supported my complaint in writing didn’t stand for re-election!? This then prevented one of the Directors from drawing up selection proposals to “avoid continual changes to accommodate or eliminate specific players” (Ref: 1/5/2013 Board minutes) – indicating that selection discrimination has been a regular occurrence in the WCU.
The two Investigation Committee members who only confirmed the refund verbally “changed their mind” and remained on the Board.

Before “Not standing for re-election” the Finance Director wrote to us to say: “I am not suggesting you ‘withdraw’ your complaint as that may imply that you accept that it was ill-founded (which, for good reasons in my view, you clearly don’t).”

One month after he and the Executive Director left office, the Management Board (including three employees of the accused) voted to overrule the Investigation Committee.

I hope unlike Nick you don't continue it for the next 40 years

I will continue to speak out to expose lies which attempt to cover up the bullying of my children.

I think we should bring this one to a close as it is rather off topic.

[Coral Bennett]

I wasn’t going to post on this thread again, until it was brought to my attention that Ed Wang – husband of WCU Deputy Executive Director Audrey Yong – has been sending private messages to some of the Forum members involved in this thread, rather than posting publically here where any “defence” he may have as to the WCU’s actions might be aired and easily refuted.

Although the WCU Executive Director is aware of Ed Wang’s messages it was not made clear whether Ed Wang was acting unilaterally again or officially on behalf of the WCU Management Board in his capacity as husband of a Director.

Ed Wang is the father of a competitor who unilaterally introduced a new “rule” on behalf of the WCU, a few days before the 2012 World Youth Championships started – after the WCU had received the money that we had paid for the coaching of our children. His new “rule” (which has never been ratified by the WCU) meant that his wife (then the WCU Publicity Director, who was jointly acting as the head of delegation) informed us that our children were now banned from being coached by the titled coach - as he was their home coach - and that her husband’s new “rule” now “forced” them to move their younger, lower rated daughter to be coached by the titled coach.

Mr and Mrs Wang (who calls herself Audrey Yong) sent us six emails claiming that Tim Kett was her daughter’s home coach, which “forced” them to move their daughter out of his coaching group. Tim Kett was copied in to all six emails in November 2012. At the Junior Committee meeting in December 2012, Tim Kett agreed that his employers’ actions were ‘necessary’. At the Management Board meeting in July 2013 he and his wife saw “no reason” to leave the meeting and voted in support of their employers’ actions.

Days after the vote in favour of his employer, Tim Kett then claimed that he had never coached the Wang’s daughter ! This was reconfirmed at the Appeal Committee meeting by the official Management Board Spokeswoman (his wife).
Yet this was the reason the Wangs gave for the “forced” re-allocation of their daughter to the titled coach.
Who is not telling the truth, and why? As they have contradicted each other, they cannot both be telling the truth.

The WCU President, who was in charge of the Appeal Committee, said that the Management Board’s support for Audrey Yong was based on “information presented at that time” and he would not allow the newly presented information - from the official Management Board Spokeswoman to the Appeal Committee - to change that decision.

Rather than address the obvious miscarriage of justice, the Management Board then banned my husband and me from being members. The WCU Executive Director then said that as we are not members they do not need to investigate any complaints made by us!

The WCU have never commented on why they allowed the father of a competitor / husband of a Director to unilaterally introduce a new one-tournament “rule”. Nor have they explained why Directors were allowed to give contradictory evidence to Committees and yet have both versions accepted as being true – allowing them to stay on the Board.

[Carl Hibbard]

This is one for the WCU is it not?

I have already asked once that we bring it to a close.

[Ed Wang]

Firstly, I would like to apologise to Carl Hibbard for hijacking this thread one more time, but I feel that as Mrs Bennett has named me and others in her allegations, we have a right to reply. For the record, I agree with you Carl that this is a matter for the Welsh Chess Union (WCU) and, in my opinion, it has been handled appropriately and dealt with. The Bennett complaint was fully investigated by the WCU Management Board (MB) and their unanimous decision to reject it was unanimously supported at Appeal. This is over, in everyone’s eyes apart from the Bennetts’, and it has been for some time.

