5P. Report on Donation from Saskatchewan Chess Association (MOTION ENCLOSED!!!)

[Bob Gillanders]

The following is the presented motion to be voted on.

Moved Mallon/LeBlanc: The CFC contribute $5506.50 to the Foundation for Fiscal 2012-2013.

There is time for amendments.

No, no. This is not were the consensus has been moving. The concept is that the Saskatchewan donation be used to promote chess in Saskatchewan. The funds should not be going to the Foundation! The funds should be kept in the hands of the CFC, but as a segregated amount, similar to the youth fund. I would also like to see a sunset clause, if funds not used in say 3-5 years, then it goes to general revenues.

Further to Paul's comment regarding amortization of the website costs, with a balanced budget (more or less), the amortization of the website costs means we are recuperating the cash expended from the website, see our cash balance of 27k (see financial statements). The cash balance should be monitored by ED and Treasurer and excess funds sent to the Foundation (in trust) for investment.

[Fred McKim]

No, no. This is not were the consensus has been moving. The concept is that the Saskatchewan donation be used to promote chess in Saskatchewan. The funds should not be going to the Foundation! The funds should be kept in the hands of the CFC, but as a segregated amount, similar to the youth fund. I would also like to see a sunset clause, if funds not used in say 3-5 years, then it goes to general revenues.

Further to Paul's comment regarding amortization of the website costs, with a balanced budget (more or less), the amortization of the website costs means we are recuperating the cash expended from the website, see our cash balance of 27k (see financial statements). The cash balance should be monitored by ED and Treasurer and excess funds sent to the Foundation (in trust) for investment.

It's my understanding from reading the threads that this motion has been put forward. I assume it can be retracted during this discussion period OR someone can put forward an amending motion.

I agree that there needs to be some kind of reckoning of this money so it could be used in the future for chess in SK and yes we should be considering putting the amortized web site money back into the Foundation (CFC portion of the fund) to build up for our next capital expenditure.

[Christopher Mallon]

No, no. This is not were the consensus has been moving. The concept is that the Saskatchewan donation be used to promote chess in Saskatchewan. The funds should not be going to the Foundation! The funds should be kept in the hands of the CFC, but as a segregated amount, similar to the youth fund. I would also like to see a sunset clause, if funds not used in say 3-5 years, then it goes to general revenues.

This is exactly what should NOT happen to them, and this is exactly what putting them into the foundation will avoid. And I'm not sure what posts I'm missing that show this as being some kind of consensus that is being reached...

[Halldor P. Palsson]

Thank you for the report Mr. David Steer.

It can be very hard to find replacements for our organizers/TDs that burn out in the way you describe.

[Pierre Dénommée]

Those funds should be held separately and used to pay the incorporation fees of the new Saskatchewan Chess Association if a serious team wants to create it. The remaining funds should be given back to the new Provincial affiliate.

[Paul Leblanc]

The Foundation can hold funds with conditions such as Pierre describes. The advantage of the Foundation is a return of 4% vs 0% in the CFC bank account.

[Bob Gillanders]

Chris,

The sunset clause I suggested was meant as a motivator to get Saskatchewan organizers to utilize the funds. Without a deadline, often things just don't get done. The flaw in your motion:

Moved Mallon/LeBlanc: The CFC contribute $5506.50 to the Foundation for Fiscal 2012-2013.

is that the intent of my original suggestion, that the funds be used to promote chess in Saskatchewan, will be lost if the funds are parked in the Foundation and forgotten about. Remember, ultimately the Foundation earnings do flow back into CFC general revenues. I believe, yourself and most others do agree with me that this money should be used in Saskatchewan. To ensure that happens, I would like to suggest the following amendment to your motion:

Add: This money will be named the Saskatchewan Fund, and is to be used to promote chess in Saskatchewan once an acceptable plan is approved by the Governors.

Are we agreed?

[Vladimir Drkulec]

Chris,

The sunset clause I suggested was meant as a motivator to get Saskatchewan organizers to utilize the funds. Without a deadline, often things just don't get done. The flaw in your motion:

Moved Mallon/LeBlanc: The CFC contribute $5506.50 to the Foundation for Fiscal 2012-2013.

is that the intent of my original suggestion, that the funds be used to promote chess in Saskatchewan, will be lost if the funds are parked in the Foundation and forgotten about. Remember, ultimately the Foundation earnings do flow back into CFC general revenues. I believe, yourself and most others do agree with me that this money should be used in Saskatchewan. To ensure that happens, I would like to suggest the following amendment to your motion:

Add: This money will be named the Saskatchewan Fund, and is to be used to promote chess in Saskatchewan once an acceptable plan is approved by the Governors.

Are we agreed?

Obviously the people in Saskatchewan don't see any prospect of this happening in any reasonable time frame or else they would have held on to the funds. Promoting chess is a very broad catch phrase which often describe complete and utter wastes of money that do nothing to really promote chess.

We do have to look on this situation as a symptom that what we are doing is not working (at least in Saskatchewan and a number of other parts of the country). This is a wake up call and calling something the Saskatchewan fund may make us feel better for a moment but sometimes it is better to feel bad and do some introspection and find a way to turn around a bad situation by facing reality and taking some hard steps that need to be taken including admitting that we need to try something different.

We did something similar to what Saskatchewan is doing now in Windsor many years ago when we wound up the Windsor Chess Association which put on a Canadian Open and held many local CFC rated chess events in the early to mid 1990s. Eventually people got tired of the work of raising money to be spent on people who were behaving in a less than constructive manner. We wound it up and spent the money on various chess projects (including a donation to the Olympiad fund if I recall correctly) and then the individuals involved (including me) went into chess hibernation for at least ten years. When I came back in 2007 the CFC was a shadow of its former self.

I think that we should put the money in the foundation and if residents of Saskatchewan approach us with some worthy chess initiatives we should remember this money and look favourably upon initiatives that make sense. I don't like the idea of the funds going into general revenues in any way, shape or form. The reality is that whether you call it the Saskatchewan fund or anything else these funds are going to remain in the foundation until such time as we find a way of doing things differently.

[Christopher Mallon]

Personally I'd like to see provincial accounts as part of the Foundation and I plan to talk to the Foundation people about that after the AGM. The CFC should be collecting the 15% of life membership fees provincial portion and putting it into a provincial account.

Now, if we want to go with provincial accounts and have this 5600 be in the SK account and simply accumulate value until such time as there is a new SCA at which point they can start getting the interest payouts, I wouldn't have a problem with that, but I will object strenuously to anything that would leave this money easily accessible. We've already had enough problems in Canadian chess with easily accessible money - all it takes is the wrong person to come around...

[David Steer]

I am absolutely delighted to inform the CFC that Robert Sasata, Saskatchewan's strongest player and its unofficial ambassador, has agreed to take over as Governor for SK. Robert has young kids who are chess players and he tells me that he has decided to get back to organizing events so that they might make progress. I post this here because I am almost certain that he will have strong opinions about how the money should be used. I'll report back when I hear more from him.