ECF Council meeting - other revelations

[Roger de Coverly]

I was thinking £7,500 was low. It'll depend, of course, on what the requirements are...

Depending on the system, wouldn't there be commission costs as well? Doesn't Paypal for instance take up to 5% of the transaction value. Other systems might want £ x per transaction.

That's doesn't appear to be in the budget either.

[Angus French]

Something else: game fees due for 2012/13 leagues won't be determinable and invoicable until after the leagues have concluded (when the results are submitted for grading) and won't this, in most cases, be after the 2012/13 financial year end? If yes, then the game fee budget figures should be reduced - probably substantially.

On the other hand, there will be game fee income from events which conclude before 1 September 2012: from 2011/12 leagues and from congresses which take place between May and August. Surely the budget should reflect this?

[John Upham]

In the Business Plan we have

These areas align with the responsibilities of directors set out in ECF Regulation No. 2: ‘The Directors and Officers Responsibilities Regulations’, to be found at: http://www.bcf.org.uk/organisation/general/index.htm. It should be noted that the Management Services Function comes under the remit of the Chief Executive.

but that domain ceased to be in 2011:

Relevant dates:
Registered on: before Aug-1996
Renewal date: 05-Aug-2012
Last updated: 14-Oct-2011

Registration status:
No longer required

Name servers:
lame0.ns.uk.demon.net
lame1.ns.uk.demon.net

WHOIS lookup made at 17:19:47 21-Mar-2012

[Roger de Coverly]

Something else: game fees due for 2012/13 leagues won't be determinable and invoicable until after the leagues have concluded (when the results are submitted for grading) and won't this, in most cases, be after the 2012/13 financial year end? If yes, then the game fee budget figures should be reduced - probably substantially.

That's an extremely good point. The current set-up with Game Fee requires leagues to estimate for November, the number of games likely to be played and hence the Game Fee. This is difficult in areas, such as Manchester that overlap MO's as they don't know how many games will be played by non-members. This problem will apply to everyone and leagues not operating MOs will not know how many games will ultimately be played by non-members. Indeed the ECF bought itself time to write the necessary software to check for 85% rules by suggesting that it would only be run in August 2013. So unless it brings this forward and tries to invoice on the basis of the interim grading submissions, the Game Fee income from leagues in 2012-13 is likely to be £ nil. You would be collecting the £ 6 per head for Scots and others, in the event that the ECF can untangle it from upgrades to Silver. Leagues grumbling about the imposition of compulsory requirements are not going to be enthusiastic in their cooperation.

[Alex Holowczak]

This problem will apply to everyone and leagues not operating MOs will not know how many games will ultimately be played by non-members.

It is my - perhaps mistaken - understanding that the concept of estimating Game Fee in advance won't exist anymore. You'll just be invoiced at the end of the season for leagues when the grading file is submitted.

[Roger de Coverly]

On the other hand, there will be game fee income from events which conclude before 1 September 2012: from 2011/12 leagues and from congresses which take place between May and August. Surely the budget should reflect this?

Another excellent point. The realism of the budget for income looks distinctly suspect.

[John Upham]

I was thinking £7,500 was low. It'll depend, of course, on what the requirements are...

I could speculate: "Design an on-line membership system for the ECF" would be the requirement.

[Roger de Coverly]

It is my - perhaps mistaken - understanding that the concept of estimating Game Fee in advance won't exist anymore. You'll just be invoiced at the end of the season for leagues when the grading file is submitted.

That's exactly the point. If the calculations and invoicing don't take place until August 2013, how can you bring that in to the 2012 - 13 financial year, particularly if it has a year end of 30th April? According to the Finance Committee report, they had enough trouble this year with events taking place in April and settling in May. Having a year end reporting process that doesn't start until 4 months after the year end is asking for trouble.

[John McKenna]

Hope everyone recognises that the Coalition government persuaded the ECF to release a blizzard of financial & policy papers today in order to distract from the real emperor's-new/no-clothes budget perpetrated by George a little earlier.
Or could it be that I've got it the wrong way round? The ECF may be using George as a fig leaf to try to cover what's going down in the chess area!