Dear Mrs Bennett,

For the benefit of those who are interested (I actually don’t think there are many), I did not want to do this in public to save you any embarrassment, but you seem quite determined to go down this path.

That is why I confidentially e-mailed 4 people on the EC Forum who were replying to your threads, so that only they heard the other side of the story (your postings have gone unopposed for 3 years). I informed them that your description of taking the WCU to court and being awarded “a full refund plus court costs”, was, in reality, using a small claims website, money claim online, to sue the WCU. Although the WCU felt they could defend the claim, they made a without prejudice payment of £100 (ie. £50 for each of your sons) and £25 administration fee, rather than risking potentially expensive legal fees. In short, there was no court case. Each player paid £207 in total for coaching at Slovenia 2012 (when the amount is now ~£800 for ECF children), and your children received as many coaching slots with the 2 equivalent highest-rated Welsh coaches as any other child in the top coaching group, so there was also no “misappropriation of funds”. In fact, the titled coach to whom you refer (who, by the way, was not the only titled coach amongst the coaching group, and happened to be your home coach at the time) stated in his interview that your children had more of his time than any other player at that tournament.

In this posting, you have returned to the allegations made in your rejected complaint, but you should contemplate that the Appeals Committee (and the WCU MB) not only considered our reply, but also 8 other reports (each from a different family constituting the large majority of the delegation that went out to Slovenia 2012, including 3 from Gwent), as well as interviews with the 4 coaches, before making their decision to reject your complaint outright.

Your latest attempt to undermine this decision is based on saying that you have new evidence, not seen by the Appeals Committee, that Tim Kett was not Alyssa Wang’s coach at the time. In your words:
"Days after the vote in favour of his employer, Tim Kett then claimed that he had never coached the Wang’s daughter! This was reconfirmed at the Appeal Committee meeting by the official Management Board Spokeswoman (his wife)."
All the other allegations have been considered and rejected twice previously, so I present responses to just this point.

Firstly, from me… It was common knowledge in Welsh junior chess circles that Tim Kett was Alyssa’s coach and the unarguable written evidence is, and has been, on the Internet since before Slovenia 2012 – you just had to search for it (http://www.gdst.net/346/media/news/arti ... edia/news/).

Secondly, this is the response from Tim Kett.
“With regards to Mrs Bennett's simplistic claim about 'one of us must be lying', she appears to be (deliberately?) overlooking the fact that these situations change over time. In the (approx) two years prior to Slovenia 2012 it was absolutely true that I could be considered to be Alyssa's 'home' coach. To the best of my memory I had a 2-hour lesson with her roughly once or twice a month over that time. Since Slovenia, Alyssa has taken her chess rather less seriously and had a lot fewer chess lessons. I don't know if she has had any lessons from another coach but she and I have only trained together on a couple of occasions in the past three years.
During a brief discussion I had with Mrs Bennett about a year later at Penarth - in which I attempted to address her concerns in cordial fashion but was quickly rebuffed - I told her that I was no longer Alyssa's regular coach and that it was manifestly untrue to accuse anything I did or said as being directly influenced by being "the Wang's employee". I strongly object to the implied slur on my integrity of that remark and it is factually incorrect to describe someone with an occasional coaching relationship as an employee.”

Thirdly, a statement from Sarah Kett.
“I did NOT say that Tim had NEVER coached Alyssa! What I said to the Appeal panel was that Tim had not coached Alyssa since the team had returned from Slovenia and Mr & Mrs Bennett put their formal complaint to the WCU, nor during the period that the WCU were considering it. ie - the team returned in November 2012 and the Appeal Hearing was in the autumn of 2013. Tim WAS Alyssa's regular coach in the run-up to Slovenia but Tim did not teach Alyssa whilst the Bennett's complaint was being considered.”

Note that the time references made by Sarah Kett at your Appeal, which you conveniently omitted, were remembered by all the members of the Appeal Committee.

