British Chess Championships 2010

[Sean Hewitt]

It is partly supported by the chess administrators who take no fees.

Stewart Reuben

If you have an event with a free venue, run for free by volunteers, then it really is a spectacular achievement to lose in excess of £20,000 in the last two years .

[Stewart Reuben]

Sean Hewitt >If you have an event with a free venue, run for free by volunteers, then it really is a spectacular achievement to lose in excess of £20,000 in the last two years.<

Eh!? The British roughly broke even in 2009 and cost nothing like as high as £20,000 in 2008, although indeed budgeted to make a loss, as it was in 2007.

Stewart Reuben

[Sean Hewitt]

Sean Hewitt >If you have an event with a free venue, run for free by volunteers, then it really is a spectacular achievement to lose in excess of £20,000 in the last two years.<

Eh!? The British roughly broke even in 2009 and cost nothing like as high as £20,000 in 2008, although indeed budgeted to make a loss, as it was in 2007.

Stewart Reuben

Stewart - I'm going on the last reported ECF accounts. My guess is that they refer to 2007 and 2008 though I'm not sure.

[David Sedgwick]

Sean Hewitt >If you have an event with a free venue, run for free by volunteers, then it really is a spectacular achievement to lose in excess of £20,000 in the last two years.<

Eh!? The British roughly broke even in 2009 and cost nothing like as high as £20,000 in 2008, although indeed budgeted to make a loss, as it was in 2007.

Stewart Reuben

Stewart - I'm going on the last reported ECF accounts. My guess is that they refer to 2007 and 2008 though I'm not sure.

According to the buget documents submitted to Council in April 2010, the figures are as follows:

2007 (Great Yarmouth) - £8,703 loss
2008 (Liverpool) - £13,221 loss
2009 (Torquay) - £86 loss
2010 (Canterbury) - budgeted for £2,000 profit

My recollection is that the Great Yarmouth outturn was within budget. It was the first year without sponsorship and the profits from earlier years were applied to maintain the prizes and fees for that year only.

The Liverpool outturn was indeed much worse than budget, but the principal reason was that the supposedly free venue turned out to be far from free on that occasion.

I'm not saying that everything has been perfect, but I don't think the picture is as bad as you (Sean) are suggesting.

[Carl Hibbard]

2010 (Canterbury) - budgeted for £2,000 profit

Seems a tad optimistic but best of luck with that...

[Adam Raoof]

2010 (Canterbury) - budgeted for £2,000 profit

Seems a tad optimistic but best of luck with that...

I agree - we budgeted for a profit on the basis that we might be able to get some advertising revenue for the live feed, but that hasn't been possible. What really stands out is that Torquay made a loss at all.

2009 (Torquay) - £86 loss
2010 (Canterbury) - budgeted for £2,000 profit

Torquay is a fantastic venue and we are considering returning there in 2013 for the Centenary. Sean's point is that the British should be able to turn a profit, and I agree - given a really good seaside holiday venue how could we not? Yet we did not, so we need to examine that carefully.

The control teams are not strictly volunteers; they do receive expenses and a per diem amount. However it's not a great deal but it adds up, and you can't cut back on the control team - in fact I think we need more controllers and more events. It would therefore be good to have local arbiters to come in and assist at the various events, and perhaps take on some more evening activities.

[Carl Hibbard]

I agree - we budgeted for a profit on the basis that we might be able to get some advertising revenue for the live feed, but that hasn't been possible.

A shame given that the hosting for that is free

[Sean Hewitt]

Torquay is a fantastic venue and we are considering returning there in 2013 for the Centenary. Sean's point is that the British should be able to turn a profit, and I agree - given a really good seaside holiday venue how could we not? Yet we did not, so we need to examine that carefully.

I am delighted that someboday gets it! The fact that it is the director responsible bodes well for the future.

[David Robertson]

The Liverpool outturn was indeed much worse than budget, but the principal reason was that the supposedly free venue turned out to be far from free on that occasion

There is no substance in this claim whatsoever. St George's Hall had a commercial hire price of £7000/day, making £98,000 for the British Championships. That sum was absorbed by my budgets for the events 2006-08, rendering the cost of St George's Hall entirely free to the BCF (ECF). The Hall itself came completely free, and included free side-rooms and usual supporting facilities, as specified by the Tournament Director (Welch) for the contract prepared in January 2008. Despite my prompting at the time, that contract remained unsigned by an ECF officer until May/June. By this time, Welch had resigned as TD to be replaced by Reuben.

When Stewart Reuben took over, he decided he wanted additional side rooms beyond those originally negotiated by myself, acting on Welch's instructions, in January. Had Reuben's preference been available to me then, rather than Welch's, they would have formed part of the free package. As events came to pass, well outside my influence at this late stage, the last minute claim for additional space fell outside the terms of the original contract, and so invited the City Council to levy a charge for the new facility. Had Welch's specification been maintained, no additional costs would have been incurred.

I offer no judgement on whether Welch or Reuben were right; that is a matter for the ECF. But I do wish to protect the authorities in Liverpool from unfair and improper inferences that they did not provide free accommodation as asked. The city was outstandingly generous towards us over three years.

