Compulsory Membership?

[Roger de Coverly]

Council's decision was a perfect example of what is wrong with the ECF, and why many critics of the ECF believe the current structure simply fails. Important decisions were pushed down the agenda, and critical business decisions made on the hoof by delegates who simply wanted to leave on time and catch a train.

The BCF used to have a structure where the Board contained not only all the posts which are now reduced to managers, but also non-exec representatives of the Unions, and the London and Manchester Leagues. Not surprisingly decision making processes could be tortuous. The advantage of such a structure is that it met more frequently than Council, so if agreement could be reached, the range of views represented on the Board was such that Council would be less likely to be in opposition.

I would not think it right that the only sanction against an unpopular ECF policy or decision was to dismiss the director or even the Board responsible for it.

[Mick Norris]

Durham county chess associations AGM was held tonight we have agreed to support the ECF membership scheme
1 question was raised in the Durham leagues rules it states you can play 2 games before becomming a ECF member would we have to pay the £2 game fee on those games.
If we have to pay the full game fee then we will impose compulsary membership for all.

No, if they join part way through the year (e.g. after playing 2 games) then the ECF helpful documents state:
"3) Fixed membership year

Memberships will run from 1 September until 31 August each year. This means that players joining in (say) April will be entitled to have their club, league and county games graded for free for the entire year from the preceding 1 September."

[Alex McFarlane]

Council's decision was a perfect example of what is wrong with the ECF, and why many critics of the ECF believe the current structure simply fails. Important decisions were pushed down the agenda, and critical business decisions made on the hoof by delegates who simply wanted to leave on time and catch a train.

Whilst I would not claim that Council is the most efficient way of running an organisation much of the time used for the first part of the meeting was caused by the Board's inaction or failure to follow bye laws. The Home Director is responsible for ensuring that the accounts for the British are produced within 2 months. He was alerted to his responsibilities but could not see a problem. Had he acted when asked and within the timescale set out the matter might have been resolved much sooner.

Perhaps if the Board had agreed to a mediation process other matters would not have had to be raised at Council. There is some hope that progress might soon be made on that matter. (Apologies for being so cryptic, hopefully all will be revealed soon.)

[Roger de Coverly]

No, if they join part way through the year (e.g. after playing 2 games) then the ECF helpful documents state:

That's correct of course, but what if they just play two games only as the Durham rules permit and never become a member? The Durham county would be billed by the ECF for £ 4. That's the same as what's supposed to happen at 58p a game.

So Durham's solution would be to bill the club for £ 13 or £ 4 or bar players not ECF members from taking part. Expressed another way, every player a club fields in the league incurs the club an additional cost of £ 13. That's different from Manchester who are using the billing approach, at league level.

There's a third solution as well. Remove games played by non-members, particularly against one another from the grading files.

[David Pardoe]

Harry, I wasnt knocking it...selling pens sounds great fun...very practical...and score books even. Actually, I was composing my note (see pages 13...and 16, 17), at the time yours appeared, so I hadnt actually seen it.
We`re short of funds for a prestigious event like the Olympiad......this is bonkers.
Have we a shortlist of potential players....?
I hope we can pull together and fill that breech. Yes, someone pointed out that we`ve lost the Gov grant of £60k...a huge loss.
Those much closer to the financing than me will gudge the effect of junior funding changes....made `on the hoof`, in April.
One of my suggestions was that maybe some of our bigger chess bodies can dip into there kitty`s and put up some money...
I suggested (amongst other things..), the idea of Unions/County bodies.. perhaps (partially) sponsoring a local GM/IM for these events. Supporting `local` players seems like a logical thing for our bodies to consider...as well as considering the possible `returns` on such investments.
One obvious potential return.. is the publicity for UK chess from this Olympiad event...which happens right at the start of a new season.
I noticed that the NCCU actually gave some sponsorship money to certain players for last years British Champs at Sheffield...good on them. (Reading NCCU minutes/Yorks report...)

Many other possibilities, I`m sure.....

Chess bodies are too `tight fisted/short sighted` when it comes to funding and raising money.. And we need to be more broad minded about how money is to be spent...more vision required..and covering for any unexpected shortfalls.
And we mustnt be driven by petty minded, bean counting, accountants. If chess is to thrive it needs to invest (sensibly of course), in things which might show future returns...and we must identify and flag up the potential benefits.
All parties (including our GMs, etc)...have a role to play....

[John McKenna]

Blaming the loss of the Gov. Grant alone for possible Olmypiad team funding problems may be going way too far. This may be old hat but the only breakdown figures I have to hand for the grant are for 1997/8 -
"DCMS have been informed it will be used as follows - Junior Development £16,180, Central Office Support (Management Services) £12,970, Marketing (i.e. Publicity) £8,250, Womens' Development £5,850, International Events £5,750."
From a total of £49,000 the part containing Olympiad support was the least.

[Roger de Coverly]

"DCMS have been informed it will be used as follows - Junior Development £16,180, Central Office Support (Management Services) £12,970, Marketing (i.e. Publicity) £8,250, Womens' Development £5,850, International Events £5,750."

In later years, the DCMS grant was spent almost exclusively on "Central Office Support" as the other activities were reduced to a negligible budget.

[John McKenna]

How could even a Labour gov. allow a business plan like that to pass? No wonder the Condems took it right away.

[Roger de Coverly]

How could even a Labour gov. allow a business plan like that to pass? No wonder the Condems took it right away.

The Business plans in more recent years didn't itemise how the DCMS grant was to be spent. Even the ECF CEO and President weren't really sure whether part of it was expected to be ring-fenced for support of international teams and activity.

There's material about the grant in the archives of both this forum and the atticus one. The usual impression given is that closure of the ECF Office would have meant giving up the DCMS grant.

