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1. The CFC is continuing to lose money and is in deep financial trouble. They will need a new loan by September.
**EDITORS NOTE** If the CFC had a nickel for every time that they said they were in financial trouble, they likely would no longer be in financial trouble.
2. CFC finances are still in shambles and a number of accounts remain unresolved. The loss for 2008 is $ 33,251. The loss is less than 2007 but only marginally when you eliminate the $12,490 for roof repairs included in 2007. The highlights are:
Retail sales continue to decline.
Staff travel is up due to my frequent trips to Ottawa.
Magazine costs up.
On the positive side, the 2007 Canadian Open surplus, and the Bunning donation drive.
3. A participation bonus was added to the rating system. This was supposed to attract more players as it will make the ratings go up. Someone forgot to tell the players...
4. OMG, MY NAME IS IN THE GL!!! RIGHT THERE ON PAGE 11!! Oh, sorry..
5. Income from memberships is roughly the same this year as last year.
6. David Lavin seems to be an excellent candidate for CFC President, which means it will never happen...
Net Sales of only $24,000... I'm pretty sure that's NOT worth the time it takes to process them! If you got rid of the office, reduced staff so a part timer at say $20k per year and cut membership fees drastically (but not entirely) you'd have money to spare to use for programs. And rating fees might go up with cheaper memberships (then again they might not, who knows)...
Net Sales of only $24,000... I'm pretty sure that's NOT worth the time it takes to process them! If you got rid of the office, reduced staff so a part timer at say $20k per year and cut membership fees drastically (but not entirely) you'd have money to spare to use for programs. And rating fees might go up with cheaper memberships (then again they might not, who knows)...
Wouldn't you want to repay the Chess Foundation before thinking about cutting membership fees?
Eliminating the annual loss AND paying off the Foundation adds up to more than $60,000. according to the financial statement in that GL. That figure is MORE than the entire amount of Membership Fees for the year.
There are a bunch of tenders the AGM will have to deal with so I would doubt you're going to get aministration for 20 K a year.
The only way I can see to do what you propose is to sell the building and use the proceeds to fund annual loses until the money runs out. That would start with the 30K to pay off the foundation.
I hope the new president can walk on water because between dealing with the governors and turning around the organization it should be trying.
Last edited by Gary Ruben; Sunday, 6th July, 2008, 06:36 PM.
Who says it HAS to be outsourced? It's an option of course.
Obviously the only way the CFC will be able to repay the debt to the Foundation is by selling the building. Or take quite a few years of receiving no income from the Foundation using that to pay the debt back.
Look at the main expenses... building/office expenses and Salary FAR exceed income from ratings and the net from books and equipment. By eliminating the Magazine, assuming for the moment no negative impact on any other business (perhaps not a valid assumption) they've eliminated the deficit going forward.
Who says it HAS to be outsourced? It's an option of course.
Obviously the only way the CFC will be able to repay the debt to the Foundation is by selling the building. Or take quite a few years of receiving no income from the Foundation using that to pay the debt back.
Look at the main expenses... building/office expenses and Salary FAR exceed income from ratings and the net from books and equipment. By eliminating the Magazine, assuming for the moment no negative impact on any other business (perhaps not a valid assumption) they've eliminated the deficit going forward.
The idea behind the foundation is the money would never have be spent. Only the interest on the money would go to the CFC. Do you think the Chess Foundation is fulfilling it's mandate when it lends the federation $30,000.00? That's a big portion of the total assets of the foundation. They can't assume sale of the building because it hasn't been approved by the governors. If they aren't fullfilling the mandate, the trustees should be replaced. I don't think the governors are under any obligation to sell the building to repay the foundation.
Money accumulated is never spent. However, all interest earned from investments is turned over to the Federation treasury at the end of each fiscal year, April 30th.
Regarding your second paragraph, someday the governors will have to decide what they want to do. Asking for those tenders was an indication that was the direction they want to go. Now you're talking a totally different direction. How can people submit tenders when the terms of reference are constantly changing?
My greatest opposition to the 7 straw topic votes was that they undermined the RFP proposal. I was shocked when I saw a former President endorsing the plan.
IMHO the whole RFP was flawed and undermined from the beginning given that they had already approved a contract, and given that the magazine was included in the RFP despite no notice being given to the current contractor that they would no longer be doing the magazine.
You want to give me a rationale for backing the grassroots proposals? If I remember correctly you voted for the Exec's ill-fated plan. I just see everyone running off in different directions with no coherent strategy.
