Finance Council Meeting

[Carl Hibbard]

Anyone live reporting today on this one?

[John Philpott]

I have set up my computer at the Euston Square Hotel and the Wifi seems to be working.

[John Philpott]

And we are off. A revised British Championships page to replace page 10 from the detailed budget document was distributed at the start of the meeting (see enclosure) and will doubtless be discussed at a later stage. Andrew Leadbetter and myself have been appointed tellers. AGM minutes approved: we are now onto matters arising and Alex McFarlane is making some comments on the President's report.

[Sean Hewitt]

My prediction - this is going to be a long afternoon.

[Carl Hibbard]

My prediction - this is going to be a long afternoon.

Heated as well...

[John Philpott]

After 25 minutes inconclusive discussion we are moving on to the Chief Executive's report.

[Roger de Coverly]

Here's the revised Congress Account

Income
Entry Fees 33144
Sponsorship 13000
John Robinson/PIF 10000
John Robinson – junior coaching 2000
Concessions 1000
Other Income 119
English Championship 2000
Bequest/ Donations 8233
Accomodation 200
69696

Expenditure
Prizes and grants 32086
Appearance Fees (inc hotels) 12600
Controllers costs 7971
Bulletins 1050
Presentation and commentary 2200
Junior Coaching 2000
Entry Form printing and distribution 444
Office Costs 500
Other Income 5352
Venue 3346
67549
Net Expenditure -2147

So actually they are presuming a surplus of around £ 2 thousand.

The notes say there may be VAT recoverable of about £ 700 on the hotel part of player fees.

The Bequest/Donations item isn't broken down, but I would suppose that £4 thousand of that is the carried forward surplus from Canterbury. Does this mean the balance was the contribution from Simpson dinners, simul tours, CJ etc?

[Rob Thompson]

So apparently the physical location of the servers that the ECF uses matters, according to a council member unknown to me.

[Carl Hibbard]

So apparently the physical location of the servers that the ECF uses matters, according to a council member unknown to me.

What????

[Richard Bates]

Here's the revised Congress Account...

I think it's fair to say that the 2011/12 "to date" and 2011/12 "forecast" columns are somewhat incongruous. For several of the items the "to date" is greater than the forecast, the £8,233 is classed as "sponsorship" in the to date column and "bequests/donations" in the forecast column etc. etc. Bit difficult to interpret it....

[Rob Thompson]

So apparently the physical location of the servers that the ECF uses matters, according to a council member unknown to me.

What????

That was pretty much my reaction.

[Alex Holowczak]

We're still on "Chief Executive's Report", Item 5. This is the first item on the Agenda after "Matters Arising".

[Sean Hewitt]

I can comment on this from my own memory. I wasn't present at the non-meeting but...

[Roger de Coverly]

Bit difficult to interpret it....

Perhaps jumping to conclusions, I interpreted the "to date" column as being what the accounts say at the moment and the "Forecast" column as being what they ought to say once they are sorted out and presented for audit. As they relate to a past event, there ought not to be any additional items of income or expenditure apart from the VAT reclaim.

[John Philpott]

Andrew Farthing indicated that the Board had decided in principle to contract with Cvent for the online member enrolment and renewal solution. This provoked a number of specific questions about what would this would provide and what it would cost (the answer to the latter appeared to be £5,800 pa), and a general comment from one representative with which Andrew did not agree, that a detailed specification should have been provided as part of the papers for the meeting.

An update on the CAS legal action is due up next, but there was a reference in the Chief Executive's paper to the failure to advise Council of this. This unsurprisingly also attracted some comment, and a recommendation from the floor that the Board should have a more formal process for ensuring that all appropriate matters are reported to Council. A number of separate and somewhat unstructured discussion threads then seemed to develop about various topics including the publication of Board decisions, the status of the meeting (which was not a properly convened Board meeting) held between certain directors on 14 September 2011 and matters that seemed to have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this item on the agenda.

115 minutes gone.