English Chess Forum

Sean Hewitt wrote:Adam,

The first question one has to ask, what is the purpose of such a grand prix?

If it is to encourage players to play more events, then it paramopunt that it is winnable by a large number of people right until the end - otherwise it will not be an incentive to enter extra events as people will quickly realise they will not win the prize. The difficulty with that approach though is that it is the events held at the end of the grand prix that will benefit from the extra entries generated.

It's difficult to answer the question properly without details but if the grand prix looked like the grand prix of recent years then my answer would be that we would be prepared to pay £0. If it was something that solved the dilemma mentioned about then although I can't envisage such a solution right now we might pay say 2 x average entry fee. It would depend on the scheme though, and how many extra entries we thought it might generate.

The obvious solution that strikes me is why not just run your own Golders Green grand prix? We've done something similar for e2e4 though given that we have been turning players away from our last 4 events it may be a moot issue for us anyway.

Alex Holowczak wrote:Adam, Sean set up the MCCU Grand Prix, I believe, which still exists to this day. That uses a cumulative scoring system of adding up the points scored by each player in each Grand Prix event. Assuming that this is how Sean originally set it up, I assume this might be his preferred way of doing it.

Sean Hewitt wrote:That's true, but the MCCU GP had a particular aim. To ascertain the MCCU Champion and to award the MCCU British Championship Qualifying place and bursary.

A different GP, with a different aim, might well require a different solution.

Mick Norris wrote:My impression is that congress entry numbers are recovering

Paul Cooksey wrote:I hope people continue to respond to Adam's question, but frankly it has vexed me.

The ECF has an income in the region of c.£250 000. Four Directors spend money (Home, International, Junior, Marketing). I assume the Home director has some higher priorities (British, Grading) But probably not many, or at least not many I have heard him mention. How is it his budget does not cover such a relatively small expenditure if it is one of his priorities?

Adam Raoof wrote: English Seniors
Organised on behalf of the ECF by e2e4 at Gatwick

Adam Raoof wrote: Grading and Rating
Honorarium for the administrator and for the International Rating Officer

The last two are the biggest item of expenditure followed by women's chess. Now you can see that £2000 is starting to look like quite a sizeable chunk!.

Paul Cooksey wrote: I don't get it, it feels like I pay £30 for someone to collect my £30. Why even bother?

Q. How does the ECF spend its income at the moment?

A. As you can imagine, this is quite complicated. Without going into the very fine detail, this will give a reasonable idea:

International – Net budgeted spend £20,500 for next year. £18,500 of this relates to the cost of sending a team to the European Championship, i.e. things like flights, accommodation, and players’ fees.

Junior – Net spend £7,000 for next year. This covers a portion of the costs of sending players to World and European Junior Championships and running over junior events and coaching sessions. This is just a contribution towards a much larger total, which is paid by the parents of the players and funders such as the John Robinson Trust.

Women’s Chess - Net spend £1,500 next year. This is clearly not a large amount, so its impact is very modest, but the ECF uses the budget to contribute towards women’s events and to support the participation of players in, say, the Women’s World Championship. (Last year, we dipped into the contingency fund as well for this purpose.)

Marketing – £400 to fund the various ECF awards.

Grading – Net spend £7,950 next year.

VAT – Just under £19,000 in the last financial year, but this will rise significantly in future due to the increase in the VAT rate from 17.5% to 20% as well as the switch from Government grant funding (VAT-exempt) to membership subscriptions and game fee (VAT payable).

General Expenditure - £31,000. This includes items such as depreciation, printing, postage, phones, website, expenses (e.g. for the President’s work), office rent, rates and insurance, audit fees and bank charges.

Salaried staff - £54,000 (3 x full-time). The obvious follow-up question is how do the staff spend their time, i.e. how should these costs be allocated? Based on the Management Services review in April-June 2010, it breaks down broadly as follows:

(1) “Information & Support” = 1 FTE (full-time equivalent, i.e. person). This breaks down into work on the website (40%), support for the directors, i.e. all of the major categories above, plus the CEO, Home Chess and Marketing (30%), general enquiries (20%) and sundry tasks not elsewhere classified, e.g. database maintenance (10%).

(2) “General Administration” = 0.7 FTE. This breaks down into financial accounting (50%), support for Council and Board meetings (20%) and sundry admin tasks, e.g. CRB checks, office management, liaison with Trusts, etc. (30%).

(3) “Funding Support” = 1.25 FTE. This breaks down into Game Fee administration (50%), membership administration and queries (30%), membership benefits, i.e. Yearbook, Chess Moves, diary (20%). The Certificate of Merit also falls under this, but volumes are immaterial at present.

NB. Home Chess is self-funding, i.e. entry fees for the County Championships, etc. cover the cost of these events.

Roger de Coverly wrote:A large chunk of the ECF's expenditure goes on the office in Battle. It has done for years.

Roger de Coverly wrote:Andrew Farthing wrote an analysis recently at http://englishchess.org.uk/farthing/

NB. Home Chess is self-funding, i.e. entry fees for the County Championships, etc. cover the cost of these events.

Sean Hewitt wrote:

Adam Raoof wrote: English Seniors
Organised on behalf of the ECF by e2e4 at Gatwick

To be clear, we are running this at ZERO cost to the ECF, who as a result are not contributing a penny to the event.

Adam Raoof wrote: Grading and Rating
Honorarium for the administrator and for the International Rating Officer

The last two are the biggest item of expenditure followed by women's chess. Now you can see that £2000 is starting to look like quite a sizeable chunk!.

The ECF doesn't fund the honorarium to the International Rating Officer any more Adam. That cost is borne solely by FIDE rated events such as 4NCL and e2e4 by way of a premium paid by such events on top of FIDE's charges.