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Compare apples with apples and tell me that the government spend on Tennis is the same as Chess for up and coming juniors is the same and you have a point. The reality is more like the total government contribution to Chess Scotland will be about the same as the spend for one rising tennis star, or are you arguing that it is right that parents have to spend a fortune every time their child is selected?
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Johnny,
I agree with you that the lack of corporate sponsorship is an issue. I'm not sure if there have been attempts or not but I'm fairly sure there will have been. In the recession, one thing that companies tend to cut is their sponsorship or donations to charity. That said, sponsorship is out there we just need to market ourselves a bit better and I believe we could bring in more financial support.
However, I also think that we need to get the government on board as well. Governement funding and corporate sponsorship should go hand in hand as part of a wider strategy. What annoys me most about the government is the fact they spent £1.7m to sponsor next season's football League Cup. Give us 1% of that and see what we could do with it, the money is there in governemnt they just obviously don't feel chess is populist enough to put the money into. That's something we need to work on...
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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?
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It would be interesting to know if CS is getting a raw deal compared to other similar activities, not purely on a fixed number, but say dividing the funding by members of the appropriate association, to see how much funding per person is allocated. Also, I am sure it will be easy to pick out a huge sport and show a difference, but what about things like Bridge and Darts? Unfortunately, I have a feeling that lobbying for more money is going to be like drawing blood from a stone, even though it is well worth a try.
Corporate sponsorship seems an interesting idea, and I wonder how seriously this has been looked into so far. I am sure someone will have done something, but maybe with a real drive behind it, it could get somewhere.
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Adam - I agree that that would be interesting, but we should if at all possible avoid framing our case to elected representatives with phrases like 'raw deal'. The way anything gets done from the political angle (I largely share your pessimism) is if we get politicians thinking 'I want to sponsor this; I feel the money would be well used and there's an upside in it for me'. Unless some people have extremely high-level connections, 'You should be giving us more money and it's unfair that you're not' is going to cut very little ice.
If we find out that, per head, Chess Scotland is doing worse than organisation X or Y, we should be trying to find out why that is and seeing if we can learn from their strategies, rather than presenting that as an argument in itself for more money. We're just not in the sort of economic climate where that would work and perhaps more importantly it wouldn't get the people who have the power to help us thinking 'I like these guys', which is crucial.
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Hugh Brechin Wrote: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?
I'm not sure if it is part of the Marketing Director's remit or not. :\
For anyone who is interested in the £1.7million deal to sponsor the league cup:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2012/07/CommunitiesLeagueCup-Sponsorship20072012">http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Release ... ip20072012</a><!-- m -->
It was up 70% on the prior year and £500k came from the Cashback for Communities programme (or the proceeds of crime if you prefer) and £12.5 million has gone into football from the Cashback for Communities programme. Surely we could get a slice of that pie? At the very least it must be worth exploring.
Edit to add:
Just found this on the Cashback for Communities website.
Quote:All funding available to the programme has been fully committed to existing projects and we are unable to commit to funding new projects at present.
D'oh! There goes my bright idea. 
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Hugh Brechin Wrote:does anyone with some Chess Scotland role have specific responsibility for fundraising?
I remember last year at a CS Council meeting that Angus for the North & Derek Howie for the south put themselves forward to try & seek sponsorship. I do not know how they faired.
A lot of us dabbled over the years trying to get sponsorship - as you have guessed without success. I was lucky in that I was able to get Barclays to match the monies I raised doing the sponsored blitz before I was made redundant. The monies raised paid for the Dolphin House training weekend, although everyone still had to pay for their accommodation/meals. Perhaps we need more fundraising to pay for weekends like that. As a parent I think £100 for a residential weekend for something like that is reasonable. However if you wanted to make it free approx £4k would need to be raised. Apart from Dolphin House we also sourced a centre in Perthsire for the Primary Ind that would also be ideal as a training weekend venue.
I have a document on home PC if anyone wishes to pursue sponsorship. I can forward on as its specifically showcasing Junior achievements & the International events with photos.
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Hugh Brechin Wrote:Adam - I agree that that would be interesting, but we should if at all possible avoid framing our case to elected representatives with phrases like 'raw deal'. The way anything gets done from the political angle (I largely share your pessimism) is if we get politicians thinking 'I want to sponsor this; I feel the money would be well used and there's an upside in it for me'. Unless some people have extremely high-level connections, 'You should be giving us more money and it's unfair that you're not' is going to cut very little ice.
If we find out that, per head, Chess Scotland is doing worse than organisation X or Y, we should be trying to find out why that is and seeing if we can learn from their strategies, rather than presenting that as an argument in itself for more money. We're just not in the sort of economic climate where that would work and perhaps more importantly it wouldn't get the people who have the power to help us thinking 'I like these guys', which is crucial.
Yeah, "raw deal" shows why I am no politician!
Basically I am just interested if a lack of government money is the only difference between us as an organisation and others in similar positions, or are there other factors, i.e. sponsors.
I will let you phrase the conclusions based on that info more eloquently than myself. 
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Jacqui Thomas Wrote:Hugh Brechin Wrote:does anyone with some Chess Scotland role have specific responsibility for fundraising?
I remember last year at a CS Council meeting that Angus for the North & Derek Howie for the south put themselves forward to try & seek sponsorship. I do not know how they faired.
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Unfortunately I had no luck in my efforts. I approached RBS and BoS but neither were interested at that point.
Hugh, the main responsibility for fund raising would be Paul Blair, the Marketing Director. He was very enthusiastic last year but not sure if he has managed to progress any of his plans since his illness.
Angus McDonald
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I think a comparison with what government does spend money on says that the Scottish Junior International Chess Squad is worthy of government support. What should a government be investing our money in? Hopefully much will be invested in supporting 'The Youth of Today' as opposed to the relics of the past.
Last year I gave quite a lot of time to Looking for corporate sponsorship. I approached a number of oil companies in Aberdeen and also Scotland's MSP's. I had support in doing this from another Parent who actually did most of the work because my focus became The World Youth Organisation which was quite a mammoth task. Interest was shown from Moneygram but I really needed professional promotional materials to follow up that offer along with a clear statement of what was on offer to a sponsor. I tried to achieve obtaining that from the Chess Scotland directors but they must have been busy with other things. There is a lot to do! and also I think The Marketing Director was unwell at that time.
This time I have some spare time in August and I just feel it's the right time to go for it with MP's and MSP's. I agree with the poster who mentioned using the media if necessary to leverage the result we want. I'm not above doing that! and will be giving this a couple of weeks of my time before I go to Brazil for a break. When I am in Brazil I will be researching how they fund Chess in Brazil.
I will contact Moneygram again. Anyone though who wishes to pick up the corporate angle I'd say go for it. It is the more the merrier here. Everyone try to get some support for our youngsters.
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