[Jonathan Rogers]

Nigel Short's report now disusses the legal action against FIDE. He had rather remarkably omitted to mention it in his report last October, despite lambasting Kirsan over other matters, but with the cat out of the bag he assures us that no ECF money is at stake:

"....The ECF Board considers the upholding of the rule of law in FIDE to be of the greatest importance, which is why (along with the Georgian Federation) we brought the case.

Our primary responsibility is to our members and, to ensure that no legal costs will be borne by the Federation, we have been indemnified by a third party. All legal fees have thus far been paid.

The CAS judgment is expected before the end of March. I hope to have more to say then."

I raised my eyebrows at "Our primary responsibility is to our members". It is nice to know that the action was taken because the rank and file of the ECF are concerned about rule of law issues in FIDE and not because Kirsan's Presidency is a private hobby horse of CJ and Short, following up from their part of the failed campaign in Russia; but if they were primarly responsible to us (!), wouldn't they have told us what they were doing?

When Nigel does return to the topic, it would be nice to know why only two members of FIDE are involved. Surely when the ECF Board agreed on this, it envisaged being part of a much wider coalition? And since there seems to be little chance of Kirsan being stripped of his Presidency, isn't the main effect of this to drain the FIDE coffers, meaning - at least, so Kirsan will say with some credibility - that money earmarked for chess will be spent on lawyers?

[Carl Hibbard]

Our primary responsibility is to our members and, to ensure that no legal costs will be borne by the Federation, we have been indemnified by a third party. All legal fees have thus far been paid.

Can the ECF get away without even naming who this third party is?

[Jonathan Rogers]

Its Kasparov, by all accounts. The reason for not telling us has been, I assume, that the fear that we termites on Council and/or the wider chess community, who don't know Kasparov personally in the way that Nigel and CJ do, would then start raking through all the various unfinished projects of Kasparov in the past. Instead of explaining why this is different - which probably it is - it seems that they have deemed it much better not to tell us, not even about the existence of the suit if possible ... (and later to claim that they perceive themselves as primarily responsible to us!)

[John Philpott]

Alex Holowczak wrote

Well, I certainly sent the voting register off by the deadline, so there's no problem with that.

You certainly did, and it has now been uploaded thanks to the ECF webmaster working out of hours.

Angus French wrote

I didn't know that multi-year memberships would be available. They're not covered in the Membership Rates proposals document.

They will be in v2 of the document which should be appearing shortly.

John Upham wrote

but that domain ceased to be in 2011:

The fact that the CEO may have quoted an out of date URL seems to me a fairly minor matter. The correct URL http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... ug2011.rtf is not particularly difficult to locate.

Roger de Coverly wrote

That's exactly the point. If the calculations and invoicing don't take place until August 2013, how can you bring that in to the 2012 - 13 financial year, particularly if it has a year end of 30th April? According to the Finance Committee report, they had enough trouble this year with events taking place in April and settling in May. Having a year end reporting process that doesn't start until 4 months after the year end is asking for trouble.

One of many reasons why the change to a 31 August year end suggested by the Finance Director makes a lot of sense.

John McKenna wrote

Hope everyone recognises that the Coalition government persuaded the ECF to release a blizzard of financial & policy papers today in order to distract from the real emperor's-new/no-clothes budget perpetrated by George a little earlier.
Or could it be that I've got it the wrong way round? The ECF may be using George as a fig leaf to try to cover what's going down in the chess area!

Definitely the former. The date on which the ECF papers would be published was known as soon as the Finance Council meeting date was set last October, and the Coalition doubtless scheduled the budget accordingly.

[Carl Hibbard]

Its Kasparov, by all accounts. The reason for not telling us has been, I assume, that the fear that we termites on Council and/or the wider chess community, who don't know Kasparov personally in the way that Nigel and CJ do, would then start raking through all the various unfinished projects of Kasparov in the past. Instead of explaining why this is different - which probably it is - it seems that they have deemed it much better not to tell us, not even about the existence of the suit if possible ... (and later to claim that they perceive themselves as primarily responsible to us!)

I fail to see how this can be hidden any longer and would publicly ask Andrew Farthing for a statement on who the individual in question is?

[Roger de Coverly]

You certainly did, and it has now been uploaded thanks to the ECF webmaster working out of hours.

The voting register is the "name and shame" document as it appears the London League and Middlesex have left the ECF.