ECF Finance Council Meeting 22 April 2023

[Kevin Thurlow]

No problem, Roger.

The problem with ECF (or anyone else) giving evasive answers (or not answering at all) is that people assume there's something to hide, when there may indeed be a simple and proper explanation.

[Roger de Coverly]

Possibly relevant to the ECF Council meeting and budgeted fundraising is a decision by the ECF to grant one year free Silver membership to new university players.
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/free-ec ... embership/

That's about ten years after the ECF did what it could to stifle University organised chess by demanding indiidual annualised memberships, even for players only playing a handful of games.

[Angus French]

On membership fee income (the ECF’s principal source of income), the Finance Committee’s report says:

"1. Income from membership fees is forecast to progress from 211k in 21/22 to 222k in 22/23 to 265k in 23/24. The 20% increase in 23/24, with no planned increase in rates, looks high, but perhaps 22/23 should be marked higher. Rolling membership might be making forecasting difficult. This is being investigated, and will I presume be explained in the Membership Director’s report."

I noted the comment “perhaps 22/23 should be marked higher” and did some research. The membership numbers spreadsheet provided for the meeting gives forecast membership and supporter numbers for 2022/3. Using these I calculate (see below) forecast income of £250K as opposed to the £222K stated in management accounts spreadsheet and given in the quote above from the FC’s report.

Workings:

MembershipFeeIncome202223.png

Also included is a calculation for the actual membership and supporter numbers as at 20 April (taken from a download of the membership and supporter lists available to organisers). These appear in line with the forecast for the year which has several months to run.

So… maybe budgeted membership fee income of £265K for 2023/24 is reasonable? But I wonder: is there really a basis for assuming the membership numbers - and therefore membership fee income - will continue to increase? Is it known why they have increased in the current year? If the number of people playing ECF-rated chess is only just beginning to return to pre-pandemic levels then there must be a significant number of non-playing members: how likely are those people to stay members?

[Roger Lancaster]

In response to Angus's figures, which are informative, I'm tempted to add the observation - often attributed to J K Galbraith but which actually pre-dated him - that "The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable". In as much as ECF budgets are miniature forecasts, there is unlikely to be a totally sound basis for assuming future membership numbers and one has to rely on the judgment of the FD and whoever else may have approved the figures. Angus makes an entirely reasonable point but, equally, there's unlikely to be a totally sound basis for any other numbers.

[Paul Cooksey]

I guess we all have our usual perspectives. For my part, I always feel there should be more focus on expenditure. As ever, I would be happier if admin costs were distributed across the other directorates.

I will be interested to hear more about financial governance. It does seem like we are in a position where we have to trust the FD. This isn't really acceptable, even though he is trustworthy.

[Roger Lancaster]

I guess we all have our usual perspectives. For my part, I always feel there should be more focus on expenditure. As ever, I would be happier if admin costs were distributed across the other directorates.

I will be interested to hear more about financial governance. It does seem like we are in a position where we have to trust the FD. This isn't really acceptable, even though he is trustworthy.

Paul, I think this was Nick's starting point in that he didn't feel that the Finance Committee had enough detail to form an objective view which it could report back to Council. I'm not trying to lay the blame anywhere, and in fairness I'd have to add that I've almost invariably found ECF directors (and Nick, to keep the balance right) helpful in answering questions I may have, but I agree that it's not really acceptable and all concerned should please work towards remedying this.

[Roger Lancaster]

It's a small point but the Agenda lists as item 7 "Report of the Director of Membership [Paper C38.8]" but the paper in question doesn't seem to appear among those listed. Can it be found somewhere else?

[John Reyes]

Meeting open

Adam Ashton is doing a great Job in his report

[John Upham]

Attendees are:

Adam Ashton
Alan Atkinson
Shoreh Bayat
Chris Cook
Paul Cooksey
Neil Cooper
Gareth Ellis
David Eustace
Peter Farr
Michael Farthing
Nick Faulks
Nikki Forster
Satish Gaekwad
David Gilbert
John Higgs
Alex Holowczak
Chris Holt
Roger Lancaster
Steve Mann
Malcolm Pein
Stewart Reuben
John Reyes
Patrick Ridley
Robert Stern
Nigel Towers
John Upham
Brian Valentine
Andrew Wainwright
Andrew Walker
Tim Wall
Gerry Walsh
John Wickham
Rob Willmoth
Stephen Woodhouse




Apologies for anyone missed out.

[John Reyes]

I did see Tim wall pop in but Gareth Ellis is at the meeting

[John Upham]

We now have a fascinating discussion as to if the BCF meeting (now taking place) is quorate.

This could go on for some time.

[John Reyes]

we talking about the governance changes

[John Upham]

RDdC would be greatly enjoying the current subject matter:

Game fee, membership fee and under rated juniors.

[Paul Cooksey]

The three membership scheme options the board will be asked to assess for the AGM:
No change
Single Membership Fee
Merging Silver and Gold

[Roger Lancaster]

I would hesitate to assess the past 4 hours as the most enjoyable I have ever spent although, on the plus side, no rattles were thrown out of prams. Somewhat laboriously, we covered a lot of useful ground. I thought Adam gave a clear and straightforward presentation although, with Malcolm having another important meeting, we were denied a full explanation of the excess Chennai costs. In arriving at the three options which Paul has already mentioned, Council appeared to be quite heavily influenced by the need to get more FIDE ratings. It was pointed out that England was far behind most other West European countries in this respect, with Spain being singled out as a typical country where virtually every tournament is FIDE-rated.