Heresy

[Javaness2]

At the moment, smaller member nations in the EGF can be said to get a raw deal. Is it time to re-organise the EGF to better meet everyone's needs?

[HermanHiddema]

At the moment, smaller member nations in the EGF can be said to get a raw deal.

Why?

[Hushfield]

Hi Javaness, I don't really know all that much about the way the EGF is structured, so I don't quite understand what you are referring to. Would you care to give a slightly more detailed explanation of why you feel this way? Does this have to do with the way the European Go Tour for 2011-2012 works with countries having to buy ECup points for up to 3 of their tournaments?

[Javaness2]

At the moment, smaller member nations in the EGF can be said to get a raw deal.

Why?

Well, you could argue all members get a raw deal. The smaller nations just pay (proportionately) more for that raw deal. If you factor in that the bigger nations tend to be stronger at Go, the differences get worse in my opinion.

[Bantari]

At the moment, smaller member nations in the EGF can be said to get a raw deal.

Why?

Well, you could argue all members get a raw deal. The smaller nations just pay (proportionately) more for that raw deal. If you factor in that the bigger nations tend to be stronger at Go, the differences get worse in my opinion.

you got me interested as well.
So I repeat: why?
Why do all the countries get a 'raw deal'?

[henric]

At the moment, smaller member nations in the EGF can be said to get a raw deal. Is it time to re-organise the EGF to better meet everyone's needs?

Hi Javaness,
I also think that you need to explain in what sense you think that the smaller members get a "raw deal". I represent one of the smaller members myself, but if anything I would say that the small members enjoy a very good deal. The advantages that come with EGF membership ( e.g. voting power at the AGM:s, the possibility to be invited to send a player to events like WAGC or KPMC, or sponsored participation at various European events, the possibility to arrange big events like EGC etc) are mostly linked with being a member, i.e. Ireland gets the same benefit as Germany, although the germans need to share that benefit between very many more players. But the cost of being a member is roughly proportional to the number of players in the country. I participated in the redesign of the point system for distributing the invitations to the world pairgo championship among EGF members. Before the present system, the biggest EGF members had arbitrarily defined advantages, whereas with the present system there is an element of proportionality to numbers of players, plus a bonus for participation and good results in the European pairgo championship. I believe that's fairer to everybody. When I chaired the EGF constitution commission some years ago I collected opinions from the EGF members at the time about what things they thought needed to be reformed, but there was no mention then of small members being at a disadvantage, on the contrary there were suggestions to give more voting powers to the members with more players, on the ground that the individual goplayers would then be more equally represented ( a difficult idea to implement technically, though).

Of course there are advantages with being many players in itself, many things are difficult to do with few players, but I don't see how that is related with EGF membership. So what do you have in mind?

Finally, to the extent that go organisations are in a position to do anything for developing go, it might be good if there is an incentive to grow, don't you think?

best regards,
Henric

[Javaness2]

Being an EGF member has absolutely no bearing on being invited to the WAGC or KPMC. I see this stated a lot, but it doesn't appear to be true to me. Once I thought, perhaps I am missing something, so I double checked. It seems that only the Pair Go event would be covered by this, and you are right there, because this is probably the only tangible benefit of EGF membership for us right now.

Arguing that voting rights are a benefit seems a bit tenuous to me. If I wanted to use that to my countries advantage I could suggest that Ireland assume the role of one of the committees, thus giving us free membership.

The benefits of the EGF 5 years ago were quite tangible, now I don't really see much positive in retaining membership. I want to promote Go, and if you are in a tough situation, then to do that you have to make tough choices sometimes. Frankly, nodding at the above paragraph, I would be prepared to sacrifice the import democratic rights within the organisation for a more financially sustainable model.

At the moment, smaller member nations in the EGF can be said to get a raw deal. Is it time to re-organise the EGF to better meet everyone's needs?

Hi Javaness,
I also think that you need to explain in what sense you think that the smaller members get a "raw deal". I represent one of the smaller members myself, but if anything I would say that the small members enjoy a very good deal. The advantages that come with EGF membership ( e.g. voting power at the AGM:s, the possibility to be invited to send a player to events like WAGC or KPMC, or sponsored participation at various European events, the possibility to arrange big events like EGC etc) are mostly linked with being a member, i.e. Ireland gets the same benefit as Germany, although the germans need to share that benefit between very many more players. But the cost of being a member is roughly proportional to the number of players in the country. I participated in the redesign of the point system for distributing the invitations to the world pairgo championship among EGF members. Before the present system, the biggest EGF members had arbitrarily defined advantages, whereas with the present system there is an element of proportionality to numbers of players, plus a bonus for participation and good results in the European pairgo championship. I believe that's fairer to everybody. When I chaired the EGF constitution commission some years ago I collected opinions from the EGF members at the time about what things they thought needed to be reformed, but there was no mention then of small members being at a disadvantage, on the contrary there were suggestions to give more voting powers to the members with more players, on the ground that the individual goplayers would then be more equally represented ( a difficult idea to implement technically, though).

