08C. Fees for YCC

[Fred McKim]

One of the main ways for players to qualify for the CYCC is through the Regional YCC tournaments.

In order to qualify as a YCC, the tournament has to submit a YCC fee of $1.50 per player up to a maximum of $400.

I would like to make a motion to increase these amounts to $3 per player up to a maximum of $500 - again depending on feedback.

[Vlad Rekhson]

What is the reason for such a significant increase? It seems like $1.50 is already 3 times more than what is charged for a regular junior event.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I have mixed feelings on this. I think the point of the YCC's is to drum up interest in CYCC and WYCC/WCCC and not necessarily to generate more money for the youth fund. The splitting of the WYCC into WYCC and WCCC has created additional costs as we usually have additional coaching costs and additional HOD costs. We have also begun to partially fund other tournaments like NAYCC and U16 Olympiad from the youth fund though I am not sure that this is sustainable particularly in a year where we have a small CYCC.

[Fred McKim]

What is the reason for such a significant increase? It seems like $1.50 is already 3 times more than what is charged for a regular junior event.

I think as Vlad has explained the Youth Fund funding is always very tight. This year we were able to give a small amount to the NAYCC contingent for the first time (our biggest contingent ever).

[Vladimir Drkulec]

I think as Vlad has explained the Youth Fund funding is always very tight. This year we were able to give a small amount to the NAYCC contingent for the first time (our biggest contingent ever).

While I have only good things to say about the Canadian contingent and NAYCC Canada's HOD Victoria Doknjas I do feel that the actions of the NAYCC organizers made a mockery of our commitment to this tournament.

[Michael Lo]

I have mixed feelings on this. I think the point of the YCC's is to drum up interest in CYCC and WYCC/WCCC and not necessarily to generate more money for the youth fund. The splitting of the WYCC into WYCC and WCCC has created additional costs as we usually have additional coaching costs and additional HOD costs. We have also begun to partially fund other tournaments like NAYCC and U16 Olympiad from the youth fund though I am not sure that this is sustainable particularly in a year where we have a small CYCC.

Do we have a financial report on the Youth Fund? We are looking at a 100% increase of the YCC fee. Some solid figures to clarify the need would help. For example, how much "additional coaching costs" and "additional HOD costs"? How small a CYCC will make the fund not sustainable. What is the current balance of the fund?

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Do we have a financial report on the Youth Fund? We are looking at a 100% increase of the YCC fee. Some solid figures to clarify the need would help. For example, how much "additional coaching costs" and "additional HOD costs"? How small a CYCC will make the fund not sustainable. What is the current balance of the fund?

Financials should be posted shortly.

A coach who is not a FIDE trainer costs about four to five thousand depending on the destination. A coach who is a FIDE trainer much less because he gets free room and board from the organizers and then the cost is the honorarium and the plane trip. The bad news is that there are only about half a dozen Canadians that have current FIDE trainer licenses or lesser licenses which are still valid to receive the team captain food and lodging allowances from organizers.

Last year we had approximately $39,000 from the Windsor CYCC plus an extra payment of $5000 from Caesars Windsor to the youth fund. The balance in the youth fund at the end of last fiscal year was $5037. It would have been zero plus or minus $37 if we had not gotten a cheque from Caesars WIndsor.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

From my point of view it makes more sense to limit the players that actually incur the expenses to the CFC at the WYCC/WCCC level and perhaps increase those fees to extra players to more realistically cover the costs of their participation. Because of the short time lines this year the players did not go through the normal vetting by the executive that they usally do. Had they done so we probably would have said no to a few of them.

[Hal Bond]

Roughly once per month I meet with our Executive Director to sign cheques. The loudest single message that I receive concerns the youth tournaments of all stripes. They are a huge strain on Bob's available time. A typical youth event, which requires no membership and generates $.50 per player, costs us money to simply rate. The majority of the kids are one time players. This fee structure was originally designed to compete with CMA, which does not have a membership fee and was rating events for a similar fee at the time. I realize there is a promotional angle to this strategy but a review is in order.

If the Youth Fund paid its fair share of CFC overheads we would have much less to devote to the international youth programs which are increasingly popular and are only becoming more expensive. The YCC's are grossly underpriced IMHO. The CMA Chess Challenge, which qualifies players to a one day provincial championship, charges $4-$5 to its organizers. I believe Fred's proposal is more than reasonable.

[Pierre Dénommée]

Financials should be posted shortly.

A coach who is not a FIDE trainer costs about four to five thousand depending on the destination. A coach who is a FIDE trainer much less because he gets free room and board from the organizers and then the cost is the honorarium and the plane trip. The bad news is that there are only about half a dozen Canadians that have current FIDE trainer licenses or lesser licenses which are still valid to receive the team captain food and lodging allowances from organizers.


Being a Sector Arbiter at the WYCC (Youths and Cadets) and at the World School Championship would be beneficial for an arbiter advancement but I have noticed that we almost never send any arbiter to those events. Actually, no FIDE opportunities are ever advertised on the CFC web site contrary to many other countries who systematically announces all FIDE opportunities to all their arbiters. Is there any cost to the CFC for sending Canadian IA abroad?

