Finance Council meeting

[Mick Norris]

FWIW, I did notice Sean Hewitt wasn't at the meeting.

According to the voting registers, he was at the BCF meeting but not the ECF meeting, so I'll take the registers with a pince of salt

[Julie Denning]

Mick Norris wrote:
So, the voting register shows 319 votes available, and only 207 were cast on the membership fee vote - were there any abstentions, or are there Council members not bothering, as previously suggested, either to attend or appoint a proxy?

I don't recall the tellers reporting any abstentions on either card vote that was held on Membership Fees. (There was an initial card vote on an amendment to the substantive proposal to approve lesser increases to £14, £20 and £30 for Bronze, Silver and Gold respectively.)

[Roger de Coverly]

I made the point at the meeting that, for 2013/14, income from membership fees and game fees [£130, 756 from the the FD's Detailed Forecast and Budget spreadsheet]

You might find that income is being quoted net of VAT, so the figure actually being collected is £ 163,445. There's a convention that Company accounts are presented net of VAT, but it becomes confusing when using net accounts to attempt to validate prices expressed gross.

David Eustace, the Finance Director, agreed that he wanted to coerce game fee payers into becoming members.

A direct admission at last. That's different from an ex-CEO who denied there was any such intention when presenting what was then a proposed membership scheme.

[Roger de Coverly]

15. The "pay to play" concept for FIDE-rated standardplay events was not approved, although it was agreed to discontinue the policy of asking FIDE to delist ENG non-Gold players participating in such events.

What then will happen in practice if the organiser of an event advertised as FIDE rated submits a file containing players with FINs who are ENG but not current ECF Gold members? Or for that matter players who would be ENG, played in the event, but who don't have FINs?

Under the "pay to play" concept, you invoice the organiser with a bill for the non-members. Without such a concept does the ECF
(a) turn a blind eye
(b) decline to rate the event
(c) send the organiser a bill for the requisite amount of membership or membership upgrade?

Also as asked earlier, what happens to those players who are ENG on the rating list, not members of the ECF who do not play in any events internationally rated through the ECF?

[Mick Norris]

Mick Norris wrote:
So, the voting register shows 319 votes available, and only 207 were cast on the membership fee vote - were there any abstentions, or are there Council members not bothering, as previously suggested, either to attend or appoint a proxy?

I don't recall the tellers reporting any abstentions on either card vote that was held on Membership Fees. (There was an initial card vote on an amendment to the substantive proposal to approve lesser increases to £14, £20 and £30 for Bronze, Silver and Gold respectively.)

Julie

Thanks for that - and indeed to you and the others who attended yesterday

I look forward to reading full reports of the meeting in due course (no doubt Ben will do his usual excellent job on this front)

[Sean Hewitt]

So, the voting register shows 319 votes available, and only 207 were cast on the membership fee vote - were there any abstentions, or are there Council members not bothering, as previously suggested, either to attend or appoint a proxy?

Good point. FWIW, I did notice Sean Hewitt wasn't at the meeting.

Apologies that I wasn't able to attend on this occasion (a rare failure on my part). I did however cast all of my votes against the proposed membership increase as the scale made no sense to me, given that it they were made alongside proposals to cease to require overseas players to be members (costing the ECF more than £1000 pa) and seeking to reduce income from donors to support the England International teams.

I'd be very interested to know who the 104 who voted in favour were!

[Angus French]

I made the point at the meeting that, for 2013/14, income from membership fees and game fees [£130, 756 from the the FD's Detailed Forecast and Budget spreadsheet]

You might find that income is being quoted net of VAT, so the figure actually being collected is £ 163,445. There's a convention that Company accounts are presented net of VAT, but it becomes confusing when using net accounts to attempt to validate prices expressed gross.

Fair enough. So, with VAT at 20%, I think that reduces the multiple to 3.2: payers of the standard rate of game fee were paying 3.2 times the average for their games. And now the standard game fee rate has gone up by a greater amount, in percentage terms, than anything else. Is that fair and will it encourage participation in graded chess (or will people choose, for example, to play online)?

[Jonathan Rogers]

I did however cast all of my votes against the proposed membership increase as the scale made no sense to me, given that it they were made alongside proposals to cease to require overseas players to be members (costing the ECF more than £1000 pa) and seeking to reduce income from donors to support the England International teams.

...

(emphasis added)

Quite: I asked one of my reps to raise point 17, which commits the ECF to committing an insane amount of money (by its own means) to raise international teams where private sponsorship (at least for the men) should be feasible (and if it cannot be done, then serious questions still arise as to the real level of interest, and why the ECF should foot the bill). What is going on - and was there any discussion?

[Paul Dargan]

I'll make the point I always make - but which seems not to find favour at Council - I do not think that playing for your country in an Olympiad (or similar) is something that should be cash positive for the individuals concerned. I'm fine with it being cash neutral, but given the investment and opportunities the GMs will have been given on the way up, if they arent prepared to play for ENG on an expenses only basis - then send a development team who are. It's not like we've had a good result with the 'A-team' for a while anyway.

