Revised Papers

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
Andrew Zigmond
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Fri Apr 27, 2018 2:59 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 12:58 pm
Michael Farthing wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 12:04 pm
A further paper relating to the income and expenditure on the ECF Junior Academy has appeared on the ECF website. My view is that it should certainly be looked at by Council reps before the meeting.
I'm sure many of us have wished we knew more about what the Academy does and how it spends its money. These documents are informative and very welcome.
And another point for the current board in the `2008 vs now` debate. We've certainly come a long way from the Chess For Schools debacle.
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Paul Cooksey
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by Paul Cooksey » Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:30 pm

Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 2:59 pm
And another point for the current board in the `2008 vs now` debate. We've certainly come a long way from the Chess For Schools debacle.
I don't think anyone is actually having that debate. Although if they were 2008 is one of the least fair years to pick for a comparison of how England juniors are performing. David Howell.

The idea that either the everything the ECF does is good, or everything the ECF does is bad, is silly. As silly as the notion competent people always do the right thing and incompetent ones always do the wrong thing.

Good to see the academy establishing itself, and that it is leveraging the Chess Trust. I would be interested to see more from the Chess Trust on its activities.

Andrew Zigmond
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Fri Apr 27, 2018 8:01 pm

Paul Cooksey wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:30 pm
Andrew Zigmond wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 2:59 pm
And another point for the current board in the `2008 vs now` debate. We've certainly come a long way from the Chess For Schools debacle.
I don't think anyone is actually having that debate. Although if they were 2008 is one of the least fair years to pick for a comparison of how England juniors are performing. David Howell.

The idea that either the everything the ECF does is good, or everything the ECF does is bad, is silly. As silly as the notion competent people always do the right thing and incompetent ones always do the wrong thing.

Good to see the academy establishing itself, and that it is leveraging the Chess Trust. I would be interested to see more from the Chess Trust on its activities.
I wasn't talking about junior chess specifically. It was Roger who noted on the Finance Council thread that we were approaching the tenth anniversary of the Regan resignations (in fact the meeting will be on the anniversary itself). Given that was something of a watershed moment (although it wasn't the stall, more the first failed attempt to rev the engine). I stand by my view that despite two further false starts we've made incredible progress in the time since.

I've never said that everything the current ECF does is all good (or what previous boards did was all bad). I could make a list of things I'd like to see done or done differently. If I had the time I'd put myself forward to help sort these out myself. I can't, so I accept I'm going to have to bite my tongue on occasion except when I see something obviously wrong.
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Angus French
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by Angus French » Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:33 am

Some concerns and questions about the accounts and budget (the list below updates the list provided in the consultation message to Bronze members):

1. At the AGM last October the Finance Director promised to provide a breakdown of the 2015/16 actuals, as would normally have been provided with the 2017/18 budget details spreadsheet (but hadn’t been due to problems producing the accounts). The figures are yet to be provided.

2. The agenda proposes a junior Gold Fee for 2018/19 of £27.50 but the budget details document (revised, .pdf version) gives the amount as £17. Which figure is correct? Also, are the following correct (from the budget details document): indicated junior Gold membership fees for 2019/20 and 2020/21 of £18; indicated junior Platinum membership fees for 2019/20 and 2020/21 of £5?

3. Membership Directorate: Membership income is £177,180 to 20 April. Previously, to 23 February, it was £170,306. The year-end forecast (to 31 August) is £211,079. So: there’s been an increase of a little less than £7K in a little less than two months but a further increase of almost £34K is expected in the next four-and-a-bit months. Is that realistic?

4. Membership Directorate: The Finance Director’s report says: “The budget has been based on a growth [in membership numbers] of 5% per annum until 2020/21” The growth estimates are split equally across the categories (see section 10 of the budget details document). For example, the forecast numbers of adult Bronze members are 4,170 (2017/18), 4,379 (2018/19) and 4,598 (2019/20). Current membership stats are available here. What is the basis for the future year estimates and why does the Board believe growth will continue beyond the current year?

5. International Directorate: Budgeted net expenditure is now at £43K (though in last year’s budget a figure for 2018/19 of £33.5K was indicated). Forecast expenditure (no actual figure is yet available) in 2015/16 was £40,495 and actual expenditure in 2016/17 was £49,784. Forecast expenditure for 2017/18 is £42,080. Before the current International Director took up his position, net expenditure on international chess had for many years ranged from just under £20K to just over £25K (see here for a chart). In his 2015 election address the International Director said “There is a danger that the shortfall [in funding] will have to be met by increasing Members fees and I very much want to avoid that”. But this, in effect, is what has happened. Net expenditure is paid for out of ECF funds which come from membership and player fees. These could be lower if international expenditure was less.

