26-07-2012, 01:05 PM
Just a couple of suggestions from me:
I think it might be a good idea to have a ready-made plan in place that is available to everyone who wants to seek funding for Chess. This would include a document to send to MPs/MSPs for government funding; a document to send to businesses for sponsorship; and any other documents to any other untapped potential sources of funding. These could be added to as more ideas are brought forward etc. It seems like a hit-or-miss strategy if lots of different people go to different MPs/MSPs asking for financial assistance and all have different points about different things.
To MPs/MSPs we need to include the educational benefits of Chess: this has to be a high priority in the approach to getting funding. We need to go after funding with a positive approach, and one of the most positive things imo is the benefits to education. I'd even go as far as to say that the war of whether Chess is a sport or a game has been lost as far as the "Chess is a sport" backers go. If it wasn't then where is the money for this sport? Where - in fact - is even the discussion outwith the Chess community of whether it's a sport or not? You can't even convince the whole of the Chess community (myself included) that Chess is a sport. So let's change our strategy - Chess players should be good at that. Let's promote Chess as an educational powerhouse. Ironically this might be even more appealing to the population of potential sources of funding anyway, as one of the things people value more than sporting achievement is the education of their children. Anyone willing to do a bit of research into the exam grades of Chess-playing kids against the average national exam grades? That would be a pretty compelling set of statistics that would be hard to ignore (assuming they were as in favour of Chess as I think they will be).
I think it might be a good idea to have a ready-made plan in place that is available to everyone who wants to seek funding for Chess. This would include a document to send to MPs/MSPs for government funding; a document to send to businesses for sponsorship; and any other documents to any other untapped potential sources of funding. These could be added to as more ideas are brought forward etc. It seems like a hit-or-miss strategy if lots of different people go to different MPs/MSPs asking for financial assistance and all have different points about different things.
To MPs/MSPs we need to include the educational benefits of Chess: this has to be a high priority in the approach to getting funding. We need to go after funding with a positive approach, and one of the most positive things imo is the benefits to education. I'd even go as far as to say that the war of whether Chess is a sport or a game has been lost as far as the "Chess is a sport" backers go. If it wasn't then where is the money for this sport? Where - in fact - is even the discussion outwith the Chess community of whether it's a sport or not? You can't even convince the whole of the Chess community (myself included) that Chess is a sport. So let's change our strategy - Chess players should be good at that. Let's promote Chess as an educational powerhouse. Ironically this might be even more appealing to the population of potential sources of funding anyway, as one of the things people value more than sporting achievement is the education of their children. Anyone willing to do a bit of research into the exam grades of Chess-playing kids against the average national exam grades? That would be a pretty compelling set of statistics that would be hard to ignore (assuming they were as in favour of Chess as I think they will be).