Of course there are advantages with being many players in itself, many things are difficult to do with few players, but I don't see how that is related with EGF membership. So what do you have in mind?

Finally, to the extent that go organisations are in a position to do anything for developing go, it might be good if there is an incentive to grow, don't you think?

best regards,
Henric

[hyperpape]

I would say that for the sake of us yanks, you should have hinted at your reasons for thinking small countries get a raw deal. But from the reaction of the Europeans in this thread, no one knows what you're talking about.

If I were writing a book "How Not To Communicate", this would be a great example.

[Javaness2]

Well I'm not sure it's really relevant to most US readers but I can try.
Some people might well find this inflammatory, so I've hidden it.

The question really arose after a motion was passed at the AGM in 2009 (http://www.eurogofed.org/egf/agm2009.pdf motion 11a, Motion modified with questionable legality to do so.). Most small nations suddenly noticed they would have a major black hole in their budget. I rejected calls to leave the EGF in that year.
Motion to repeal was knocked back the next year. Black hole in budget is still there... You have to rethink your decision.

Benefits of the EGF for its members: The only one I can pick out, as i've said above, is the Pair Go. I'm sure others can disagree and provide more.

Former Benefits:
- ability to host events in the Pandanet tour, which brought in top players and bigger crowds to your tournament - given your extra sponsorship. New event's format probably equals a certain financial loss from an event being part of the tour.
- Subsidy for national representatives to play in various European championships
- Ing equipment grants
- EGC publicity materials(?)

Not actually Benefits of EGF membership but things which we all love:
-playing in the WAGC/KPMC

Nice things the EGF does that are open to all
-Ratings
-European Go Congress (well the EGF itself doesn't actually organise this)

Things ordinary EGF members do
- Promote Go in their own country and visit other tournaments in Europe

What the EGF is for:
"2 Purpose

The purpose of the EGF is to encourage, regulate, co-ordinate, and disseminate the playing of Go in Europe. The EGF is a non-profit organization, has no political purpose, and is interested only in the promotion of Go.

In accordance with this purpose, the specific objects shall be as follows:

To establish guidelines for tournaments and championships.
To establish guidelines on gradings and rankings of players in Europe
To ensure that a European Championship is organised each year
To represent the interests of European Go both inside and outside of Europe
To take such other action as may be expedient to further the main purpose of the EGF."

I don't really want to knock the EGF by saying all this, I'm not trying to say it's rubbish. My point is, that in its current format, I do think that the EGF membership money is actually a burden to promoting Go in smaller countries. Furthermore, when I look at the EGF budget, I'm not impressed with how it's spent. I'm not going to post the budget here to show why, sorry, but I believe it is supposed to be private. I believe the EGF needs to either rethink how it raises money, or rethink how it charges its membership. I've seen retorts such as "well why don't you get some more members." or "well it's only 200 euro, how can you be a serious country if you don't pay that". My response to the first is that this is a childish argument, and if 90% our own national membership fee goes to funding the EGF that ain't going to do much for inspiring your average 30k new member. To the second, well if that is actually the case, why isn't the EGF charging this to all members, to which the response was "THAT'S NOT THE QUESTION! STOP SAYING THAT!" err... ok then

[Bantari]

Well I'm not sure it's really relevant to most US readers but I can try.

Hmm...
I am sure that part of my lack of understanding is the fact that I am not really part of european Go anymore, and so the finer points of what you say probably miss me.

But here is what I could see as the gist of what you write:
1. EGF charges 200 euro annually per country (but not to everybody?) and you think this is too much.
2. EGF is supposed to do certain things but you think they are not doing it as well as you would like.

Is that correct?

[jts]

It seems like your distress must be driven by concerns about how the money is spent, which you aren't sharing with us, rather than by the contribution required.

[Javaness2]

Given the required contribution would bankrupt my association, No.

It seems like your distress must be driven by concerns about how the money is spent, which you aren't sharing with us, rather than by the contribution required.

[henric]

Javaness, you say that the invitations to WAGC and KPMC have absolutely
nothing to do with EGF membership. This may be true in a formal sense,
but in fact EGF membership has been the way into IGF membership and participation
in WAGC and similar, and this has been the major incentive for new/small national
association to join the EGF, or don't you agree with this description?
This being the case, I find it slightly sophistic to deny the connection.

