The Real British Champion

[Stewart Reuben]

The Friends of Chess will put in a small sum.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Has there been a general drift towards the FoC supporting professional players in recent years?

[Stewart Reuben]

Mainly the Friends Of Chess supports players looking for norms or titles and events catering to that. Thus Jonathan Hawkins, Sabrena Chevannes, Keith Arkell, Michael Adams, Scots, etc. Coulsdon, e2e4 and so on have received help in the past. The problem is that the annual income is very similar to the amount in the 1970s.
Were it to get charitable status, direct support for GMs would probably have to cease. How do you define 'professional' in chess. But nobody has made a move towards getting the organisation charitable status unfortunately. It is not in my competence. But Adam's post LCC event could receive support to enable there to be norms. That could be spent by the organiser on start money for GMs.

[Simon Brown]

The Friends of Chess will put in a small sum.

......if a majority of the committee members have a similar view to Stewart. There has been resistance in the past to the Friends subsidising things which should be met by the ECF.

[Adam Raoof]

The Friends of Chess will put in a small sum.

......if a majority of the committee members have a similar view to Stewart. There has been resistance in the past to the Friends subsidising things which should be met by the ECF.

Now I am looking at a limited swiss, possibly 2300+ with 5 GMs and tiered entry fees for IMs, FMs, WGMs and WIMs etc.

[Simon Brown]

Adam, The Friends would certainly think about a grant for that - I'm sure you know how to apply. My earlier comment referred to the possibility of the Friends sponsoring the playoff for the British which on rereading the thread wasn't what either you or Stewart were suggesting - apologies.

Good luck!

[Jonathan Bryant]

Now I have a venue and I'm looking for a sponsor. I will keep you posted!

Is it possible to set up one of those kickstarter thingies? I must admit I don’t really know how they work, but my understanding is it gives people an opportunity to support start-up projects and whatnot.


What if we all chucked in a quid? That would raise a tidy sum, wouldn’t it?


(By 'we' I don’t mean Forum members, but amateur chessers. Or at least amateur chessers who are happy to throw in a pound to support this sort of thing).

[Adam Raoof]

Now I have a venue and I'm looking for a sponsor. I will keep you posted!

Is it possible to set up one of those kickstarted thingies? I must admit I don’t really know how they work, but my understanding is it gives people an opportunity to support start-up projects and whatnot.


What if we all chucked in a quid? That would raise a tidy sum, wouldn’t it?


(By 'we' I don’t mean Forum members, but amateur chessers. OR at least amateur chessers who are happy to throw in a pound to support this sort of thing).

This is a great idea. There are a lot of things to think about, but I will do something concrete tomorrow whilst everyone else is thinking of their games at Golders Green!

[Simon Ansell]

I'd definitely be interested in playing in a limited Swiss, not for norm purposes ( those ambitions are long gone ), but just for the competition and especially at a decent venue. It's much more fun to play players of similar strength to yourself and I rarely get that in Opens, this is one of the reasons why the 4N is so popular IMO.

Actually I'd like to see the British adopt this model (small strong Swiss with qualification, like the US used (?) to do fairly recently) but I doubt that will happen anytime soon (finances...).

Kickstarter is indeed a great idea, and I would certainly support that too.

[Brendan O'Gorman]

Jonathan B's suggestion of raising money via a kickstarter project is worth a try. However, I'm not sure much would be obtained from amateur's contributing a quid each. I think it might be worth offering contributors something in return for their contributions. Very much off the top of my head, but something like the following:

a) £20 gets a free electronic tournament report illustrated with photos of the event (I'd be happy to supply the photos)
b) £50 gets (a) plus free entry to any commentary provided
c) £100 gets (a) + (b) plus framed photo taken with winner
d) £500 gets (a) + (b) + (c) plus dinner with winner

I'm sure others could come up with a better list of incentives. The key is that I suspect many donors like to feel a bit special.

[Simon Ansell]

Jonathan B's suggestion of raising money via a kickstarter project is worth a try. However, I'm not sure much would be obtained from amateur's contributing a quid each. I think it might be worth offering contributors something in return for their contributions. Very much off the top of my head, but something like the following:

a) £20 gets a free electronic tournament report illustrated with photos of the event (I'd be happy to supply the photos)
b) £50 gets (a) plus free entry to any commentary provided
c) £100 gets (a) + (b) plus framed photo taken with winner
d) £500 gets (a) + (b) + (c) plus dinner with winner

I'm sure others could come up with a better list of incentives. The key is that I suspect many donors like to feel a bit special.

That's exactly how Kickstarter works: you get something in return for your contribution, of different levels.