As far as I’m aware, every time you have posted on the EC Forum concerning this matter, it has not contained all the facts, with the ones being omitted normally those that impact negatively on your arguments. I highlight one further example, though there are many other inconsistencies. You omitted several facts about the MB meeting when your complaint was rejected; firstly that it was 13 strong, and secondly that the decision was unanimous, making your attempts to criticise the MB for allowing 3 members to vote irrelevant anyway. I’m also not sure how you can reconcile arguing that Tim Kett wasn’t Alyssa’s coach, then say because he was her coach, he’s an employee and therefore can’t vote. I referred to these not-quite-whole truths as misrepresentations at your Appeal. The offer I made to you then (which you didn’t take me up on), still stands. I will answer all your questions if you write a document to the MB describing all your misrepresentations, but they will have to marry with the reports from the delegation.

Please note this is not an attempt to have a discourse with you. I attempted that before Slovenia 2012 and I am not prepared to enter into another 50-odd pages of e-mails with you and your husband. I will not reply to any other posts or communications from you regarding this matter. If, however, any other EC Forum members wish to contact me about anything, I am happy to give them the other side of the story, so they can make their own minds up in an informed manner.

Finally, this is a public request to cease and desist from making any further unfounded and false allegations directed at myself, my family and the WCU including the MB and its members; something you have done on many occasions over the last 3 years.

Kind regards

Ed Wang

[Carl Hibbard]

I decline the option to create a Welsh Chess Forum which is what this really really old news needs

[Coral Bennett]

Ed Wang may have better spent his time explaining his actions rather than presenting a new “defence”.
(At least WCU statements are now internally consistent. When I queried inconsistent statements with the WCU President in November 2013 he did not reply – 26 months later he & others can now apparently “remember” and agree on every word!)

Given Ed has produced such a wonderfully in-depth account of the thoroughness of the complaint process I thought I would air some of the questions that I have posed to the WCU which they haven’t yet answered in relation to his actions.

Why did Ed Wang actually do it?
Simple question, never answered, but all WCU committees agree that it was ‘necessary’.
If so then why can’t they just explain why it was necessary? (We have asked – several times!)
Our original complaint was one of nepotism and abuse of power.
A simple explanation at the time of why it was ‘necessary’ might have been all that was needed to respond to this complaint - provided they could have thought of a reason that was consistent with the facts.
Merely writing that his actions were ‘necessary’ does not constitute an explanation or an adequate complaint resolution.

Why did Ed Wang stop using a temporary Welsh forum (specifically created to discuss coaching arrangements) and then admit (in writing) to switching to “private phone calls and Facebook” when the reallocation started?
This excluded us, but only after our money had been collected.
Why exclude us (and one other family who complained before us) from discussions when reallocating money?

Why did Ed Wang give so little time for public agreement of his proposal?
The proposal was made at night, 12:14am, stating “If anyone has any strong objections to the above proposal, please feel free to discuss this further with us” but by 9:18am another family’s objections were rejected with “our decision stands”.

Why did the Wangs write that the “fairest” allocation would be based on “grading and age category” (June 2012, before a new coach was added to the team) then write that it would not be “fair for the rest of the delegation” for our children’s coach “to teach his own pupils” (November 2012, after the new coach was added)?
Why did they need to change their definition of what was ‘fair’ in order to justify their reallocation of their younger, lower rated daughter to the new coach?

Why has the WCU Management Board never responded to our complaint regarding Ed Wang, only his wife?

We still allege that unilaterally inventing a new, last minute, one-tournament “rule” which targeted specific children (ours & his) was nepotism and abuse of power. It is clear that the WCU have decided otherwise. However:

This is over, in everyone’s eyes apart from the Bennetts’, and it has been for some time.

I really do wish this were true, but the bullying by the WCU continues to this day.
I have given details of just two (of many) examples of WCU bullying in another thread. The ONLY reason for my original comment on this thread was to correct the statement on the WCU website. The national team was not below strength due to just "illness and injury". It was also due to bullying by exclusion.

Bullying is never acceptable, even if you get others to join in.
Whatever “defence” is now claimed for actions in 2012, the fact that bullying continued through 2013, 2014 and 2015 is the more important issue - the ONLY reason for my original comment on this thread.

[Carl Hibbard]

This is one for the WCU is it not?

I have already asked once that we bring it to a close.

I think we are done on this one.