The Funding of the English Chess Federation vote

[David Pardoe]

As usual, there are elements of value in many comments...
Andrew hits the nail on the head.
The ECF Office is the ECFs window on the outside world...a valuable human point of contact for many enquiries.

As for online chess...there are at least two initiatives which the ECF might consider..
Firstly, to compile a list of main UK related online sites...maybe including some `international` sites.
Contact these sites and ask if you could arrange a mutual exchange service, where the ECF promotes online chess & these online sites, in turn, promote the ECF.
As part of the promotion, ask each site to mention (and send out a message to all UK players), that our local clubs in the UK are very keen to see new players of all standards, from beginner to expert. In addition there are many other chess events and Congresses that might be of interest to these players...(including the new Northern 4NCL chess league..!!) why not give these a try & enter your team.
On the Gameknot site for instance, they give progressive ratings to players in various tournaments. I reckon that certainly any player rated over 1200 could and should consider joining there local chess club, if they have time to spare, of course. A mention of one or two sites, and the ECF Office contact number might be helpful.
This might be a useful PR exercise, boosting chess interest & hopefully helping to generate valuable revenue.

And no, its not just about cutting expenditure...finding additional income streams, starting and driving valuable new initiatives, like e2e4, supporting existing schemes, & ensuring value for money are ongoing tasks....
and they all depend on those vital volunteers. All players should consider what they can give..many tasks just require a willing pair of hands.

[Paul Cooksey]

I have tried to explain what the ECF does (see various posts on this Forum, plus pages 5-7 of my paper on Funding), but clearly not with universal success!

Andrew, I think one of your challenges is that the ECFs SGA/ Operational costs are enormous compared to a normal business. So we look at the accounts and they just "feel wrong".

I take a positive view of the ECF, so was reassured by the comments about the benchmarking of the ratio of paid/ unpaid staff. But I can understand why there is interest in the detailed allocation of cost to activities.

[Mick Norris]

What you need to do is get the message over to players of what the ECF (and the Office) actually does

The danger, of course, is that they might decide they don't want some of what the ECF does, although I think you have to accept that the ECF needs to cut back on expenditure, and therefore decide what is essential and what is not

I have tried to explain what the ECF does (see various posts on this Forum, plus pages 5-7 of my paper on Funding), but clearly not with universal success!

I am constantly looking for ways of cutting expenditure, but this is in the context of substantial cuts already made. Further cuts will tend to have a much more visible impact on what the ECF delivers - see, for example, Council's decision re players' fees for the upcoming European Team Championships (set out in the Minutes of the meeting), which may mean that a much weaker team than usual is sent.

Andrew

You have got the message over to me

I think Stewart's list, or a version of it, would be a useful start with some of the objectors

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Jon you are absolutely correct. To save you time looking it up on the ECF website here are a few of the activities it undertakes.

Thanks for the very comprehensive list. It wasn't clear to me what was done by the paid staff of the ECF and what was done by the unpaid volunteers, but now I know!

[Roger de Coverly]

Thanks for the very comprehensive list. It wasn't clear to me what was done by the paid staff of the ECF and what was done by the unpaid volunteers, but now I know!

Apart from the (obsolete) printed Grading List and some IT support, nothing directly on grading. So the most visible part to the Club player of the ECF's activities is handled by volunteers. Admittedly some of the central grading team receive modest payments for their efforts.

[Andrew Farthing]

I have tried to explain what the ECF does (see various posts on this Forum, plus pages 5-7 of my paper on Funding), but clearly not with universal success!

Andrew, I think one of your challenges is that the ECFs SGA/ Operational costs are enormous compared to a normal business. So we look at the accounts and they just "feel wrong".

I can understand this, and it's one of the features of organisations with many volunteers. In a "normal business" (which I take to mean a "for profit" organisation) the salaries of all managers and staff are included in the overhead and therefore appear in the accounts. In an organisation like the ECF, they don't. Much of what the ECF does is "free", in the sense that it relies on the efforts of individuals who are not paid for their time and, in many instances, don't even recover their out-of-pocket expenses.

To quote just a single example, since it's the one I can cite with certainty, the ECF typically gets 3 hours a day, seven days a week, out of me - it's higher than that at the moment and likely to increase further for the next few months - and it costs the Federation nothing, not even expenses. In the commercial world, senior executives command a significant salary. I'm not saying this for any other reason than to make the point that you could work out how much in salary terms the volunteers are worth to the organisation and calculate the total "cost" if the ECF had to pay. The result would be a much bigger business (in terms of operating expenses), within which a salary bill of £53,000 for the support of a "back office" plus office rent, rates, etc. of less than £8,000 looks very modest.