The international sponsorship passing through EGF is perhaps not so impressive
at the moment, maybe it's just the EGC, the European team championship and the
European participation in WPGC that fall in that category at the moment?
But I think it's unfair to look just at this moment, it's natural if there are
ups and downs and historically a lot of sponsoring has been channelled through the
EGF. Benefits countrywise to EGF members have been things like support for
participation in European championships (youth-, team-, pair-, ladies-), in Ing cup, European Oza, in the sponsored tournament circuits, in training courses, instruction material, Ing grants etc. Now and then the EGF gets invitations to send players to events in the far East, and it is then often up to the EGF how to make the internal selection. Even if sponsoring is not directly channelled through the EGF, it
is the EGF that confers the championship prestige to such events, and EGF members
have had pretty equal opportunities to arrange them. I think one could easily argue that it's the small countries that have most to gain from sponsored events like
the EGC, with the many professionals and other valuable resources, since they have
less opportunity than the big countries to do things like that.

Sure, you could cynically argue that an EGF member like Ireland has got into the
IGF through EGF membership at some point, has enjoyed invitations for decades
to WAGC and similar, to be shared between 10-15 active players, while in case of Germany for example the same benefit had to be shared between 100 times more players, similar for various European sponsored championshiops etc, but now that
the sponsoring has dropped and Ireland could perhaps leave the EGF and still keep
its place in some international events, it's more profitable to leave the EGF now.
But it could easily be a mistake, sponsoring may rise again. And ethically I don't
see much merit in that course, to be honest. It doesn't make much sense to invite
a go association with 10-15 members to international events year after year on the same level as countries with thousands or hundreds of thousands of go players EXCEPT as a stimulus to make go grow.

I see now that the number of active players in Ireland has grown significantly since about 2005, it looks like it's going to be at least 50 in 2011, doesn't it? Many
countries have larger numbers of mmbers than tournament active players. Ireland is
is actually paying 50 euro per year in EGF fee, you are talking about an increase to
200 per years a couple of years ahead, I think? But when you use the term bancrupcy, aren't you exagerating quite a bit? An increase from 1 to 4 euro per year and member, it might be the equivalent of a pint of beer per year or something, do you
really not believe that it is worth it, or affordable? What do you do with the IGF fee, do you divide that expense equally between your members? One solution for small go associations could be like they have done in Norway for many yearst now, to let the participant at WAGC or equivalent pay a fee to the association to cover the
IGF membership, that way you get more money left for the EGF fee and the 30k players don't need to pay all the time for the international participation of the stronger players. We do something vaguely similar in Sweden.

And what's childish in suggesting to the small go countries to get more members, that way the expense per capita is less and surely getting more members and active players is the substantial purpose of the international invitations and sponsoring?

As a thought experiment, do you think it would be an attractive option for small national associations to merge in order to save money on membership fees? The Irish might merge with BGA for example, the Balkan countries could merge, the Nordic countries could merge etc. My guess is that it is not and that the small countries are quite happy to be separate. all things considered.

cheers,
Henric

[henric]

Secondly Javaness, you think that the resources of the EGF are not well spent?
I think that such a discussion might be more constructive than opposing increased membership fees in times when external sponsoring drops.

But I've been to very many EGF AGM:s and oddly I nearly don't recall any discussion at all of the budget content. I don't recall any significant suggestions from the members about what money should be spent on and which expenses should be cut, not even when the EGF treasurer and auditor remarked that there was so much money on the EGF accounts that the EGF should think of starting to spend some. Has Ireland ever suggested new budget items or what needs to be cut down? The small countries have as much voting power as the big, and even if you don't count that for much, it does give us both opportunities and responsabilities for how the EGF is operated, IMO.

cheers,
H.

[Javaness2]

Henric, I don't doubt that in the past this has been the case, that the EGF helped develop Go in smaller nations. (As, of course, has the IGF) I certainly have had first hand experience of this, and it is something I am grateful for. That leaves me quite sad that the EGF is now taking the opposite approach now in order to maintain a budget. It is not a question of cynically looking around one day and saying, "heh Mr EGF, you're not giving us value for money anymore, we're leaving." It's a question of having told the EGF that we can't afford to be a member, having that listened to but rejected at an AGM because of the reasons I've outlined. Hearing it incorrectly stated that you MUST be in the EGF to be in IGF is not helpful.

Irish Go does try to get more members, and we are growing. Sadly we don't experience fast growth. Old members drop out, new members come in, we have a net balance. With internet Go, it gets harder to push the value of your national association, but I think we've coped with that battle very well. Here, like in the UK, we have fewer members than players. (Actually, I don't know of any European country where this isn't the case) The more the membership fee is, the worse that ratio has been. The IGA, being so small to start off with, cannot offer a huge plethora of benefits to its members. So it's only natural that when you ask people to give more, they start to think twice about it. If we cannot afford to run our own tournaments, to attract and retain members, I don't see how we are going to grow as an organisation. It's just childish to say "Get more members", I mean, as if we aren't trying that already.

