27-07-2012, 06:03 PM
I think Jonny's absolutely right. From the point of view of a (non chess-playing) government minister or civil servant trying to handle many calls on a continually dwindling budget (thanks George!), chess is a minority pursuit with limited appeal. I know - as we all do - the facts on how many of the population plays and knows chess, and I agree that there's a huge potential audience out there, but the number of genuinely committed players (adult at least; it'll be interesting to see how well the increased numbers we've seen in junior chess over recent seasons feed into the adult game; personally I feel that the key challenge now facing Chess Scotland is to prompt more of these guys to stick with the game as they reach the stage where they start dealing with examinations and social lives) who participate on a regular basis compares unfavourably to an average Partick Thistle home gate. And they're going to think 'well, if they want to send their kids to this event that's great; we already fund the national organisation to a reasonable extent, there's no spare money, open the next email'.
We all know that chess is a brilliant thing to do, and ideally we'll be able to persuade our elected representatives of that (though, on that note, I agree with Andrew that stressing the educational benefits is likely to prove a much more persuasive tactic than emphasising sporting merits; the 'is-chess-a-sport' debate is one we've had far too many times here to reiterate, but for the general public in this country it certainly isn't seen as such, whereas 'this will help kids do better at school' is extremely persuasive), but there are other avenues of sponsorship which may well be more realistic at present. Businesses are always keen to do stuff which makes them look socially responsible, and quite large sums of money can sometimes seem like inconsequential pocket change to the right people.
Not that emailing your MSPs is going to hurt, but I'm not sure it would help either. In reference to Andrew's idea of a ready-made-plan - I know it's been discussed a few times in one sense or another over the years, but does anyone with some Chess Scotland role have specific responsibility for fundraising?
We all know that chess is a brilliant thing to do, and ideally we'll be able to persuade our elected representatives of that (though, on that note, I agree with Andrew that stressing the educational benefits is likely to prove a much more persuasive tactic than emphasising sporting merits; the 'is-chess-a-sport' debate is one we've had far too many times here to reiterate, but for the general public in this country it certainly isn't seen as such, whereas 'this will help kids do better at school' is extremely persuasive), but there are other avenues of sponsorship which may well be more realistic at present. Businesses are always keen to do stuff which makes them look socially responsible, and quite large sums of money can sometimes seem like inconsequential pocket change to the right people.
Not that emailing your MSPs is going to hurt, but I'm not sure it would help either. In reference to Andrew's idea of a ready-made-plan - I know it's been discussed a few times in one sense or another over the years, but does anyone with some Chess Scotland role have specific responsibility for fundraising?