Minor milestone passed!

[John Upham]

I am happy to report that the 1,000th CoM test was taken this week.

CoM was launched on March 3rd, 2010.

434 students have registered on the web site : http://www.certificateofmerit.org.uk/ The bulk of these are children.

The allowance of free tests until the test has been passed has increased the number of repeat tests taken by the same student.

[Matthew Turner]

John,
I noticed this was upcoming, but 19 of the tests are mine and I haven't paid for one. Can you give us an idea of how many credits have been paid for/used?

[John Upham]

John,
I noticed this was upcoming, but 19 of the tests are mine and I haven't paid for one. Can you give us an idea of how many credits have been paid for/used?

Of course but things are complicated by credits not being used up until tests were passed.

It was easy previously since I could query the number of Level One, Two and Three tests and that would tell me how many credits were used.

I need to code further admin queries!

One thing I would say is that I believe that the teaching materials should be available from the web site directly. Of course, this is a another huge amount of work for various people.

This does not deal with the large stockpile of booklets and DVDs stored at the ECF Office. We should now seriously consider distributing these materials to schools and Junior chess clubs.

What frustrates me is knowing that we have excellent teaching materials sitting on shelves.

ChessBase have given me the OK to put all of the video material onto YouTube. However, we really need to use the ChessBase media system on-line since the videos do not contain the chess board and pieces.

[benedgell]

...19 of the tests are mine ...

I'm sure you'll pass Level One eventually.

[Carl Hibbard]

I need to code further admin queries!

Are you able to quote the number paid for John?

I was tempted to move the CoM into the Archive section as I thought the project had almost been abandoned things were that quiet on the marketing front?

[John Upham]

I was tempted to move the CoM into the Archive section as I thought the project had almost been abandoned things were that quiet on the marketing front?

I'd rather you didn't as the users are still using and I am still providing support when needed!

[Carl Hibbard]

John,
I noticed this was upcoming, but 19 of the tests are mine and I haven't paid for one. Can you give us an idea of how many credits have been paid for/used?

Still no answer on this one?

[John Upham]

John,
I noticed this was upcoming, but 19 of the tests are mine and I haven't paid for one. Can you give us an idea of how many credits have been paid for/used?

Still no answer on this one?

I will ask the Director of Finance...

[Carl Hibbard]

What was the answer?

[Carl Hibbard]

Not noticed before but to quote

"NB. During the years 2008-10, £19,361 was spent on the Chess for Schools project and £14,139 on the Certificate of Merit. This expenditure was funded by an indefinite loan of £20,000 (interest at 6%) from the John Robinson Youth Chess Trust, an indefinite, interest-free loan of £20,000 (in effect, an injection of capital) from Chess Centre Ltd and sponsorship from LV=."

Ouch

[John Upham]

Don't forget that CoM is the long term replacement for CoE. You need to factor that into the standard criticism.

[Carl Hibbard]

So sales to date for 2010/11 is £1,049 with an administration cost of £2,434 according to the budget report...

Am I reading that right in the spreadsheet?

[Carl Hibbard]

Not many sales was the answer then:

7. The Board has taken the decision to terminate further expenditure on the Certificate of Merit (CoM) project.

Be nice to see how much was wasted on this one?

[Peter Turner]

You could also factor in how much has been lost by the decision to phase out the Certificate of Excellence which never cost the BCF/ECF a single penny. Over the years tens of thousands of pounds profit went to support junior chess from the CofE BUT isn't the CofM now due for success with the announced link-up with Mike Basman's UK Chess Challenge!!?? Or is this to be another unfulfilled dream?

[John Upham]

So sales to date for 2010/11 is £1,049 with an administration cost of £2,434 according to the budget report...

Am I reading that right in the spreadsheet?

I suspect you are but I am not convinced by these figures one iota.

The sales of CoM product purchased via PayPal only are £1938

Sales via other means such as Credit card, cheques, BACS are unknown to me as the CoM database only records online sales via PayPal.

I spoke with the office CoM responsible person (Andrew Walker) and he was unable to account for the admin cost since he is not time sheeted and does not record any time spent on CoM.

I incurred travel costs for CoM for attending last years London Chess Classic for for days and those costs were less than 10% of the figure quoted.

The only person who has worked on CoM recently is the DoM and his time has been provided FoC AFAIK.

There is an ISP hosting fee of around £50 pa from Zen Internet.

So, I am baffled by these figures.

If you want to believe them then I cannot stop you!

Student number 810 registered on the 8th of this month.

1844 tests have been started.

30,416 questions have been asked.