Tromso Olympiad

[Kevin Mayo]

There is money available.
It's a question of how you choose to prioritise spending that money.

[amuir]

The adult budget this year is £5500
About £4500 will be spent on the Olympiad costs and £1000 on Senior costs.

Next year I am intending to spend £1500 on European team costs and £1000 on Senior costs.

Should this be diverted or changed then ?

[Kevin Mayo]

Perhaps it should.
Perhaps it shouldn't.
It's not necessarily as black and white as that.

In my opinion Chess Scotland should be looking at its whole budget and assessing what the priorities are, based on the aims of the organisation, the short-term and long-term goals and the overall strategy.

If the aims of the organisation are unclear or it has no defined goals or overall strategy then you are not likely to achieve much. Without tangible targets to achieve you can sit and quietly fail.

[Graham Morrison]

Just thinking aloud here, but perhaps one possibility to give the young guns more games against our titled players would be privately arranged matches? I'm imagining some 2200-2300 improver against some 2300+ "experienced" player (note the diplomatic description). Not sure if anyone would be willing of course but it may have advantages over trying to get the stronger players along to congresses, for example:

1. The improver will get a guaranteed number of games against a strong player. In a congress, even with a number of strong players they are only likely to get a maximum of 1 or 2 games against such opposition.

2. The match could be arranged at convenient location and times for both parties so that a precious weekend is not used up. e.g. could be played one game per week over a number of weeks. After writing this I realised I am truly "experienced" (=old) as obviously this could simply be played online...d'uh

3. From a purely chess point of view I could see this as being more attractive to the stronger player than a congress as they will also get consistent level of opposition (though they would be sacrificing the enormous riches available on the weekend circuit of course)

Just an idea. No matter how you cut and dice it, it always involves the stronger players donating their time in some way or other.

Of course if we had sponsorship then we could emulate the 'rising stars' type of team international event which would be even better...

Cheers,
Keith

If you look on Youtube at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6-uOzt2IY0&list=PLjHC37cPCtB1RpO7ahGXjNTTOggikxU9B">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6-uOzt2 ... TOggikxU9B</a><!-- m --> you will see that IM Greg Shahade regularly posts videos that he makes when participating on an US online Training Tournament (via Internet Chess Club). The games are not rated but they give up and coming players a chance to take on IMs and GMs in a semi-serious format. The cost of running such a thing is Scotland is zero with minimal admin - all it takes is some commitment by titled players to participate. Given that there is no risk to precious FIDE ratings I would have thought that most would be game for the training value to themeselves (I certainly would). Thoughts!?

Cheers,
Graham

[Alan Tate]

The adult budget this year is £5500
About £4500 will be spent on the Olympiad costs and £1000 on Senior costs.

Next year I am intending to spend £1500 on European team costs and £1000 on Senior costs.

Should this be diverted or changed then ?

£4500 for the Olympiad and not even some training before it? Having been to the last 2 Olympiads I would suggest that some of this money may be better spent elsewhere.

[amuir]

Alan
Most of the team didnt want training and preferred money spent on flights.
Who would train you ? If you went to Jacob, I could reduce your expenses for the European if you want
eg £300 = flights + training

[Alan Tate]

If players do not want training then that makes us amateurs. £4500 on 10 amateurs and one-too-many captains is not the best use of resources in my opinion.

[andyburnett]

If players do not want training then that makes us amateurs. £4500 on 10 amateurs and one-too-many captains is not the best use of resources in my opinion.

+1

[amuir]

If Alan and Andy B are playing European with £300 funding per player, you can spend this how you please.
There are no non-playing captains for this.

[andyburnett]

If Alan and Andy B are playing European with £300 funding per player, you can spend this how you please.
There are no non-playing captains for this.

Not at all sure that's how it should work OR what Alan T intended to say/mean!

If there is funding available, a decision should be made in the best interests of the team as to how it should be spent. Who among the top players we have representing us recently thinks training sessions are a bad idea? :-o (This is rhetorical, don't name names!)