5A. Discussion Items - 4. CFC and FQE agreement update

[Vladimir Drkulec]

The FQE has put forward a proposal with respect to the working agreement with the CFC. I would caution the voting members to maintain decorum in this discussion.





2) Gentleman’s Agreement between CFC & FQE




- The Agreement becomes yearly as of January 1st 2016


- With regards to the period running from August 1st to December 31st 2015 (i.e. 5 months) FQE will pay the CFC « pro rata temporis » a sum of $2500 ($6000 x 5/12).


- The underlying rationale is that FQE has experienced financial losses for the past 3 years and therefore its Board has decided it was appropriate governance to cut in half the $6000 contribution to CFC.


- To compensate the difference, FQE will forego the $2000 support grant awarded to last year Canadian Open organizer.


- To further compensate, FQE proposes to offer to the CFC the accomplishment of some Administrative Tasks still to be discussed (TBD). It is conceivable that this would be a first step toward further cooperation. (TBD)


Best regards,


Bernard Labadie


Richard Bérubé

[Aris Marghetis]

Sorry, but I don't get what's really happening here. Was the current agreement for $6000 per year, or $12000, or ... also, is the FQE unilaterally terminating the current agreement, and we only have 2 weeks to determine all of the TBDs? Until this correspondence, was the CFC expecting the current agreement to be honoured until August?

[Fred McKim]

Sorry, but I don't get what's really happening here. Was the current agreement for $6000 per year, or $12000, or ... also, is the FQE unilaterally terminating the current agreement, and we only have 2 weeks to determine all of the TBDs? Until this correspondence, was the CFC expecting the current agreement to be honoured until August?

I believe our agreement was for 3 years (at $6K per year). They are paying us for 5 post-agreement months at the going rate. As of Jan 1 there will be no agreement in place. I would think the pressure would be on them to come to an agreement with us, or revert back to the same "deal" as everyone else.

[Aris Marghetis]

I believe our agreement was for 3 years (at $6K per year). They are paying us for 5 post-agreement months at the going rate. As of Jan 1 there will be no agreement in place. I would think the pressure would be on them to come to an agreement with us, or revert back to the same "deal" as everyone else.

Hi Fred, thanks.

For some reason, it resonates with me that the FQE is paying for 5 MORE months (as opposed to cutting the agreement 7 months short). I hope this can be worked out soon.

[Fred McKim]

Hi Fred, thanks.

For some reason, it resonates with me that the FQE is paying for 5 MORE months (as opposed to cutting the agreement 7 months short). I hope this can be worked out soon.

Yes. We had been operating on good faith after the 3 year deal terminated.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

No, the current agreement expired last August. The agreement was in limbo for a time. I think that this proposal is reasonable. They will pay us under the old agreement until the end of December. They have proposed a reduction to $3,000 in the payment for the following year and the agreement will be a year to year arrangement. This will likely come in the form of services and not cash. The FQE has been losing money for some time now and simply can't afford the $6000 payment at this time. Now they propose in the event that they hold the Canadian Open that $2000 of those services would be for holding the Canadian Open. I am not particularly in favour of doing that given that there is another Canadian Open bid that does not cost the CFC $2000 but I have no doubt that we can find at least $3000 worth of services that the FQE could do for us which would free up our Executive Director to do other things which can have a higher impact on our bottom line. It is even possible that we could find more things for them to do which would make our office much more efficient and in that case there might be a cash payment from the CFC to the FQE. My suggestion would be that after some discussion that we work something out along similar lines to this proposal for this coming year and perhaps strike a committee to look at the whole question for next year (January 1st, 2017) when the agreement comes up for renewal. From my point of view it is more important for us to continue the working arrangement where we share our respective pool of players and everyone in Canada feels like they are on the same team. We get significant rating fees from tournaments in Quebec. The $3000 difference will not have a huge impact on us beyond making our surplus a bit lower this year. We have been living within our means the last few years in the fear that the economic situation might become worse. Those that think this arrangement is not fair can work out why its not fair and perhaps work out an economic solution that makes more sense for next year. Part of their mandate might be to articulate what we do to earn the money that is sent to us or the benefits that the CFC offers to its members.

