Feedback form AGA Members
“Thanks so much for taking on so much work so fast in the AGA. I really appreciate it.”—from a Massachusetts 7 dan player
“Hello Allan, Congratulations on your second term as President. And let me praise Zhiyuan Zhang. He is clearly the right guy for the job. He is quite persistent with tournament directors.”—from an Illinois chapter club president
“Hello Mr. Zhang, We have just received the Korean Go Certificate through the mail. Thank you for your note of encouragement and for your hard work in coordinating the tournament.” —from a California player
“Thank you for your work on the tournament!” —from a North Carolina 6 kyu player
“Thank you very much for your selfless work as TD, and best regards!” —from a Texas 2 dan player
“Thank you so much for running the tournament. I had a great time, and I hope there's another one. I'd definitely play whether or not there were any prizes.” —from a Texas 6 kyu player
“This tournament was awesome and well-organized.” —from a California 2 dan player
“I think SPOT1 is very well-organized.” —from a Canadian strong player
My Fellow AGA Friends,
I learned go in elementary school over 20 years ago. My AGA experience began in 2002 when I played in a tri-state competition representing state of Michigan. Since then, I have visited over 20 chapter clubs in 11 states. Shortly after the 2009 U.S. Congress, I helped organize a tour with seven events for Mr. Lei Xue 4P in seven local chapters in the DC-Baltimore area.
In 2010, I was appointed the AGA
National Tournament Coordinator. My team (consisting of Oren Laskin, Dennis
Wheeler, Yixian Zhou) and I worked together and organized nearly one dozen
tournaments and qualifiers including, but not limited to SPOT1, NAIM online
qualifiers, Fujitsu, and YKNOT. I was also fortunate to recruit and train
several online TD’s. Lastly, I currently serve as a TD in the NOVA club for
several tournaments, and I lecture Go in a Chinese language school, as well as
at my church. To increase
the publicity of go, I have written over 20 articles and stories for E-Journal
and local newspaper.
With my managerial skills in the field of financial service/planning, and previous experience with a Global Fortune 500 company, I wish to work with chapter clubs, the AGA Board, and the President to overcome these challenges. Below is a list of my goals, and I believe together we can accomplish the top three in the next 8 to 15 months. I ask for your support in allowing me to serve you as a board director. I will be your ‘Change for Good’ inside the AGA.
Zhiyuan ‘Edward’ Zhang 6d (AGA# 14906)
Top Three Goals
o Reinforce
chapter services.
Provide more timely support and training to chapters in advertisement, attracting local players, running tournaments, pairing software, lending equipments, outreaching
to schools, easier access to chapter webpage, provide receipts for reimburse or
tax purposes.
o Attract more online Go players to local chapter clubs and AGA events. Establish better
strategies and plans, and raise
AGA publicity on online go servers and newspaper.
o Lessen the costs of U.S. Congress and AGA tournaments by bringing in more corporate
sponsorships and/or grants.
Other Six Priorities
o Attract more visitors by
timely updating AGA websites and make it a centralized source of information. The increased traffic would appeal more to
advertisers.
o Create
an incentive system to reward chapters in helping AGA recruit, renew membership,
outreach, host tournaments, and etc.
o Encourage strong players to
give lectures and participate in tours at local chapters.
o Reinforce business development team to establish partnership with companies. (A lot companies have big advertisement budget, even a small percentage means thousands of dollars, though, AGA needs to demonstrate the value added.)
o Setup a team to
specifically increase media coverage, e.g., news, video, online, Facebook. (See two sample video clips on this page)
o Commit to better communication with overseas go organizations and foundations, and improve collaboration with them.