ECF Finance meeting 2018

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
NickFaulks
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by NickFaulks » Mon Apr 30, 2018 11:03 am

Chris Goodall wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 9:12 am
Don't sell the family silver to pay the bills, as Harold Macmillan would have said.
On the other hand, if there are bequests that were clearly intended to be spent on chess, then there is no reason for them not to be spent on chess.
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Brian Towers
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Brian Towers » Mon Apr 30, 2018 11:58 am

benedgell wrote:
Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:06 am
There was discussion as to why the budget for arbiters at the British is higher then the budget for players.
The obvious follow on question is this. Given that most players will be staying in relatively cheap B&Bs or the local Travelodge, whereabouts on the scale from cheap B&B to 5 star hotel (does Hull have 5 star hotels?) is the accommodation level for arbiters?
benedgell wrote:
Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:06 am
At the last Chess Academy weekend there was 20% female students. The aim is to get this to 25%.
Seriously? Here's a simple solution. At the next such event just cull the bottom 25% of male students. Job done.

I know that this sort of target based planning has the same fascination for bureaucrats as colouring-by-numbers books have for 5 year-old's but anybody not convinced at what a bad idea it is should ask themselves why Amber Rudd woke up this morning as an ex-Home Office minister.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

Graham Borrowdale
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Graham Borrowdale » Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:09 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 11:03 am
Chris Goodall wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 9:12 am
Don't sell the family silver to pay the bills, as Harold Macmillan would have said.
On the other hand, if there are bequests that were clearly intended to be spent on chess, then there is no reason for them not to be spent on chess.
Absolutely - I assume that funds from restricted donations do not form part of the reserves, and that such funds will be spent in line with the donors wishes, as long as these are consistent with the ECF's strategy.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:18 pm

Graham Borrowdale wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:09 pm
Absolutely - I assume that funds from restricted donations do not form part of the reserves, and that such funds will be spent in line with the donors wishes, as long as these are consistent with the ECF's strategy.
The £ million that Martin Regan claimed the ECF had in assets is arguably still there, and is as available to the ECF as it ever was. That's not much in the face of Trustees unwilling to spend the capital.

The late John Philpott thought that the Finance Meeting or AGM would benefit from having a schedule which consolidated all the assets even if strictly speaking they weren't the ECF's directly to spend.

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Chris Goodall
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Chris Goodall » Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:32 pm

Brian Towers wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 11:58 am
Seriously? Here's a simple solution. At the next such event just cull the bottom 25% of male students. Job done.
I said that, didn't I :P
Chris Goodall wrote:
Sun Apr 29, 2018 5:49 pm
benedgell wrote:
Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:06 am
At the last Chess Academy weekend there was 20% female students. The aim is to get this to 25%.
The statistician in me would like to know whether that's 25% of total attendees or of total capacity. Reaching 25% of total attendees is easy, just turn away 25% of the boys you currently have.
Brian Towers wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 11:58 am
I know that this sort of target based planning has the same fascination for bureaucrats as colouring-by-numbers books have for 5 year-old's but anybody not convinced at what a bad idea it is should ask themselves why Amber Rudd woke up this morning as an ex-Home Office minister.
Amber Rudd is out of a job because she told Parliament that there wasn't a target when she knew that there was, and she'd bragged to her boss about how she was going to hit it. The problem wasn't the target, but the fact she lied about it.

We all work towards targets, all the time. You wouldn't get up in the morning if you had no targets. You don't necessarily write them down and put numbers on them, but you'd be cross if something stopped you from achieving them. A Home Office that had no targets would be a huge waste of money. If they weren't targeting removals, they'd be targeting something else, like the processing of all claims in a certain amount of time, or the number of decisions subsequently overturned on appeal. When you say "I want no decisions that we make to be overturned on appeal" you've sneakily introduced a target of 0%, even if you haven't expressed it as a number. Organisations that claim to be anti-targets tend to have lots of hidden, unrealistic targets of 0% and 100%.

25% of total attendees is a bad target. 25% of total capacity is a better target.
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Chris Goodall
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Chris Goodall » Mon Apr 30, 2018 2:44 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 11:03 am
Chris Goodall wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 9:12 am
Don't sell the family silver to pay the bills, as Harold Macmillan would have said.
On the other hand, if there are bequests that were clearly intended to be spent on chess, then there is no reason for them not to be spent on chess.
Well yes, but my point (and Graham B's and Macmillan's) was that covering ordinary running costs with one-off capital is bad strategy. Sell the family silver if you want to, but don't sell it to pay the bills.
Donate to Sabrina's fundraiser at https://gofund.me/aeae42c7 to support victims of sexual abuse in the chess world.

Northumberland webmaster, Jesmond CC something-or-other. Views mine. Definitely below the Goodall Line.

John Reyes
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by John Reyes » Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:24 pm

angus has the picture of the voting table :)
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Angus French
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Angus French » Mon Apr 30, 2018 6:47 pm

John Reyes wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:24 pm
angus has the picture of the voting table :)
... provided to me by John:
VotingCardsTable.jpg
I'm not sure when the picture was taken - was it at the start of the meeting, John? I know of at least one late-arriver.

