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Thread: CFC Financials

  1. #1
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    Default CFC Financials

    Hey Fred,

    I had a couple questions about the Financial statements, if you can answer. I can't post in the other thread, so I'm not sure if this is the right spot.


    BALANCE SHEET
    1. Deferred membership revenue – Would this number give us an idea of when people purchased subscriptions during the year? Deferred annual - $25199, Paid annual - $43,491, so only $18,292 count toward this year, meaning the majority of members make their purchases/renewals later in the year? 2016 had $23,583 in deferred revenue, what line item is that number represented in the 2017 financials?


    STATEMENT OF REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE
    2. Sales of Books and Equipment – The number in 2017 and 2016 was $5000, down from $5250 in 2015 and $10298 in 2014. Is that a flat-rate 3rd party "advertising" agreement, and we don't sell any equipment internally nor receive commission from sales driven from CFC traffic?

    3. Publication: e-Newsletter – Are there any financial notes for this item? For a large expenditure it's interesting that we can't see how expenses have changed year over year. Why is there a significant drop this year? Less issues and postage, or other?


    NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
    4. Domestic Rating Fees – Is it possible to express these as the types of fees collected? ie, Revenue for regular, active, or junior per player fee, or just raw numbers such as done with the Membership.

    5. Annual Membership Fees – For my membership I paid $48 because I live in Ontario. A foreign player would pay $36, so I presume that $12 was transferred to Ontario Chess Association or why is there a difference in provincial fees? If they are indeed transfers, how are they shown in the financials?


    Thanks for your time and putting this all together.

  2. #2
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    I guess secondly to #3, I noticed in the CFC handbook that PUBLIC RELATIONS COORDINATOR has the following duty:
    "work with the Canadian Chess News editor to and celebrity chess commentators to develop paid content that raises the profile of the e-newsletter and the CFC and chess generally;"

    would it be correct to presume that Canadian Chess News editor paid content is included in the e-newsletter expenses?

  3. #3
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    Hi Brent. I think Bob can give a better answer to most of these, but I'll do what I can.

    Quote Originally Posted by Brent Golem View Post
    Hey Fred,

    I had a couple questions about the Financial statements, if you can answer. I can't post in the other thread, so I'm not sure if this is the right spot.


    BALANCE SHEET
    1. Deferred membership revenue – Would this number give us an idea of when people purchased subscriptions during the year? Deferred annual - $25199, Paid annual - $43,491, so only $18,292 count toward this year, meaning the majority of members make their purchases/renewals later in the year? 2016 had $23,583 in deferred revenue, what line item is that number represented in the 2017 financials?

    Yes. It's accounted for as a net gain or loss for the year in the Notes (see Memberships).

    STATEMENT OF REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE
    2. Sales of Books and Equipment – The number in 2017 and 2016 was $5000, down from $5250 in 2015 and $10298 in 2014. Is that a flat-rate 3rd party "advertising" agreement, and we don't sell any equipment internally nor receive commission from sales driven from CFC traffic?

    We currently have a contract with CMA. We receive $5,000 in order to provide advertising for them (and of course we agree to sell no books or equipment).

    3. Publication: e-Newsletter – Are there any financial notes for this item? For a large expenditure it's interesting that we can't see how expenses have changed year over year. Why is there a significant drop this year? Less issues and postage, or other?

    We have a monthly budget of $1,500 for the Newsletter and Newsfeed. There were less issues this year. There is no postage. By coincidence it came at a good time as we had a huge Olympic line item

    NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
    4. Domestic Rating Fees – Is it possible to express these as the types of fees collected? ie, Revenue for regular, active, or junior per player fee, or just raw numbers such as done with the Membership.

    I assume it could be done, but would obviously require time by the ED

    5. Annual Membership Fees – For my membership I paid $48 because I live in Ontario. A foreign player would pay $36, so I presume that $12 was transferred to Ontario Chess Association or why is there a difference in provincial fees? If they are indeed transfers, how are they shown in the financials?

    Provincial Fees are a straight in and out and do not appear in the Financial statements. Every province sets their own fees

    Thanks for your time and putting this all together.

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    Hi Brent. Anything I can do to try and get someone to take up the Promotions mantle .....

    Quote Originally Posted by Brent Golem View Post
    I guess secondly to #3, I noticed in the CFC handbook that PUBLIC RELATIONS COORDINATOR has the following duty:
    "work with the Canadian Chess News editor to and celebrity chess commentators to develop paid content that raises the profile of the e-newsletter and the CFC and chess generally;"

    This position is "incorrectly" referred to as Publicity Officer in the AGM; I don't believe this function you've quoted was ever actually carried anybody in this position, instead I have listed a couple of ideas on the Incoming Forum under the Nomination for Publicity Officer Thread that we really could use help with.

    would it be correct to presume that Canadian Chess News editor paid content is included in the e-newsletter expenses?

    The original idea was that the Editor would receive about 50% of the monthly budget for himself (for compiling, editing, and formatting) and the remainder for content authors

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    Quote Originally Posted by Fred McKim View Post
    Hi Brent. Anything I can do to try and get someone to take up the Promotions mantle .....
    There are so many moving parts between CFC and other associations, I think it's tough to know where to start promoting the organization. The CFC has 9 "purposes", but I think the most important is number 9: "TO establish and maintain, in co-operation with its membership, a rating system, which shall constitute an official record from time to time, of relative chess ability throughout Canada." It serves as the practical reason members may join the CFC, to be part of the rating system and enjoy "serious" chess. But counting the number of members that are in the system is probably a poor measure for CFC success. The CFC maintains the system, but doesn't directly facilitate rated games.