This lack of transparency is annoying, I am considering moving a motion to make it mandatory to post all opportunities for arbiters at FIDE competitions.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Being a Sector Arbiter at the WYCC (Youths and Cadets) and at the World School Championship would be beneficial for an arbiter advancement but I have noticed that we almost never send any arbiter to those events. Actually, no FIDE opportunities are ever advertised on the CFC web site contrary to many other countries who systematically announces all FIDE opportunities to all their arbiters. Is there any cost to the CFC for sending Canadian IA abroad?

This lack of transparency is annoying, I am considering moving a motion to make it mandatory to post all opportunities for arbiters at FIDE competitions.

What do you mean by "announce all FIDE opportunities"? I, Bob, Lyle (sometimes) and Hal (almost always) probably get announcements of tournaments several times a week often in languages we don't even read. Thankfully Google Translate usually helps in these situations. Where Canadians get such opportunities it is usually by contacting the organizers or having a network of contacts. I have never seen an announcement which called for IA's.

All of these tournaments will typically appear on the FIDE calendar with links to the announcements that we get. Keeping everyone informed of every tournament that crosses our emails would be an hour or two a day job. This is not a realistic demand on anyone's time when this information is available on FIDE's site on the tournament calendar.

[Pierre Dénommée]

What do you mean by "announce all FIDE opportunities"? I, Bob, Lyle (sometimes) and Hal (almost always) probably get announcements of tournaments several times a week often in languages we don't even read. Thankfully Google Translate usually helps in these situations. Where Canadians get such opportunities it is usually by contacting the organizers or having a network of contacts. I have never seen an announcement which called for IA's.

All of these tournaments will typically appear on the FIDE calendar with links to the announcements that we get. Keeping everyone informed of every tournament that crosses our emails would be an hour or two a day job. This is not a realistic demand on anyone's time when this information is available on FIDE's site on the tournament calendar.

There is no need to be informed on every tournament, only on the three that I have mentioned. FIDE organises those and often send request to Federations as they did in some Olympiads. I did see those request for arbiters on foreign Federations web sites but I never saw them on our site. For FIDE competitions, you normally want to pass through your own Federation to apply for arbiters' positions because those assignments requires the consent of the CFC.

[Bob Gillanders]

Roughly once per month I meet with our Executive Director to sign cheques. The loudest single message that I receive concerns the youth tournaments of all stripes. They are a huge strain on Bob's available time. A typical youth event, which requires no membership and generates $.50 per player, costs us money to simply rate. The majority of the kids are one time players. This fee structure was originally designed to compete with CMA, which does not have a membership fee and was rating events for a similar fee at the time. I realize there is a promotional angle to this strategy but a review is in order.

If the Youth Fund paid its fair share of CFC overheads we would have much less to devote to the international youth programs which are increasingly popular and are only becoming more expensive. The YCC's are grossly underpriced IMHO. The CMA Chess Challenge, which qualifies players to a one day provincial championship, charges $4-$5 to its organizers. I believe Fred's proposal is more than reasonable.

Thanks Hal, well stated. The CYCC and qualifying system has been a huge success story. While I run a junior club and qualifiers myself and don't wish to jeopardize the program, can the parents afford to share a greater portion of the costs? Absolutely.

To look at the issue from another angle:

Funds to send juniors to international events come primarily from the CYCC ($38,325) entry fees, and very little from qualifier fees ($3,213) for fiscal 2017. If we have a poor turnout for the CYCC, trouble. More funding from qualifier fees will strengthen the program.

[Lyle Craver]

There's no question there are a lot of FIDE-related e-mails (4 this morning which is a bit below averageO. Most of the time I check to ensure Hal's on the list and if there's something that directly relates on an individual organizer forward it on. I do read nearly all of them (and most are in English though as Vlad says by no means all).

The financial basis of the CYCC always was that lower level events were supposed to provide travel costs for the higher level events with CYCC funds used to fund travel to WYCC. What has happened is that there are a lot more international events than was the case 10 and 20 years ago. I have always had strong reservations about allowing well-heeled parents to basically buy their kids' way into WYCC and other events - but I do understand the financial basis for it. The difference then and now is that then funds requests were ONLY coming for CYCC/WYCC events whereas this is not now the case.

I once had a junior coordinator ready to punch me when I said "the true test of the worth of the junior program will be 10 years from now how many of these kids are still active in chess". I then listed the kids that graduated from the junior program of my day - about a dozen players now of expert strength and higher from the Vancouver area (not all of which still in Vancouver but active elsewhere) plus myself (NOT an expert or higher but definitely active!) Believed it then and still do.

The rating fee break we give juniors is an investment in tomorrow - it's certainly insufficient to fund junior events now.

I have never seen a request for IAs either and as one you can be assured I'm personally interested. Vancouver tends to be deepest Siberia with respect to FIDE opportunities!