On the proposal to merge Bronze and Silver membership categories, 63 card votes were for and 233 against with 10 abstentions, suggesting at least 306 votes were available at the meeting. The number of votes available according to the Voting Register was, I calculate, 398.
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John Reyes
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by John Reyes » Tue May 01, 2018 4:04 pm

Angus French wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 6:47 pm
John Reyes wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:24 pm
angus has the picture of the voting table :)
... provided to me by John:

VotingCardsTable.jpg

I'm not sure when the picture was taken - was it at the start of the meeting, John? I know of at least one late-arriver.

On the proposal to merge Bronze and Silver membership categories, 63 card votes were for and 233 against with 10 abstentions, suggesting at least 306 votes were available at the meeting. The number of votes available according to the Voting Register was, I calculate, 398.

it was during the start of the meeting
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Alex Holowczak
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Alex Holowczak » Tue May 01, 2018 10:45 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Mon Apr 30, 2018 10:10 am
I would have thought if the Academy aims for the best juniors, it should take the best juniors irrespective of whether the players are male, female, transgender etc.
In my opinion, the raison d'être of the ECF is to run England teams in the Olympiad, or more generally, provide opportunities for English juniors to one day compete in other international events of that nature; just as it is the FA's for football, or the ECB's for cricket. You could argue otherwise (e.g. it is to develop the game at a grassroots level), but in my opinion, that is best done at a local or regional level, as Sussex Junior Chess do, amongst others.

If you accept that premise, given there are Open events and Women's events, it makes sense to me that it should take the best boys and the best girls. There are England women's teams for English women to play in, Women's World Championships for them to qualify for, and so on; and so the ECF should be involved in developing girls in the ECF Academy even if there are boys with a similar rating who miss out, just on the grounds of who can be most competitive internationally.

If the FA, or the ECB, or another similar organisation took your approach, I expect they'd find their government funding was removed as soon as was practicable. Nevertheless, it is an approach which has prevailed in English chess for many years, and you can see the results of that in the competitiveness of our two teams at Olympiads and European Team Championships.

NickFaulks
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by NickFaulks » Tue May 01, 2018 11:04 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Tue May 01, 2018 10:45 pm
In my opinion, the raison d'être of the ECF is to run England teams in the Olympiad
You're entitled to that opinion, but is there any reason to believe that it is shared by the club players who fund the organisation?
If the FA, or the ECB, or another similar organisation took your approach, I expect they'd find their government funding was removed as soon as was practicable.
We certainly don't want to risk losing our government funding.
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Alex Holowczak
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Alex Holowczak » Tue May 01, 2018 11:31 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Tue May 01, 2018 11:04 pm
Alex Holowczak wrote:
Tue May 01, 2018 10:45 pm
In my opinion, the raison d'être of the ECF is to run England teams in the Olympiad
You're entitled to that opinion, but is there any reason to believe that it is shared by the club players who fund the organisation?
I am trying to think locally of people would be massively concerned either way by the question of what the ECF's raison d'être should be. I would have thought most would only be interested in playing chess. I am trying to work out how many of them would even be able to name the last England team in the Olympiad, or how many of them know anything about what goes on in chess beyond the confines of their club and the league in which they play. I don't think this would be the same in cricket or football, where far more people are interested in the goings on of the national teams, and the exploits of the teams in the top division national league.
NickFaulks wrote:
Tue May 01, 2018 11:04 pm
If the FA, or the ECB, or another similar organisation took your approach, I expect they'd find their government funding was removed as soon as was practicable.
We certainly don't want to risk losing our government funding.
I would have thought we harboured aspirations that it might one day return. Even so, those organisations are investing heavily in women's sport in England, in a way that English chess isn't able to. To some extent appears it wouldn't be willing to even if able.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue May 01, 2018 11:55 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote:
Tue May 01, 2018 11:31 pm
Even so, those organisations are investing heavily in women's sport in England, in a way that English chess isn't able to.

It's logical enough that female cricketers and footballers aren't able to challenge their male counterparts in direct competition. It's perhaps rather less obvious at chess. Whilst accepting the statistical result that the lack of female players in the top 100 could be down to the paucity of female players, how come the relative paucity of Norwegians didn't preclude a Norwegian world champion?

The issue as to whether a national chess body should support a national team goes back decades. To the extent that "letters to Chess (sufficient address)" were a precursor of chess forums, the debate goes back perhaps to the 1930s if not earlier.

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Michael Farthing
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Michael Farthing » Wed May 02, 2018 8:12 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Tue May 01, 2018 11:55 pm

"letters to Chess (sufficient address)"
This is factually incorrect, Roger. It did require "Sutton Coldfield".

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: ECF Finance meeting 2018

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Wed May 02, 2018 8:36 am

"the ECF should be involved in developing girls in the ECF Academy even if there are boys with a similar rating who miss out, just on the grounds of who can be most competitive internationally."

I can see that point of view, and it would be an improvement on helping female players who are much weaker than male players. But aiming for specific quotas is not a good idea (as the South African cricket team demonstrates).

I want our teams to do well in Olympiads etc., but chess is an individual game and I'm sure most people only play team chess if they think it will do them good. But if funding is available, I don't expect players representing England to do it free!