Mike Nolan wrote:

Kevin L. Bachler writes:

Since the goal on electronic submission is to make it essentially a
hands-off operation for the office (meaning that the TD's do their own
validation), it should be possible to set the fee well below the new
diskette rate.

But that should be done by RAISING the diskette and the paper rate, Mike, not by
setting the rate for electronic submission lower. Electronic submission offers
at least the same value, and the other methods are more expensive to process.

Assuming that small events will be able to be keyed in online, at the same time
a program should be implemented that will start significantly raising paper
submission rates over several years.

The action taken by the Board in LA raises both the diskette and paper rates.
Based on both my analysis and Stan Booz's analysis, the increase should
be close to what is needed to cover losses in the ratings department.

Assuming that it will take very little hands-on effort to rate electronic
submissions, the cost to process them should be far less than for either
diskette or paper submission, and that service should be priced accordingly.

Whether the diskette and paper rates should be adjusted again at some future
time to encourage more people to use online submission when it becomes
available is a decision that cannot be adequately analyzed at this time.
--
Mike Nolan

While certainly ratings should not be losing money Mike, I have to
wonder at this point exactly what things that USCF does should be MAKING
money?

There is some question whether B&E is making money. It is pretty much
agreed that the only significantly profitable part of our operations is
from dues revenue.

Do you foresee the idea of actually turning ratings into a signficant
profit center for the organization rather than a break even
proposition?

What would you look for in the next ED? Would you hire an office
manager type who tries to keep things running smoothly at home in the
hopes that a smoothly run office will be productive, or would you
instead go for a salesman who can aggressively rebuild B&E so that it
becomes a second profit cornerstone for the organization? Do you think
that Grant and Stan feel that the B&E business has a truly profitable
future?

Another approach could be the PR ED who knows the bigwigs of other
corporations and can through his influence get them to support chess
with sponsorship dollars. Obviously neither Cavallo or DeFeis were this
type of ED, but Niro struck me as being more of this type of guy, had he
had the health, stamina, and time to do it.

Niro was clearly weak in office management and this led to some
personnel blowups which have hurt the office. DeFeis, I do not see as
having been good at any of the three primary areas mentioned, but he was
probably the least ineffective at the office management aspect of the
job. He had no apparent fund raising skills and was obviously not
skilled in sales or inventory management. My impression though was that
DeFeis was a Redman puppet who did whatever Redman told him to. Maybe
I'm being unfair to him, but it seemed to me like Redman was running the
USCF as defacto ED.

Cavallo seemed to understand business management, but running a small
not-for-profit seemed to be beyond his grasp. Cavallo did not strike me
as a PR guy at all, nor did he strike me as a great salesperson.

Your thoughts?

Best Regards,

Bruce