Debt

[David G Congalton]

So, in summary, this is just timing and there is no underlying fundamental problem. That is something of a relief! It's also interesting to see just how much cash our mystery benefactor is pumping in. Goodness knows what would happen to the Scottish without this. We are very lucky to have this!

Thank you for the prompt clarification. Very helpful and much appreciated.

Partly timing but I think more the consolidation of the accounts has made things suddenly look bad. If you separate the Scottish out then it is perhaps clearer that there is no crisis.

The Scottish in Glasgow was run with around half of the benefactors very welcome initial donation. Without their initial and additional contribution that championship and the one in Helensburgh would have been much smaller events in terms of budget, international players, norm opportunities and everything else the donation allowed. It is extremely doubtful that we would be hosting the Commonwealth Championships later this year without the benefactors continued support.

I echo George's appreciation of the benefactors contribution. It is wonderful.

Overall Chess Scotland is finding times tough, although we are managing the limited budget as best as we can. I (we) do have to look at our overall income, post grant loss and what has to be spent and what we would like to spend and where do we raise the income from. Our current struggles to support teams for the Olympiad in Tromso is a case in point.

This kind of brings me to Andy's point, as 2012 was also an Olympiad year, which contributed to the high international spend compared to contributions towards international events.

On the 'plus' side it looks like a lot of savings have been made on the Office and related expenses, but the International spend far outweighs the contributions towards it - not unusual I imagine (the ECForum has been discussing similar matters south of the border this week).

[Patrick McGovern]

in the interest of clarity and transparency could the members who contacted the auditors re the accounts explain their concerns? And do the above explanations help with their concerns or are there other concerns ?

[Derek Howie]

If you go back to 30 April 2011 (before the benefactor donation) the CS net assets were £21,468 (accumulated fund) + £4,930 (amounts on deposit) + £1,176 (accumulated championship) = £27,574.

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David, why then do the 2013 audited accounts show the opening reserves at 1 May 2011 as £46,700?

I'm guessing the auditors (incorrectly?) have the £25K donation included in that figures when they redid the accounts to put them in the current format?

[David G Congalton]

The auditors took the information for the 2011-12 figures from the accounts published on the CS website for that period.

I have gone back through the accounts to 2008, to allow members to see the CS and Championship accounts separated out. These are are all available in the CS Info pages, which can be directly accessed from the home page of the website.

Year (Closing Balance) CS Accumulated
2008 20,094
2009 19,547
2010 20,815
2011 21,468
2012 21,081
2013 20,900

Year (Closing Balance) Championship Accumulated
2008 1,977
2009 748
2010 2,856
2011 1,176
2012 25,619
2013 11,678

Year (Closing Balance) Total
2008 22,071
2009 20,295
2010 23,671
2011 22,644
2012 46,700
2013 32,578

The CS accumulated funds have remained consistently around the £20k mark.

As previously explained the donation came in before the financial closing of 30th April 2012. Part of the donation was first used for Glasgow 2012, hence the drop in the championship accumaulated funds.

[David G Congalton]

If anybody does have any further questions or issues I am more than happy to discuss them on the forum, via e-mail or in person at the upcoming council meeting or at any event I'm attending throughout the year. I would discuss things on the phone but it can be difficult to get a hold of me, as I'm not at home every night and don't normally get in until late.

My contact e-mail is finance at ChessScotland.com.

I will try and respond as quickly as I can but I can be quite busy at times, with chess and non-chess stuff, so if I don't respond immediately I'm not ignoring people.