Paul

[Jonathan Rogers]

Many will argue that the top players were not given all that much support on their way up either; but that is another matter. That certainly won't be changing in any event, if we starve virtually all other parts of activity of funding in order to pay fees for the top players.

I am Ok with the ECF covering bare expenses (only an issue for the European events anyway) but extra funding for fees should have to come from private sponsorship; and if it's not there, the ECF should swallow their pride rather than throw the little cash that they have.

[benedgell]

I did however cast all of my votes against the proposed membership increase as the scale made no sense to me, given that it they were made alongside proposals to cease to require overseas players to be members (costing the ECF more than £1000 pa) and seeking to reduce income from donors to support the England International teams.

...

(emphasis added)

Quite: I asked one of my reps to raise point 17, which commits the ECF to committing an insane amount of money (by its own means) to raise international teams where private sponsorship (at least for the men) should be feasible (and if it cannot be done, then serious questions still arise as to the real level of interest, and why the ECF should foot the bill). What is going on - and was there any discussion?

From the notes I've got Angus French asked about the specific costs, how much went on appearance fees, coaching etc, and that was the only comment raised. The hand vote had 3 against (I voted both in favour and against).

[benedgell]

The ECF referred on a number of occasions to the motion passed at the Finance Council meeting in 2013: "Council believes that the Federation should aim to have the strongest possible teams competing etc etc.." I think Andrew Farthing objected to the ECF repeatedly referring to it at one point, but I haven't got the exact nature of his objection in my notes.

[benedgell]

Many will argue that the top players were not given all that much support on their way up either; but that is another matter. That certainly won't be changing in any event, if we starve virtually all other parts of activity of funding in order to pay fees for the top players.

I am Ok with the ECF covering bare expenses (only an issue for the European events anyway) but extra funding for fees should have to come from private sponsorship; and if it's not there, the ECF should swallow their pride rather than throw the little cash that they have.

One point worth mentioning, part of the increased revenue from membership fees will be used by the ECF to set up a new junior academy, the aim of which is in part to help young players who have potential to gain titles to achieve them.

[David Robertson]

increased revenue from membership fees will be used by the ECF to set up a new junior academy, the aim of which is in part to help young players who have potential to gain titles to achieve them.

In other words, as things stand in schools, we all subsidise the benefits of posh rich kids

[Angus French]

Re approval of Olympiad expenditure for 2016/17 (item 17 on the agenda): *I believe* David Openshaw, as International Director, gave these splits for the total expenditure of £36,000:
Open Team - £26,000; Women’s team - £10,000.
Player fees + coaches for the Open team – £18,000; and for the Women’s team - £4,000 (but this might have been £2,000).
With £1,500 - £2,000 a coach, that left appearance fees for the Open team of approx. £16,000.

As Andrew Farthing had already established, with the Olympiad, the organisers provide shared accommodation (non-shared accommodation is extra) and food. (This doesn't happen for the European Team Championships which are therefore more expensive.)

Earlier, during discussion on the FD’s report on the Budget (item 10), I suggested that the policy on expenditure on International teams ought to be reviewed. Two year’s previously Council had passed a motion which, at first, had appeared to state the obvious: that we wanted to be represented by the strongest teams possible. We were told that approving the motion would send a message to sponsors and potential sponsors. Fair enough. Now though, the level of sponsorship is anticipated to decline [this can clearly be seen by examining the FD’s Detailed Forecast and Budget spreadsheet], so the policy doesn’t appear to be working. I think Andrew Farthing also made the point that the policy wasn’t set in stone and would only work if there were available funds. Since our teams wouldn’t be in contention for medals, I asked whether we should be spending so much on appearance fees; mightn’t it be an idea to ‘blood’ up-and-coming players who would collect less in appearance fees? David Openshaw responded by saying that sponsorship income was predicated on putting out the strongest teams. He made the point that other federations put out their strongest teams. He also explained that we’re not in contention for medals as the breakup of the Soviet Union has resulted in multiple nations which can put out stronger teams than our own. He suggested that putting out less strong teams wouldn’t necessarily be beneficial to the players as they would likely face less strong opposition... Personally, like Paul D above, I’m not exactly sure about paying players to play for their country though I recognise others have different views. Certainly, it’s true that the feedback I got from the Bronze members (as a Bronze Members’ Representative) showed that quite a few weren’t happy about increasing membership fees to pay a bigger contribution towards the funding of international teams. Others Council members also expressed concern about expenditure on International teams. I think these included John Wickham (as the Silver Members’ Rep.) and Simon Gilmore – but I’m afraid my recollection is vague about this.

Also: Andrew Farthing asked whether the Olympiad budget needed to be approved so far in advance; whether so much time was needed to plan?