The thing that I have noticed with the situation with bidding for events is that we can have far more impact spending a few hours talking to people in the community than we have by sitting behind our computers and fighting over table scraps. People will help us if we show them how they can benefit by working with us. Lets stop acting small and live a little larger. That is one thing I have learned from working with the Windsor group. They don't know that certain things just aren't done and can't work and so they go out and do it and then we can remove one more thing off the list of things that can't be done.

[Garland Best]

Let's open a dialog then, regarding services that can be performed by the FQE. Off the top of my head possible activities include:

1) Updating ratings, possibly improving our system for entering event results.
2) Managing/improving the website.
3) Promotion on Facebook, Twitter.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Let's open a dialog then, regarding services that can be performed by the FQE. Off the top of my head possible activities include:

1) Updating ratings, possibly improving our system for entering event results.
2) Managing/improving the website.
3) Promotion on Facebook, Twitter.

I am working on number 3 and 2. The critical want that Bob identified in the office was a website where we could keep track of upcoming tournaments in English and French even if that is on the FQE website with a link from the CFC website. At the moment, the portion of the website that does this is slightly broken (what else is new?).

[Richard Bérubé]

New Gentlemen’s Agreement CFC-FQE offer

Term = 1 year, starting January 1st, 2016

Disbursement = $ 3000,00

Services = to be discussed.

These could include a variety of services such as:
Phone use, Internet server sharing, filing space and warehousing availability, translation and insurance capacity.

Ideally, this transition year would be put to good use to define a more lasting and mutually beneficial Agreement, along the lines of the Request for proposal (RFP) discussed by our great predecessors some years ago.

Bernard Labadie
President FQE

Richard Bérubé
DG FQE

[Vladimir Drkulec]

What do you mean by insurance capacity?

[Félix Dumont]

Not sure how that would extend to the CFC, but the FQE has very good insurance (I think they are available to all members of the Quebec Leisure and sports association). What is great about it is that affiliated clubs are also covered. So, for instance the McGill Chess club pays something like $30 a year to the FQE to be affiliated and in exchange, has access to all its insurance coverage in case something goes wrong.

I don't know if the CFC has insurance at all, but maybe there is a way to share the insurance coverage as the FQE does with its clubs. Perhaps Richard knows more about that.

[Vladimir Drkulec]

That is very interesting. I think this is a very good start.

We will have more conversations. I think it would be a tragedy if the FQE and CFC didn't continue to cooperate.

[Valer Eugen Demian]

That is very interesting. I think this is a very good start.

We will have more conversations. I think it would be a tragedy if the FQE and CFC didn't continue to cooperate.

So far everyone wants cooperation; let's keep it going and see how we can move forward for mutual benefit!

[Lyle Craver]

Felix with respect to insurance are you discussing liability insurance (somebody slips and falls at a major event where the affiliate is the organizer) or are you talking about D&O (which is aimed at protecting organization officers who litigants feel have done something violating their rights)? I've been on non-profit boards which have carried both types (for instance I was part of a group that organized a Vancouver 2010 Olympic Celebration site and carried $5 million liability insurance - it was basically a polite mob at that site).

The two are quite different - and generally speaking in common law Directors of a non-profit are safe as long as it's relating taken to a decision in good faith but just because you are safe from liability doesn't mean you are safe from the costs of litigation to defend any such suit and those costs can be huge which is primarily what "D&O insurance" is about covering.

[Félix Dumont]

Lyle, I know it includes liability insurance, but am not quite sure about D&O. Fortunately, I never had to use either :)

[Lyle Craver]

Lyle, I know it includes liability insurance, but am not quite sure about D&O. Fortunately, I never had to use either :)

Well no - the whole point of insurance is that you HOPE not to need to have it!

The serious answer is of course that it's for the major events and it's something major sponsors expect to see in regional and national events. Your standard weekend swiss on the other hand not so much.