6. International Directorate: It cost £58, 879 in 2016/17 to take two five-player teams to the 2016 Olympiad in Baku. This seems rather a lot. A breakdown of expenditure would be useful.

7. International Directorate: Why was £15,457 spent in 2016/17 on the European Team Championship when no event took place in that period and there was no budget for it? The revised budget details document has a note which says “European Team Oct 2017 - It was not possible to gain sponsorship money for this event. It was decided to contract for some of the expenses in 2016/17 to utilise funds from that year's budget”. Does this mean that some of the expenditure for the 2017 European Team Championship, which took place within the 2017/18 accounting period, has been booked to 2016/17? If yes, is that a legitimate accounting treatment? If total expenditure for the 2017 European Team Championship was £42,599 (£27,142 + £15,457) and if all of this was paid for out of ECF funds (provided by members and players), can a breakdown of the expenditure be provided? For each team can the following costs be provided: travel, accommodation, food, coaching, appearance fees and other?

8. International Directorate: Forecast net expenditure for 2017/18 is a little under £42K. This is more than £8K over budget (and more than the £5K of contingency for the accounts as a whole). No explanation is provided for the overspend. Who authorised it and can Council be confident there won’t be future overspends?

9. International Directorate: There was expenditure of £3,108 (revised down from £7,204 in the original budget details document) on last month’s (March 2018) European Individuals in Georgia in which four English players participated (Gawain Jones and Luke McShane both did well, qualifying for the FIDE World Cup). The expenditure was not budgeted for and quite possibly, given the date of the event, the 2017/18 budget for the whole of international chess had already been spent.

10. International Directorate: The budget for net expenditure in 2018/19 is £43K, up £9.5K from the amount indicated when last year’s budget was presented. Olympiad expenditure is now anticipated to be £36K. How is this amount made up? (At Olympiads accommodation and food is provided by the hosts while at the European Teams it isn’t.)

11. International Directorate: Previously, the International Director has declined to provide a breakdown of the expenditure on team events though most of it comes from ECF funds and members are surely entitled to know how the money they’ve provided is spent. (At the 2015 Finance Council meeting, the then International Director provided figures for budgeted expenditure on the 2016 Olympiad, giving a split of £26K for the Open team and £10K for the women’s team with both teams having the support of a coach, implying significant spend on appearance fees for the Open team players.)

12. Junior Directorate: The revised budget details document has broken down income and expenditure to 20 April. Previously only total income and total expenditure were stated. Total income to 20 April is now given as £37,506 - previously income to 23 February was given as £55,000. Why is income less now than it was two months ago? Similarly, total expenditure to 20 April is given as £21,106 whereas to 23 February it was given as £65,000. How is it possible for expenditure to have *reduced* by almost £44K in two months?

13. Junior Directorate: The revised budget details document has a breakdown (on page 20) of income and expenditure for the ECF Junior Academy. For 2017/18 the following are forecast: fee income at £29,230; expenses at £65,388; funding, including £6,000 from the ECF, at £26,500; and, shortfall at £9,658. Presumably the shortfall would be paid out of ECF funds and the ECF’s real contribution to the Academy would be £15, 658 (£6,000 + £9,658). The Academy income figure given in the breakdown (£29,230) is different to that given in section 4 for the Academy (£38,730). Forecast figures are given for ‘Surplus Rollover’ (£10,000 in 2017/18; £5,000 in 2018/19; and £5,000 in 2019/20) – what is meant by this?

14. Oughtn’t there to be a review of expenditure decisions taken for the 2016/17 and 2017/18 accounting periods? There’s a lack of commentary on this in the Finance Director’s report. There’s no report from the Finance Committee - surely the job of the Finance Committee is to scrutinise the ECF’s finances and shouldn’t part of the committee’s responsibility be to report back to Council?

15. A year ago the decision was made to relocate the ECF Office and National Chess Library. What progress has been made with the Library?

NickFaulks
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by NickFaulks » Sat Apr 28, 2018 10:25 am

Angus French wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:33 am
Some concerns and questions about the accounts and budget (the list below updates the list provided in the consultation message to Bronze members):
I hope you get the opportunity to make these points to Council this afternoon. I'm sure you will get support from a number of directions.
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Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:17 pm

Angus makes good points, but I found 12 particularly interesting...

"Why is income less now than it was two months ago?"

"How is it possible for expenditure to have *reduced* by almost £44K in two months?"

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:36 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:17 pm

"How is it possible for expenditure to have *reduced* by almost £44K in two months?"
Some accounting trick. Accruals normally does the job as seen in "paying" for the European Championship during a year when it doesn't take place.