If you don't support the RFP strategy is your intent to abstain on any motions that come out of it?
There WAS a coherant strategy followed by the current Executive and the Restructuring Committee. It was mishandled, yes, as far as communication with the Governors goes, but on the other hand in the past the Governors have not communicated well with the Exec either. I'm still pretty sure that even if it was properly communicated the "anti-reform" bloc would have still voted it down.
I agreed that the grassroots motions in principle were far better than the current state of affairs, although as has been pointed out they don't always make sense on their own (I would never want to eliminate tournament memberships unless actual memberships were dropped to the $15 range at the same time!). They were never originally intended to be so formal I don't think, but for some reason the executive wouldn't just send them out as a straw poll which is like an informal guideline.
I just hope that whatever RFP results there are are not actually voted on at the AGM (30 day rule!) but I remember what happened the last time the AGM was in Quebec (not to say anything bad about Quebec, just a coincidence)...
And just because I don't support the overall strategy of the RFP, given the results if I think it would be best for the CFC to proceed with a plan presented there then I would vote for it. That'll be with a VERY critical eye though.
A lot will depend on the new executive of course, but really if someone like Hal with all his experience and respect from people involved with the CFC can't manage to get things approved, not to mention having some people drag his name through all sorts of mud for no good reason, well a) I'm surprised anyone wants to be President anymore and b) what chance does anyone else have?
It's hard to tell if the Exec strategy was coherent since it was done in secret and presented to the Governors as a fait accompli. Your comment re. Governors not communicating with Exec leaves me puzzled. The exec has their power by delegation from the exec not vice versa. It's hard to say how any vote would have gone after a transparent process. Your guess is as good as mine, given we were on opposite sides of the vote.
The exec has issued the motions as straw polls. The debate about these straw poll votes has only been about whether they were of an emergency issue and therefore deserved the speediness of email. I don't think straw polls are ever of an emergency nature. That said I support abolishing the Governors letters and moving to an electronic method of discussion possibly a discussion board with only governors able to debate and vote and all being able to observe. ie. an electronic parliament. This would be able to have tighter timelines than the antiquated Governors' Letters system.
The large number of governors may be a problem: if nearly everyone was actually involved in the debates (unlike the handful that typically are involved now) there might be so many detours and tangents from the specifics of a topic.
Unfortunately, if you look at many of the motions in the GLs, there is often a glaring lack of background information or research or even facts; often there is just a motion to do "X". There then follows the usual lineup of the regulars on one side or the other of the motion (along with the perpetual abstainers who I guess are trying to remain "active" but neutral...)
The end result is much ado about nothing. Nothing is accomplished. I am not sure speeding up this process is worth it. On the other hand, short of appointing a Executive committee to oversee the CFC (a small distributed dictatorship) and abolishing the Governors, I don't know of a better plan.
I am curious to see the various RFP proposals and the associated analysis; perhaps I will never see all of them - not sure if just the "best" one(s) will be presented at the AGM (I would hope there would be more transparent process than that).
I think Chris mentioned elsewhere that he hoped that such important matters are not put to a 'take it or leave it' vote at the AGM... I think it requires a little more study than that; certainly incoming (new) Governors would not necessarily be in a good position to vote on such an important decision. Sadly, time is of the essence here too - this makes it extra difficult.
Parliament "works" with a larger number and I'm sure we could make it work. I think with immediate give and take that badly worded motions will get massaged into something better.
I don't believe that Governors will see all of the proposals nor do I think we should. The Committee was mandated to make a proposal to the Exec who in turn could choose or not to pass it on to the Governors. There may very well be no proposal since all of the proposals might be found wanting.
Last edited by Ken Craft; Tuesday, 8th July, 2008, 02:40 PM.
Well, I know it can be made to work, but it surely hasn't so far... sorry to be so naturally pessimistic - I am working on that.
I see what you mean about the proposals... I guess I would just like to see the range of proposals (perhaps they cannot be published unless they are accepted - I didn't think of that possibility until now). In any case, I agree that the committee can do their work and we can see what they cough up.
That said I support abolishing the Governors letters and moving to an electronic method of discussion possibly a discussion board with only governors able to debate and vote and all being able to observe. ie. an electronic parliament. This would be able to have tighter timelines than the antiquated Governors' Letters system.
Sounds like an excellent idea. Do you think that such a plan has any possibility of happening?
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