An Open Letter to USA Badminton Members – April 5, 2004:

I am Montri Chew, a USA Badminton (USAB) volunteer, sponsor, and lifetime member. I am also a shareholder and the Chief Financial Officer of K & D Graphics and Orange County Badminton Club. I have volunteered for several non-profit organizations and served as a Director and Chief Financial Officer for the City of Orange (California) Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Bureau. Even though I am not a badminton enthusiast, I wanted to support my father Don Chew's dream and passion for badminton. I was definitely not enthusiastic about my father's decision to spend a significant part of our family's wealth to build the Orange County Badminton Club and to sponsor USAB programs and activities. However, my sister Bebe, my brother Gus, and I wanted to help make our father's dream of making badminton popular again in the United States come true because we believe in him.

This is a short update to the memorandum that my family sent to you a little over a year ago in response to false charges that was being circulated by a few disgruntled members against USAB and my family's involvement with USAB. The personal attacks had caused my family, especially my mother Kim Chew, to ask my father to not seek reelection as USAB President and to withdraw the extensive sponsorship of USAB programs and activities by our companies, K & D Graphics and Orange County Badminton Club.

Much has happened since that memorandum was sent out in February 2003. The disgruntled members continued their attacks against USAB with every opportunity available including several United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Bylaws Article IX complaints. All they have managed to do mostly is to keep USAB unpaid volunteers and staff busy dealing with their complaints instead of working on positive things for USAB. Since no organization is anywhere near perfect, a few of the USOC Article IX complaints does have some merit because some rules and procedures in use for many years do not stand up to strict interpretation of the USOC rules that USAB must abide by since it is a National Governing Body (NGB) member.

It is important to understand that USOC Article IX complaints do not indicate that USAB is in trouble with the USOC since the USOC’s role is to act as mediator in disputes between athletes and NGBs. Any unresolved USOC Article IX disputes are decided by binding arbitrations. USOC Article IX complaints are not uncommon since any US amateur athlete can file one by writing a letter to the USOC CEO. For example, I was told that there have been over 30 USOC Article IX arbitrations in bobsledding over the past few years.

I believe that USAB seeks to avoid problem whenever possible since the organization is short of volunteers and resource and everyone involved have better things to do than to get into disputes. I can report that USAB’s unpaid volunteers and staff has been working hard to fix the organization’s rules and procedures since USAB is being held to a much higher standard than it has ever been in its history. Our organization is meeting these challenges, although some improvements do take time to implement.

In any case, all the USAB problems paled in comparison to the life-threatening health crisis that struck my sister Bebe in July 2003, when she started having non-stop brain seizures (Status Epilepticus) from an unknown cause. She had to be put into a drug-induced coma for almost two months at the Neurocritical Care Unit of UCLA Medical Center. Bebe ended up hospitalized for 98 days and at one point nearly died from Stevens-Johnson Syndrome caused by allergic reaction to the antiseizure drug Dilantin.

Fortunately, Bebe is now slowly recovering her health, but the process is painfully slow, like recovery from a major stroke. My parents are very much involved in her recovery process. My sister's health crisis devastated my family such that we're only now beginning to get back to some resemblance of normality in our lives. My father Don, my mother Kim, my brother Gus, and I talked about quitting badminton altogether during the really bad days of Bebe's illness. However, we felt that we had to honor our commitment to the good people of USAB, so we went on with hosting and sponsoring the 2003US Open as well as continued our volunteer work when it would have been so easy to walk away from USAB and all of the petty problems.

My family has now decided to stay involved with badminton because of the strong support that my father received from many of you since our memorandum was sent out in February 2003. We received lots of letters and emails thanking my dad for all he has done to promote badminton and urged him to continue the good fight. Many people spoke out in support of my father at such events as the 2003 US Nationals banquet and the2004 US Senior Internationals banquet. My father also received strong support from the International Badminton Federation Council members and staff. We really appreciated your great responses.

While my father will not seek re-election as President, my family has encouraged him to continue serving on the USAB Board of Directors. Don has decided to run again for the Director at Large position.

To avoid any more USAB problem with the training program at OCBC, my family completely withdrew the sponsorship for the National Training Center program so the USAB Board had to close down the National Training Center program on September 30, 2003. However, my family has continued to privately support most of the top and promising badminton athletes who were in the National Training Center program. OCBC started a new private Orange County Badminton Club Training Program at the beginning of this year and K & D Graphics is now fully or partially sponsoring 35 athletes to be in this intensive training program with 5 coaches. More information about the training program and the OCBC Team can be found at the OCBC website.

After all that my family has gone through with Bebe's health crisis, all the personal attacks by the disgruntled USAB members no longer bother us much. My family will very likely continue to sponsor top and promising badminton athletes and keep OCBC open for years to come. OCBC will also resume hosting and bidding for USAB sanctioned tournaments.

In response to the personal attacks, my father has filed an Internet libel lawsuit that has already gone to the California Supreme Court on appeal in the last year just to try to discover the identity of the defendants. The case is moving forward since my father and my family believe in justice even though it has already cost him over $130,000 in legal fees.

In closing, I want to remind everyone that USAB is an association of people who are interested in playing and promoting the sport of badminton in the United States, not some powerful government organization. It has a paid-staff of two people and a current budget that is comparable to that of a small town’s chamber of commerce. Funding from the USOC have steadily declined over the past several years because the amount of funding is based on how popular a sport is in the United States and the chance of US athletes winning medals in that sport at the next Olympic games. Much of the budgeted USOC funds are also restricted to specific use like funding the top athletes' effort to qualify for the next Olympic or Pan Am Games.

From my experience with non-profit organizations, I believe the USAB Board is doing the best it can to fulfill its mission with the available funding and resource. It is unreasonable for any USAB member to expect USAB to do a lot for a particular region or locality other than to coordinate volunteers and facilitate communication efforts. The saying, "the more you put into it, the more you get out of it", very much applies to you, the USAB members. USAB need you to organize locally and get more local sponsors interested in badminton just like the soccer moms and dads have done.

Thank you for your time and interest.


Sincerely,

Montri Chew
1432 N. Main Street
Orange, CA 92867
714-639-8900
email: Montri@kdgpp.com