Angus raises a number of points, but isn't there supposed to be a Finance Committee to work through points of detail rather than expecting the full meeting to follow them?

Apart from dragging the local Yorkshire leagues screaming into the fold, where is the increase in adult membership coming from? Is it converting existing non-members into members, or attracting new full time participants? Expanding the range of FIDE rated events could lead to an increase in Gold members, but only by raiding the head counts of Bronze and Silver.

The impression you get is that large sums of money are being spent or likely to be spent on maintaining England's position in international chess in FIDE competitions without the source of funding being known. With the default guarantor being the ECF membership, there's various accounting and demographic fudges being made so as not to make the point explicit. With the ten year anniversary of the great walkout, perhaps we should ask what happened to the £ million claimed to be in the ECF's possession ten years ago. I imagine much of it is still around, but now, as then, it's locked up in legacies with restrictions on how it should be spent.

NickFaulks
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by NickFaulks » Sat Apr 28, 2018 3:15 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:36 pm
Angus raises a number of points, but isn't there supposed to be a Finance Committee to work through points of detail rather than expecting the full meeting to follow them?
It has just been revealed, in a answer to a direct question, that the Finance Committee has not met this year. Furthermore, it is not part of their remit to look at the Budget.
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LawrenceCooper
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by LawrenceCooper » Sat Apr 28, 2018 3:17 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 3:15 pm
Roger de Coverly wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:36 pm
Angus raises a number of points, but isn't there supposed to be a Finance Committee to work through points of detail rather than expecting the full meeting to follow them?
It has just been revealed, in a answer to a direct question, that the Finance Committee has not met this year. :shock:

Furthermore, it is not part of their remit to look at the Budget. :?

Andrew Zigmond
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by Andrew Zigmond » Sat Apr 28, 2018 3:57 pm

Angus French wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:33 am

11. International Directorate: Previously, the International Director has declined to provide a breakdown of the expenditure on team events though most of it comes from ECF funds and members are surely entitled to know how the money they’ve provided is spent. (At the 2015 Finance Council meeting, the then International Director provided figures for budgeted expenditure on the 2016 Olympiad, giving a split of £26K for the Open team and £10K for the women’s team with both teams having the support of a coach, implying significant spend on appearance fees for the Open team players.)
I did notice that the attached emails are dated late 2016. Have any further attempts been made to discover the information since? I also noticed that the emails appear to have been sent - if my recollection of dates is correct - during the period you were an elected ECF official yourself (member of the governance committee). Although you weren't contacting Malcolm in that capacity was this raised as a governance matter?

I'll throw another thing into the mix. Malcolm's position on ECF governance has always been slightly unclear but the general impression is that he wants a strong international body; supported by private investment as much as possible. It would certainly be unfair to paint him as seeking to rake in ECF members money for his own purposes. Given that nobody in English chess has a better record in attracting sponsorship a better question would be what the current blockers are to that? Grassroots players leaving their part of the shop window an absolute mess might be one factor.
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TimHerring
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by TimHerring » Sat Apr 28, 2018 5:09 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 3:15 pm
Roger de Coverly wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:36 pm
Angus raises a number of points, but isn't there supposed to be a Finance Committee to work through points of detail rather than expecting the full meeting to follow them?
It has just been revealed, in a answer to a direct question, that the Finance Committee has not met this year. Furthermore, it is not part of their remit to look at the Budget.

For clarification, it was certainly not stated that the budget review wasn’t within the remit of the finance committee. I have provided a detailed verbal report at today’s Finance Council meeting which will appear in the minutes in due course, and have represented the finance committee at the majority of ECF meetings during the year addressing a wide range of finance issues including the budget, and at advoc meetings during the year. Thanks Tim

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sat Apr 28, 2018 5:13 pm

"For clarification, it was certainly not stated that the budget review wasn’t within the remit of the finance committee. I have provided a detailed verbal report at today’s Finance Council meeting which will appear in the minutes in due course, and have represented the finance committee at the majority of ECF meetings during the year addressing a wide range of finance issues including the budget, and at advoc meetings during the year."

Thanks for that.

NickFaulks
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by NickFaulks » Sat Apr 28, 2018 5:21 pm

TimHerring wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 5:09 pm
For clarification, it was certainly not stated that the budget review wasn’t within the remit of the finance committee.
Apologies for the misunderstanding. I was not the only listener to get that impression, but am pleased to hear that we were mistaken.
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Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:12 pm

"Apologies for the misunderstanding. I was not the only listener to get that impression, but am pleased to hear that we were mistaken."

Easy to do - which is why it is so important for minutes to be published rapidly.

Mike Truran
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Re: Revised Papers

Post by Mike Truran » Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:21 pm

Sorry they’re not out yet. 😱

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