[Mike Truran]

In terms of the cross-subsidy debate on another thread, it's worth pointing out that most of the items on the list of activities provided by Stewart appear to have little to do with the number of games played, and look more like fixed expenses that would be incurred anyway regardless of the number of games played.

Whether all the activities themselves are worth carrying out is of course a different debate.

[Matthew Turner]

All the activities of the Office are about dealing with the financial crisis brought on by the fact that all the ECF's money is spent on the Office. No Office, no work to be done. Alex H is absolutely right the Office effectively does nothing to promote chess. Worse still the Directors spend a lot of their time working on resolving the financial crisis. The Office actually reduces the time that the volunteers can have on promoting chess.

[Alex Holowczak]

Alex H is absolutely right the Office effectively does nothing to promote chess.

Whoa, that's not what I said at all. What I actually said was:

I don't believe it exists to "promote chess", as such.

[Matthew Turner]

OK, Alex H is absolutely right the main item of ECF expenditure doesn't exist to promote chess. Is that better?

[Mike Truran]

No office = none of the activities on Stewart's list. That may or may not be OK, but writing off everything that the office does in such a cavalier fashion doesn't feel like a good departure point for a sensible debate to me.

[Alex Holowczak]

OK, Alex H is absolutely right the main (i.e. only) item of ECF expenditure doesn't exist to promote chess. Is that better?

The point is, it does the jobs that no one else wants to do for £0. Therefore > £0 has to be spent on it. Those jobs still have to be done, so instead they'd have to be done by volunteers. It's all well and good saying "get rid of the Office", but who do you get to do those jobs? It's not as though English chess is flooded with volunteers as it is.

Given your desire to get rid of the Office, I look forward to mulling over your application to do those tasks for free at a future Board Meeting.

[Andrew Farthing]

All the activities of the Office are about dealing with the financial crisis brought on by the fact that all the ECF's money is spent on the Office. No Office, no work to be done.

Nonsense. I don't understand how anyone can look at the list reproduced by Stewart Reuben in this thread and characterise all of the activities as being "about dealing with the financial crisis brought about by the fact that all of the ECF's money is spent on the office". A glance at the 2011/12 budget shows that there is net expenditure on grading (£7950), the British Championships (£4,000), Women's chess (£1500), International chess (£20,500) Marketing (£400) and Junior chess (£7,000). All of these activities can be characterised as "promoting chess".

Alex H is absolutely right the Office effectively does nothing to promote chess.

I beg to differ. As I tried to explain above, back office support is essential for the volunteers to do their work. This is true even if the office did nothing directly to promote chess, which I also do not accept. For example, the office is responsible for maintaining the ECF website, which to my mind undoubtedly promotes chess in a number of ways.

Worse still the Directors spend a lot of their time working on resolving the financial crisis. The Office actually reduces the time that the volunteers can have on promoting chess.

It's true that funding occupies a significant part of my time. However, I do not accept that this is true of the other directors on the whole. The claim that the office "actually reduces the time that the volunteers can have on promoting chess" is absurd.

[Roger de Coverly]

The point is, it does the jobs that no one else wants to do for £0.

There's still some "nice to haves" rather than "need to haves". To be topical, player of the year awards are not essential to the operation of a national chess federation.

Andrew eliminated a number of the "nice to haves" as part of the expense review. I'd suspect there are a few left. Eliminated "nice to haves" would include printed distributions of Council papers, printed versions of ChessMoves, the junior e-mag etc.

[Matthew Turner]

Andrew Farthing wrote
"Nonsense. I don't understand how anyone can look at the list reproduced by Stewart Reuben in this thread and characterise all of the activities as being "about dealing with the financial crisis brought about by the fact that all of the ECF's money is spent on the office". A glance at the 2011/12 budget shows that there is net expenditure on grading (£7950), the British Championships (£4,000), Women's chess (£1500), International chess (£20,500) Marketing (£400) and Junior chess (£7,000). All of these activities can be characterised as "promoting chess"."

Grading £7950 OK
British Champs £4,000, but much more than that comes from the John Robinson Trust
Women's Chess £1,500 OK
International £20,500, but there is the prospect that this might be very substantially reduced
Marketing £400 OK
Junior £7,000, but all this is from the John Robinson Trust

So, that's about £10,000 + whatever gets spent on International. However, the ECF is getting £15,000 from the BCF PIF, so the net spending of the ECF on promoting chess might end up being a negative amount.