[Alex McFarlane]

Although I was not involved in the management of the British at that time, I believe what David has said to be correct in that some of the accommodation costs were for additional room. However I also believe that the accounts include a not insignificant amount for additional lighting which was needed. I am not in a position to aportion blame, if indeed any is due.

A change in management late on is always likely to cause problems. It is fortunate that when the reverse happened last year the event effectively broke even.
That in part is why we now have joint managers. This indeed may have been prudent when I ended up in hospital and am really only now in the last month getting back into full swing.

Without a sponsor I think it is realistic to hope that the British will break even. I could argue that if you want to attract a reasonable field then making a profit from the event is being quite optimistic. But then again I can argue about almost anything!

There are also other accountancy ways of making the figures for the event look better. For example grading and rating fees are paid, with the exception of the fee to FIDE this is effectively robbing Peter to pay Paul. I am not saying this shouldn't be the case, only that it needn't. Similarly, the costs involved with transmitting the live games/website could be seen as promoting the ECF and therefore transferred to another budget. Lies, damned lies and accounts to paraphrase.

[Adam Raoof]

Without a sponsor I think it is realistic to hope that the British will break even. I could argue that if you want to attract a reasonable field then making a profit from the event is being quite optimistic. But then again I can argue about almost anything!

Good point. You can argue about almost anything

No, I accept that without a sponsor, if and when we make a profit we would be committing those funds to the next year's event, and probably allocating some money to be provided as appearance fees. Those appearance fees would be to encourage our GMs (and by that I mean all our GMs, including Rowson and Motwani and so on) to take part in the Championships, but also to get IMs into the Major Open and make it a norm seeker event.

As organisers we often look at the British and think that if you break it down into the constituent parts, any one of those parts (especially given a free venue) should make a profit, for instance on the numbers at Torquay. What that doesn't account for is the necessary cost of a control team (most organisers have volunteers to help out and are local). If we go back to Torquay for 2013 it will cost money, but we can raise the money. If we also get the DCCA to throw their weight behind the event again, we should do well.

[benedgell]

The control teams are not strictly volunteers; they do receive expenses and a per diem amount. However it's not a great deal but it adds up, and you can't cut back on the control team - in fact I think we need more controllers and more events. It would therefore be good to have local arbiters to come in and assist at the various events, and perhaps take on some more evening activities.

I know of someone who is going to the British this year to take the arbiter's course/ test. Could the ECF advertise locally to each year's Championship for people to take the arbiter's course, with the practical experience consisting of controlling one of the weekend/ 5 day tournaments, and then taking the test at the end?

[Adam Raoof]

The control teams are not strictly volunteers; they do receive expenses and a per diem amount. However it's not a great deal but it adds up, and you can't cut back on the control team - in fact I think we need more controllers and more events. It would therefore be good to have local arbiters to come in and assist at the various events, and perhaps take on some more evening activities.

I know of someone who is going to the British this year to take the arbiter's course/ test. Could the ECF advertise locally to each year's Championship for people to take the arbiter's course, with the practical experience consisting of controlling one of the weekend/ 5 day tournaments, and then taking the test at the end?

That is a very good idea, Ben! I did something very similar with the RYA, which got me the RYA Competent Crew certificate (http://www.rya.org.uk/coursestraining/c ... tcrew.aspx) before I took it further. The British, and perhaps the Scottish, are two events we could probably have scope to do something similar leading to a practical qualification. Do you want to suggest it to Alex and David, and copy me in?

[Sean Hewitt]

If anyone wants to become an arbiter and can make it to an e2e4 event we are always happy to provide practical experience. The biggest problem is that not much happens that requires an arbiters intervention!

[Alex Holowczak]

If anyone wants to become an arbiter and can make it to an e2e4 event we are always happy to provide practical experience. The biggest problem is that not much happens that requires an arbiters intervention!

It is far better to volunteer to help out at a community hall-type Congress, rather than elite, FIDE-rated stuff. All sorts of things can go wrong in your average congress:
a) Players stop recording their moves with half an hour on their clock just because their opponent has less than five minutes
b) Players write in all sorts of languages and notations that they're not strictly allowed to use, but you allow anyway so as not to cause a fuss
c) Players try claiming a draw in the last 2 minutes regardless of what's going on in the game
d) Players complain about the pairings ("Why do I always get four blacks, this arbiter is a *#~@!"), even if they're correct and it's just bad luck
e) Players keep their mobile phones on (despite being warned), and if one inevitably goes off, they look aghast when the arbiter begrudgingly goes to have a conversation with them (knowing the argument that's about to ensue)
f) Players don't tell you they're withdrawing (or if they've suddenly opted to take a bye in round 3), so you leave them paired, which messes up the pairings when you phone them to discover they're not coming
g) The curtains never draw quite as well as you want them to, meaning the sun often shines right in someone's eye
h) Players move the clock because "black chooses where the clock goes", meaning you sometimes can't see the clocks

Usually about five of those happen in every weekender/rapidplay. I bet none of these happen in e2e4 events!