7 CFC Restructuring Motions Submitted by 7 Governors - Grassroots Campaign - Pt. I

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • 7 CFC Restructuring Motions Submitted by 7 Governors - Grassroots Campaign - Pt. I

    Tonight 7 Governors brought 7 CFC Restructuring motions to the Governors for a " straw vote ", on behalf of the Grassroots Campaign. Submitted with the motions was the following " Backgrounder ":

    “ Backgrounder “ to 7 CFC Restructuring Motions for Straw Vote June 24, 2008
    Prepared by Bob Armstrong, CFC Life Member, Coordinator of Grassroots Campaign

    Hi to All Outgoing CFC Governors:

    Introduction

    On June 15, a grassroots group, coordinated by me, proposed a CFC restructuring package called the CFC Presidential Campaign Plan of Action ( Revision 4B ). At that date, it had been endorsed by 15 CFC members and former members ( now up to 19 – see list of endorsers at bottom of this backgrounder ). It was published in the Scarborough Community of Toronto Chess News & Views, of June 15. It was also posted on June 15 on both ChessTalk websites and the Ottawa Chess Club message board for public perusal and comment. As of June 22, there had been over 1600 views of this initial version of the platform, and a over 70 replies were generated. We indicated that we intended to bring the platform before the Governors for a straw vote. But given the results of the process the last time a complete package of restructuring was presented to the Governors, we have decided that it is best to canvas the views of the Governors on the restructuring issues, independently of each other – that way a Governor who may object to one individual item, could still vote for all 6 other items, and not have to vote down the whole package, leaving us with no indication of what s/he might have accepted.
    Since then our items # 5 and # 7 underwent some minor revision, while keeping the substance of the original platform.

    The 7 Motions & Commentary

    So we set out below 7 individual motions, each representing one item of our revised platform. And we are proposing a non-binding “ straw vote “ on these motions. This way, the outgoing Governors can give the incoming Governors some guidance as to their views on each of the restructuring issues, without binding their hands.
    Here are the 7 motions ( 7 Governors are involved in bringing these motions ), along with a short commentary on each to flesh them out a bit to help with debate among the Governors on the motions:

    Motion # 1 – Moved – Barry Thorvardson; Seconded – Cesary Posylek : Item 1 set out below is acceptable.
    “ 1. Core Roles: CFC will continue its role re FIDE, international and national events, a national rating system, and a website with membership info, ratings, membership sales, tournament announcements, chess club lists, and news submitted by members (highlights of recent tournament, etc.). Maintenance of these functions will be the responsibility of the Executive Director.”
    Commentary: We did not try to put into the platform everything the CFC is doing now, or will continue to do. We wanted a clean minimalist platform, that fundamentally dealt with restructuring issues. Therefore, for example, there is nothing about CFC promoting chess here. Promoting chess, which includes renewing memberships and growing the membership, is a main goal of the CFC, and our platform does not affect that ( I can advise we had something in the platform in an earlier version, but in trying to trim it down, and reduce the targets, we deleted it - but this doesn't mean we don't still fully support it as a main goal of the CFC ). For the purposes of this motion, it is assumed the ED functions, website and rating system will stay in-house ( though outsourcing the website or rating system is not necessarily excluded ).

    Motion # 2 – Moved – Michael Barron; Seconded – Barry Thorvardson: Item 2 set out below is acceptable.
    “ 2. CFC Revenue: CFC revenues to come from memberships, rating fees, investments and donations. With the reduced scope of operation, costs for the organization should be less, and it may be possible to reduce annual membership fees and/or rating fees. “
    Commentary : We feel that reducing the annual membership in particular should be a priority, if financially feasible after restructuring, since the magazine will no longer be a membership benefit. But we could not definitely promise it until we see our surplus after restructuring. We have also left open the possibility of lowering the rating fee. But some have also suggested that a modest raising of the rating fee might allow a further reduction in the annual membership fee, and this is still possible under this motion.

    Motion # 3 – Moved – Barry Thorvardson; Seconded – Chris Mallon: Item 3 set out below is acceptable.
    “ 3. CFC Membership: CFC to eliminate tournament memberships – if you want to play in a CFC tournament, you must purchase an annual membership. To encourage individuals to become members, first time CFC members will be given a 40% fee reduction for their first year. “
    Commentary: We must support our organization by membership and annual membership fee, if we want it to exist. CFC must have sustainable revenue. Community input has asked for numbers of special case exemptions/partial exemptions for annual memberships. We wanted to make clear that tournament memberships must go, but this issue can be fine-tuned at the time of implementation if special cases seem warranted. Organizers have told us that the annual CFC membership is a hindrance to getting first time tournament players to sign up for tournaments, so our 40% reduction for first-time CFC’ers attempts to ameliorate this difficulty.