    I think a better measure would be to look at the number of rated games and tournaments, especially per player or chess club. Then we can see who needs help facilitating rated games. There are a lot of tournaments and clubs building a great over-the-board community, so how can CFC encourage other clubs to adopt some of what's working well. Looking at tournament cross-tables from August 2016 to July 2017 (as far as I could go back), I found the results pretty enlightening. There were 490 tournaments, 64% of which were regular rated. Now, active tournaments should be cheaper to enter and easier to organize, so why are there 2 times more regular tournaments? I would think that should be flipped. There were also 116 Tournament Directors for these tournaments, and 21% of the 490 tournaments are run by only 5 tournament directors. The number of tournament directors seems pretty low considering there are at least 170 chess clubs listed on the chess.ca site. That means approximately 1/3rd of the chess clubs aren't running a tournament or rated game, so where is the incentive for their members to join CFC?

    August 2016 to July 2017 tournaments
    Click image for larger version. 

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    Personally, I think CFC has to focus on building grassroots support for chess, and that starts at the chess club level. I think the easiest entry from on-line to over-the-board is through introduction to OTB at a local chess club. Instead of a campaign to increase members, how about a campaign to increase the number of tournaments held by each club, and correspondingly the number of tournament directors/arbiters? Presumably, each club should be able to handle a standard rated Club Championship and 2 additional one-day active tournaments (even 5-min per play blitz counts towards Active rating). If each club is offering ample opportunity for rated games, then their members may see membership as more worthwhile. Does CFC have a mandate to interact directly with Chess Clubs, or would that be stepping on Provincial Association's toes? I find it interesting that CFC has three main stakeholders (members, clubs, and tournament directors) but only collect fees from 2 of those groups. Why don't chess clubs pay fees to be "official clubs" of the CFC? If chess clubs paid up front fees, I think it would be easier for CFC to offer rating services (ie, free/rebated tournament ratings), training for tournament directors.arbiters, subsidized equipment for clubs, regional tournament support, etc.

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    That's a nice chart Brent, we should attach it to the web site somewhere.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Brent Golem View Post
    There were 490 tournaments, 64% of which were regular rated. Now, active tournaments should be cheaper to enter and easier to organize, so why are there 2 times more regular tournaments?
    While it take less days to finish an active tournament, it is not that popular among adults. Active ratings are worthless for many players. The rating fee is just 50% less. Only juniors players have a huge discount - no CFC membership is needed, and fee is ~0.5$. Kids finish their game quickly too. Thus you see many active kids tournaments, and adults & kids regular ones.

    Does CFC have a mandate to interact directly with Chess Clubs, or would that be stepping on Provincial Association's toes? I find it interesting that CFC has three main stakeholders (members, clubs, and tournament directors) but only collect fees from 2 of those groups. Why don't chess clubs pay fees to be "official clubs" of the CFC? If chess clubs paid up front fees, I think it would be easier for CFC to offer rating services (ie, free/rebated tournament ratings), training for tournament directors.arbiters, subsidized equipment for clubs, regional tournament support, etc.
    There is an option for the club to be affiliated with the CFC - the club would collect CFC memberships and CFC would give some monies back. Our club was on the program. However we deemed it wass not worth time to chase players then to transmit monies to the CFC. We simple enforced them to renew online at chess.ca.

    As for the club list at chess.ca - seems it was not update for quite awhile.
    .*-1

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    Quote Originally Posted by Egidijus Zeromskis View Post
    While it take less days to finish an active tournament, it is not that popular among adults. Active ratings are worthless for many players. The rating fee is just 50% less. Only juniors players have a huge discount - no CFC membership is needed, and fee is ~0.5$. Kids finish their game quickly too. Thus you see many active kids tournaments, and adults & kids regular ones.
    I guess that makes sense. Adults may play blitz and rapid but not care to have them rated. How much revenue does CFC get from rating Active games? If nobody is taking advantage of it except kids, maybe CFC could make the fee $0.50 per player across the board to encourage rated chess in some capacity. How does CFC facilitate standard rated chess outside of tournaments? Do many chess clubs submit week rated cross tables?


    Quote Originally Posted by Egidijus Zeromskis View Post
    There is an option for the club to be affiliated with the CFC - the club would collect CFC memberships and CFC would give some monies back. Our club was on the program. However we deemed it wass not worth time to chase players then to transmit monies to the CFC. We simple enforced them to renew online at chess.ca.

    As for the club list at chess.ca - seems it was not update for quite awhile.
    I guess what I'm thinking is why promote chess clubs that aren't helping CFC meet it's objectives such as helping record relative chess ability throughout Canada. If clubs don't want to run rated games, that fine, but why would CFC direct their web traffic to check those clubs out? I would think CFC would have an annual membership for chess clubs, and in return clubs could submit weekly cross-tables, and get their Club championship tournament rated, and a get subsidy on chess equipment. That way they are promoting rated chess, and CFC can get more OTB games and equipment to places that want it.

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    Every chess club is a good chess club from our point of view whether they are affiliated with the CFC or not.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vladimir Drkulec View Post
    Every chess club is a good chess club from our point of view whether they are affiliated with the CFC or not.
    I think a better idea is to feature clubs that are CFC supporters in the newsletter or newsfeed

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