These are the net expenditures in the Budget that wasn't discussed in detail at the Finance meeting

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                              NET	     2010/11	2011/12
	                                             Forecast  	Budget
	                                                  £	             £
General funding	                              9,792               -200 
Direct members / MO's	             54,125 	100,450 
Game Fee	                                     57,397 	  25,000 
National Grading	                     -9,450            -9,300 
Management Services	                    -88,775           -83,800 
Home Chess	                                 505 	               150 
Congress Chess                                  0 	                  0 
Congress - British Championships	 616              -4,000 
Women's Chess	                                -762 	              -200 
Marketing & Publicity	                        -522 	              -500 
International	                              -20,422 	  -24,000 
Junior Chess	                               -4,601 	        350 
National Coaching	                         -300 	            0 
Corporation tax	                                   400 	            0 
Contingency	                                      0 	    -5,000 
	                                                    -1,996 	    -1,050 

This is what they were expecting by way of Income from memberships

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	                                         2011/12	2012/13
	                                                   Forecast	Budget
	                                                            £ 	      £
		
GROSS INCOME		
Subscriptions receivable - NMS / MO's	14,000 	0 
Subscriptions receivable - Direct Members	41,500 	0 
Newsletter/diary advertising	0 	0 
Newsletter subs and sundry income	250 	1,000 
Gold Members	0 	21,600 
Silver Members	0 	43,200 
Bronze Members	0 	26,400 
Junior Members	0 	18,800 
	55,750 	111,000 

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and this was Game Fee

	2011/12	2012/13
	Forecast	Budget
	£	£
		
GROSS INCOME		
Leagues	40,440 	0 
Congresses standardplay	11,364 	0 
Rapidplay	3,195 	0 
Clubs	135 	0 
Junior	1,772 	0 
Prior year	12 	500 
Non-territorial affiliates and misc income	478 	500 
Non-members adult	0 	18,000 
Non-members junior	0 	6,000 
	57,397 	25,000 

There's a footnote which says

Game fee income will reduce significantly due to the increased number of members. We have assumed that
non-members will pay an average of £9 per/annum in game fee based on current rates of chess activity.

Whilst that might imply an average of 4 and a half games per non-member, the note is misleading because the numbers in the spreadsheet are net of VAT. So the real number is £ 10.8 per person, in other words over five games. If leagues or clubs ban non-members from playing more than three games, the most the ECF will see is £ 6 per person gross.
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/posting.php?m ... 25&p=88417#
I've corrected the formula errors in the original.

Looking at the results, it's odd to my eyes that they expect the income from Gold not to be about the same as the current Direct. There must be a hidden assumption about downgrading. Silver also seems a high value compared to Bronze, again there's an assumption that the £ 6 upgrade doesn't put people off playing Congresses. If however the "average" club player plays half a Congress, or perhaps half the average club players play one Congress, the membership cost to the average club player can be £18/£19 not £ 12/£13.

[Matthew Turner]

"The usual impression given is that closure of the ECF Office would have meant giving up the DCMS grant."

The government wanted the money spent on Junior and International Chess. Had anyone bothered to look at what the ECF actually spent the money on the grant would have been taken away years ago. Looking at the ECF priorities now, nothing for junior chess and next to nothing for International why would any government want to support the ECF.

[Andrew Farthing]

The reason that the grant to the ECF ceased was that the DCMS's budget for Sport was being slashed as a result of Government cutbacks and they needed to find ways of implementing this. Chess is not classified as a "sport", so it was unfortunately an easy decision for the DCMS to make that the ECF's should be one of the grants removed.

Any suggestion that the grant ceased because the DCMS was unhappy with how the ECF was using the funds is nonsense.

[John McKenna]

Sorry Andrew but that begs the question - to what extent is the loss of the grant responsible for potential Olympiad team funding difficulties?

[Matthew Turner]

Andrew is correct that the grant was cut because of general government cutbacks. That does not negate my point that the grant would have been cut previously had some official looked at how the ECF spent it's money, because it simply wasn't spent in the way the government wanted.

[Andrew Farthing]

Sorry Andrew but that begs the question - to what extent is the loss of the grant responsible for potential Olympiad team funding difficulties?

Bear with me on this:

(1) The ending of the DCMS grant reduced the ECF's income by about a third, leading to the prospect of a serious annual deficit for the ECF;
(2) The ECF found c.£45k of cost savings which reduced the prospective deficit but was insufficient to close the gap entirely;
(3) As a consequence of (1) and (2), the funding of the ECF was debated at length, and proposals were eventually agreed for a revised scheme based on membership and game fee, but weighted towards encouraging membership;
(4) A 2012/13 budget was prepared based on (3), which anticipated a break-even outcome (although there is debate over whether this would have been achieved - something we can never know and which was not tested through discussion at the Finance Council meeting);
(5) At the April 2012 Finance Council meeting, changes were made to the funding scheme which adversely affected the projected income (or, for those who believe that the original income projections were flawed, stimulated a reality check in the original budget assumptions), creating the prospect of a deficit again;
(6) In order to avoid budgeting for a deficit, a reduction in budgeted 2012/13 expenditure was required, which Finance Council requested should in the first place come from the International Chess budget, from which the Olympiad team is financed.

To the extent that stages (1) to (6) form a causal chain, the ending of the DCMS grant was a contributor to the possible problems over being able to send a representative team to the Olympiad. However, there are many other factors at play, with plenty of choices made along the way (which have provided endless grist to the Forum's mill), so a simple answer to the question is not possible.

I could just have said, "I don't know", but where would be the fun in that?

[John McKenna]

You need say no more on that score to me as I am fully satisfied with your answer and hope that others are,too.
As a rank-and-file member I appreciate your efforts to engage on this and other matters on this forum, which at times is more akin to an inquisition.