    [ continued in Pt. II ]

  • #2
    Re: 7 CFC Restructuring Motions Submitted by 7 Governors - Grassroots Campaign - Pt.2

    [ continued from Pt. I above ]

    Motion # 4 – Moved – Michael Barron; Seconded – Mark Dutton: Item 4 set out below is acceptable.
    “ 4. Chess Canada: CFC will terminate the magazine contract with TKS immediately (with the May 2008 issue being the last issue of the magazine). “
    Commentary: A 1000 annual adult member small non-profit organization cannot afford a members’ magazine like CFC has been producing ( see losses over last three years ), nor an online version. But this motion does not exclude the possibility of CFC starting an e-mail bulletin to keep in regular contact with the membership ( we simply didn’t want to add it into the platform at this time ). Such e-bulletins can be cheaply produced, and with CFC maintaining a good “ Canadian News “ website, content for the e-bulletin should be relatively easy to deal with.

    Motion # 5 – Moved – Michael Barron; Seconded – Gary Gladstone: Item 5 set out below is acceptable.
    “ 5. Retail Business: Sell off the inventory of the retail business; it will be closed entirely. An alternative but small source of revenue could be established through a commission arrangement with other retailers, such as CMA or Amazon.
    Commentary: Given today’s competition, and the resources required to carry on an efficient retail operation, we feel CFC should get out of the business. We can use the ED hours to promote chess, including growing membership. But we are amenable to some type of commission arrangement with someone like CMA or Amazon.

    Motion # 6 – Moved – Michael Barron; Seconded – Barry Thorvardson: Item 6 set out below is acceptable.
    “ 6. CFC Condominium Office: The current CFC office would be placed for sale. The office would then be run out of either a small rental space or a home office. “
    Commentary: Without the retail operation, the building is not needed, and it has significant costs to carry it and maintain it. The money invested can generate income for CFC. And if the ED operates out of a home office, no office rental either would be required.

    Motion # 7 – Moved – Michael Barron; Seconded – Nava Starr: Item 7 set out below is acceptable.
    “ 7. CFC Staffing: In light of the reduced business activities of the CFC office (no retail sales and no print magazine), the Executive Committee would undertake a review of the Executive Director and Assistant positions and would recommend appropriate staffing changes if required. This could be from going to part-time, up to complete eliminating of the paid staff, and performing all CFC activities by volunteers. “
    Commentary: This item is necessary because we must live within our financial means in future. If, which we don’t expect, after restructuring, there is still a deficit, then we wanted to be able to downsize staff to bring us on budget. If however, after restructuring, we have a surplus even with existing staff expenses, which we do expect, then the Executive would be free to determine whether to cut staff, or eliminate staff, to generate more of a surplus, or whether to keep staff hours in order to carry out new tasks with the freed up hours due to restructuring.

    Voting

    We hope the Governors will see these motions and the straw vote process as helpful to moving the CFC further along the path of restructuring, giving for the first time an indication of Governor preferences on most of the restructuring issues.
    We would request that these motions be brought on ASAP by the Executive, by e-mail discussion and vote, before the CFC AGM, with a deadline for voting such that the voting results will be available to the July CFC Outgoing Governors’ AGM meeting This will then allow the outgoing Governors to make any relevant motions they may wish to at that AGM, and it will give an indication of outgoing Governor preferences to the incoming Governors’ AGM meeting.

    Rationale for an Immediate E-mail Discussion/Vote

    I was asked on ChessTalk by Governor Ken Craft why I hoped the Executive would direct this vote as the Grassroots Group has requested. I answered as follows:

    “ Hi Ken:

    We do not know when the Committee will make its recommendations, and this is a first opportunity this year for the Governors to vote on restructuring issues one by one.

    Also, this will be a " straw vote " only, and so will not be binding, and so doesn't conflict with the work of the RFP Committee.

    Lastly, the Committee is not the Governors. This will allow the outgoing Governors as a majority to give some non-binding guidance to the incoming Governors.

    We hope the Executive will see it this way.

    Bob “

    We do hope the Executive will see it this way, and that you all will make it known to the Executive that you do want the opportunity to debate these restructuring issues ASAP, which these motions allow.
    Thank you for considering our presentation.

