Olympiad Goals

[Jim Webster]

Ultimately, we shouldn't be too worried about raising £20 or £25 from members, we want to be pulling in the £2k or even £20k.

I'm not sure that I fully agree with all of the above. There are 2 issues facing Chess Scotland: falling or static membership and the lack of development at international level (junior and adult).

Membership and the £20 or £25 that they bring in is the bread and butter of the organisation as a whole, not just for Olympiad/team development. People who decide to withhold membership because they don't see plans should perhaps look at it from a different perspective. Pay the membership and then, as Peter Smith alluded to in another thread - albeit for junior development, but the message is the same give us your time. Come in and actually help. It is easy to sit in your cosy home with your feet up drinking wine putting forward propositions but Chess Scotland needs support in other ways than purely financial - manpower!

At this years AGM we actually struggled to find members and club representatives to fill all the council places. With enough people on board and willing to help that would then free some of up the effort spent on the basic business of Chess Scotland to do some of the more ambitious tasks. These need to be examined, thought through and methods of implementation sought to the benefit of all.

We need an embryo of a development programme in place and some ambitious plans. Then we need to tap up individuals in the finance sector in Edinburgh or Glasgow.
I firmly believe funding going forward will be about rich individual donors, not mass memberships or companies. Of course large memberships are beneficial for other reasons.

Before we can tap "rich individuals donors" it is necessary to have some thing tangible to offer that they can believe in and to convince them that support of Chess Scotland is worthwhile. Equally "rich individual donors" are not going to provide endless seams of year in - year out finance that is necessary to create and support a long term development plan.

We, of the Management Board, are currently looking at the potential development of a Chess Scotland image that can be used to attract finance - individual or company.

I haven't renewed my CS membership and don't intend to under current climate. With the game in Scotland seemingly doomed on so many levels, I need to be convinced there is a plan to deal with that. It is actually the likes of Robin, myself and the other 99% of amateur players that provide much if not all of the CS income for helping players out with their expenses at international events.

Since you have not renewed your CS membership, and I don't know when you last were a CS member, how can you claim to be funding anything we at CS are trying to do? In fact by advocating withholding membership are you not actually contributing to the "alleged decline" and impending doom of CS?