Furthermore, in my experience, most new players don't know that there is a European Go Association, and most Go players don't know what the EGF actually does. Frankly, when you break down the figures and say "This 5 goes to Ireland, this 5 goes to the IGF (That's toward your chance to play in the World Championships every year), this 10 goes to the EGF (...insert benefits here...), At that point I now start to think, do we really need that. 2 or 3 years ago, that thought never crossed by mind. After some research, I know how much of my fee goes to Congress, how much goes to committee expenses, how much goes to the website, and how much goes to specialist tournaments. The new players have no idea of that of course; they probably have their own image of what the EGF is, and what it does. What I'm being asked, in the "Go get more members vein" is to positively shape that image.

I am seriously annoyed the EGF blatantly ignored its own rules to pass a motion that all the small nations, when they actually got to hear about it, disagreed with, What happened next year annoyed me more. It might be an idea to radically reshape our funding. Anyone who goes to the WAGC right now has to basically pay for it (plane tickets cost money, but it's worth it). Maybe we should implement a policy along the lines of "Anyone who wants to play in the World Pair Go can pay the EGF membership fee". I don't know how that would work out. I don't believe Ireland has ever had a pair entered into the European Pair Go Championships, so it might be a dangerous move. When I think about what the EGF fee should be used for, I believe that I should be thinking to myself "Yes sir, this fee is worth it, I am promoting Go not just in Europe, but in my own country too with this fee." That's why I think another idea might be for the EGF to rethink its financial structure. I'm not trying to be cynical or mean with that thought, at least not to my own mind.

Javaness, you say that the invitations to WAGC and KPMC have absolutely
nothing to do with EGF membership. This may be true in a formal sense,
but in fact EGF membership has been the way into IGF membership and participation
in WAGC and similar, and this has been the major incentive for new/small national
association to join the EGF, or don't you agree with this description?
This being the case, I find it slightly sophistic to deny the connection.

The international sponsorship passing through EGF is perhaps not so impressive
at the moment, maybe it's just the EGC, the European team championship and the
European participation in WPGC that fall in that category at the moment?
But I think it's unfair to look just at this moment, it's natural if there are
ups and downs and historically a lot of sponsoring has been channelled through the
EGF. Benefits countrywise to EGF members have been things like support for
participation in European championships (youth-, team-, pair-, ladies-), in Ing cup, European Oza, in the sponsored tournament circuits, in training courses, instruction material, Ing grants etc. Now and then the EGF gets invitations to send players to events in the far East, and it is then often up to the EGF how to make the internal selection. Even if sponsoring is not directly channelled through the EGF, it
is the EGF that confers the championship prestige to such events, and EGF members
have had pretty equal opportunities to arrange them. I think one could easily argue that it's the small countries that have most to gain from sponsored events like
the EGC, with the many professionals and other valuable resources, since they have
less opportunity than the big countries to do things like that.

Sure, you could cynically argue that an EGF member like Ireland has got into the
IGF through EGF membership at some point, has enjoyed invitations for decades
to WAGC and similar, to be shared between 10-15 active players, while in case of Germany for example the same benefit had to be shared between 100 times more players, similar for various European sponsored championshiops etc, but now that
the sponsoring has dropped and Ireland could perhaps leave the EGF and still keep
its place in some international events, it's more profitable to leave the EGF now.
But it could easily be a mistake, sponsoring may rise again. And ethically I don't
see much merit in that course, to be honest. It doesn't make much sense to invite
a go association with 10-15 members to international events year after year on the same level as countries with thousands or hundreds of thousands of go players EXCEPT as a stimulus to make go grow.

I see now that the number of active players in Ireland has grown significantly since about 2005, it looks like it's going to be at least 50 in 2011, doesn't it? Many
countries have larger numbers of mmbers than tournament active players. Ireland is
is actually paying 50 euro per year in EGF fee, you are talking about an increase to
200 per years a couple of years ahead, I think? But when you use the term bancrupcy, aren't you exagerating quite a bit? An increase from 1 to 4 euro per year and member, it might be the equivalent of a pint of beer per year or something, do you
really not believe that it is worth it, or affordable? What do you do with the IGF fee, do you divide that expense equally between your members? One solution for small go associations could be like they have done in Norway for many yearst now, to let the participant at WAGC or equivalent pay a fee to the association to cover the
IGF membership, that way you get more money left for the EGF fee and the 30k players don't need to pay all the time for the international participation of the stronger players. We do something vaguely similar in Sweden.

And what's childish in suggesting to the small go countries to get more members, that way the expense per capita is less and surely getting more members and active players is the substantial purpose of the international invitations and sponsoring?

As a thought experiment, do you think it would be an attractive option for small national associations to merge in order to save money on membership fees? The Irish might merge with BGA for example, the Balkan countries could merge, the Nordic countries could merge etc. My guess is that it is not and that the small countries are quite happy to be separate. all things considered.

cheers,
Henric