08C. Fees for YCC

[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!

[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.