    List of Endorsers ( as of June 19)

    Bob Armstrong – CFC Life Member/former chess club executive
    Chris Mallon – past CFC President/ current OCA President
    Steve Karpik – CFC member/chess club executive
    Rick Garel – CFC member/chess club executive
    Caesar Posylek – CFC Governor/ chess club executive
    Kerry Liles – incoming CFC Governor/ chess club executive/ OCA Executive
    Jerry Kitich – CFC member/former chess club executive
    Dave Broughton – former CFC Governor and Executive / former OCA Director/ former
    CFC member
    Ken Kurkowski – CFC member
    Frank Dixon – former CFC Governor/ tournament director/tournament organizer/ former
    chess club executive.
    John Brown – CFC member/ tournament organizer/ chess club executive
    Vlad Dobrich – tournament director/ tournament organizer/ chess club executive/ former
    CFC member
    Doug Gillis – CFC Member
    Tyler Longo – CFC Member
    Jim Roe – CFC Member
    Luke Peristy – CFC Member
    Dinesh Dattani – CFC Member
    Pino Verde – CFC Member
    Hans Jung - CFC and OCA life member, former CFC governor, former CFC executive,
    former editor Chess Canada, chess club executive, chess coordinator City of
    Kitchener, tournament director, tournament organizer, chess promoter.

    The Grassroots Campaign urges you to contact your local Governors, and ask them to let the Executive know they want these motion put to an immediate e-mail discussion/vote. And e-mail the CFC office as well to let them know you want this as well. Thanks to all who've helped out on this campaign.

    Bob

    Comment


    • #3
      The road to hell is paved with good intentions.....

      While the individual points all have merit, and may be the correct solution, the process is fundmentally flawed. If this restructuring plan were to succeed, it would succeed by accident, not by intent.

      A plan that doesn't start with the numbers is no plan at all. Who will implement these action items? Who willl manage the consequences of these action items? What will be the financial consequences?

      The CFC has muddled through for over 25 years without a business plan of any kind. The consequences are now clear. There is fundamentally no difference between the approach you are taking and the approach taken by the current execuitive.

      Only the words have changed.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: The Plan is Doable and Beneficial

        Hi David:

        1. The plan is clear from the restructuring items, and it is a major restructuring.

        2. The numbers work - revenue will remain the same ( a bit more because of the investment of the sale proceeds from the building; retail was a net loser and so must go ); expenses are being trimmed to the bone. A surplus will result, even with the expenses left.

        3. The Governors run the CFC. They will implement the restructuring, through guiding the new Executive elected at the AGM.

        4. This is a solution to the muddling along of recent years.

        Bob

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: The Plan is Doable and Beneficial

          Originally posted by Bob Armstrong View Post
          2. The numbers work - revenue will remain the same ( a bit more because of the investment of the sale proceeds from the building; retail was a net loser and so must go ); expenses are being trimmed to the bone. A surplus will result, even with the expenses left.
          I haven't seen any hard numbers supporting this. Does anyone have a spreadsheet or document to show the projected revenues and expenses under the proposed changes?

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: The Plan is Doable and Beneficial

            Originally posted by Garland Best View Post
            I haven't seen any hard numbers supporting this. Does anyone have a spreadsheet or document to show the projected revenues and expenses under the proposed changes?
            It's not too hard to figure out on a ballpark basis. If they clear 225,000. on the building interest revenue will likely be around 10,000. per year. They get around 4800 a year from the foundation. For the sake of argument around 50,000 from memberships and whatever total for the ratings. Maybe $10,000 but this is a complete guess. On top of this there are donations.

            It should be possible to run a small stripped down Federation like the CFC on that kind of total.
            Gary Ruben
            CC - IA and SIM

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.....

              Originally posted by David Lavin View Post
              The CFC has muddled through for over 25 years without a business plan of any kind. The consequences are now clear. There is fundamentally no difference between the approach you are taking and the approach taken by the current execuitive.

              Only the words have changed.

              Would you still run for President with an agenda like that? I think a solid endorsement from the governors on those proposals would be an indication that's the direction they wish to go.
              Gary Ruben
              CC - IA and SIM

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: The Plan is Doable and Beneficial

                I think ratings are more like $20,000 but I could be wrong.
                Christopher Mallon
                FIDE Arbiter

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: The Plan is Doable and Beneficial

                  Originally posted by Christopher Mallon View Post
                  I think ratings are more like $20,000 but I could be wrong.
                  Fair enough. 1,800 members so an average of roughly 4 events a year at 3.00 per rated event.

                  Like I wrote, it's ballpark but the range I would expect.
                  Gary Ruben
                  CC - IA and SIM

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X