[hrothgar]

dude... I got pictures of me cuddling a koala....

Hell, I transported a wombat across state lines for immoral porpoises

[awm]

The coverage of ACBL events (spingold, vanderbilt, etc) has actually been pretty good.

In some ways this is surprising because ACBL has many of the same organizational issues as WBF. I'm sure the ACBL isn't eager to pay room/board for vugraph operators either. So what's the difference?

BBO has done a very good job recruiting local bridge players to operate the vugraph. Since ACBL nationals attract a large number of bridge players, many of whom are not playing in the later rounds of the big events, it's usually not hard to find someone willing to run the vugraph.

Of course, the junior events being invitational only, there isn't a large crowd of bridge players "not involved in the event" to be recruited to run vugraph. On the other hand, most of the teams do have coaches and NPCs who are not necessarily busy while their team is playing. And there must be local bridge players in a major city like Bangkok. As long as the internet connectivity is okay, perhaps BBO can recruit some of these people to operate the vugraph rather than trying to convince WBF to fly someone in at their own expense.

I agree that WBF (and ACBL for that matter) could be more pro-active in promoting the game, and that vugraph is part of that, but we've got to deal with what we have available to us.

[davidStern]

Just to set the record straight about BBO and the WYTC in Sydney 2005. If the WBF had their way (read Panos) they would have been perfecty happy for the event to spend $US10,000 or more to provide a Vugraph theatre for the 20-50 spectators who attended the venue Vugraph. We resisted this for cost reasons and went with broadcasting BBO at the venue and had 4 tables going every day and 2 for the finals. The discussion of the internet being down is NONSENSE. The internet collectively was not down for more than 1 hour over a period of 450 Boards or less than 1.5% of the time. Stop defending ANY decision not to provide BBO. The WBF and all people involved with an even like the WYTC have an obligation to market bridge as widely as possible to promote the game, promote interest in the game.

[davidStern]

I find this whole discussion fascinating. The WBF admitted that the Sydney WYTC was overmanned with WBF personnel. Their total was

WBF Convenor (Gerentopolous)
WBF Master of Ceremonies/Protocl (Back)
Internet Layout (Fotis)
Bulletin Layout (George)
Bulletin Editor (Senior)
Operations Manager (Ballas)
WBF Director (Van Bastenfeldt)
Head of Appeals Committee (Gerard)
WBF Vice President (Wignall)
[And this number was after pleading our ability to provide competent staff thereby reducing the possible numbers they could have sent]
Each one of these people cost the event approximately $US2,500 onsite plus I am guessing another $US20,000 in airfares.

I am not for one moment suggesting that any of these people did not contribute to the event but the internet layout and bulletin layout could have been done from overseas. I noticed this tidbit from our friend Fotis:

I am again 100% with you my friend - I never wanted and never want generally to go to any event at all - my job can be done equally well from home. Alas, you somehow forget the "small" difference in time between the WBF Internet office and Sydney - just something like 8 hours, if I remember well. I am sure you wouldn't mind to live in the nights and sleep in the day, but some of us have a small problem with that.

If he doesn't believe that I can take the $US2,000 airfare and $US2,500 onsite costs and ($US450 a day) not come to an arrangement to compensate somebody to work at night in Greece and still have some change - I leave you to judge whether he is stating a genuine opinion or merely defending an indefensible position.

Now are we saying have one less WBF person and allocate their cost of around $4,000 towards BBO and promoting the game - you betchya.

[davidStern]

In an effort to ensure that the event does have BBO could somebody please provide a budget of how much would be required to see it happen and I will see what I can do in terms of sponsorship.

[hrothgar]

davidStern, on Jul 26 2006, 11:29 AM, said:

Each one of these people cost the event approximately $US2,500 onsite plus I am guessing another $US20,000 in airfares.

Just to clarify:

I assume that dollars are Australian dollars
(1 Australian dollar = (roughly) .75 US dollars

Tts unclear whether the airfare cited is per person or total. The wording suggests that its total, however, I find this almost incomprehensible. (My tickets from Boston MA to Melbourne, Melbounre to Cairns, Cairns to Sydney, and Sydeny to Boston cost roughly $1,400 dollar US. If I had done it all first class it would have doubled)

If a non-profit spent 20K on an airline ticket it should trigger a LOT of audits. In an ideal world, the Board of Directors would change the management. It would also be reasonable to look in to government audits...

[geller]

Quote

In an effort to ensure that the event does have BBO could somebody please provide a budget of how much would be required to see it happen and I will see what I can do in terms of sponsorship.

If you look upthread you'll see there will be BBO coverage. But if you could arrabge sponsorship (I suggest you contact the organizers before doing anything) I bet no one would be unhappy.

[fskoul]

davidStern, on Jul 26 2006, 03:29 AM, said:

I find this whole discussion fascinating. The WBF admitted that the Sydney WYTC was overmanned with WBF personnel. Their total was

WBF Convenor (Gerentopolous)
WBF Master of Ceremonies/Protocl (Back)
Internet Layout (Fotis)
Bulletin Layout (George)
Bulletin Editor (Senior)
Operations Manager (Ballas)
WBF Director (Van Bastenfeldt)
Head of Appeals Committee (Gerard)
WBF Vice President (Wignall)
[And this number was after pleading our ability to provide competent staff thereby reducing the possible numbers they could have sent]
Each one of these people cost the event approximately $US2,500 onsite plus I am guessing another $US20,000 in airfares.

I am not for one moment suggesting that any of these people did not contribute to the event but the internet layout and bulletin layout could have been done from overseas. I noticed this tidbit from our friend Fotis:

I am again 100% with you my friend - I never wanted and never want generally to go to any event at all - my job can be done equally well from home. Alas, you somehow forget the "small" difference in time between the WBF Internet office and Sydney - just something like 8 hours, if I remember well. I am sure you wouldn't mind to live in the nights and sleep in the day, but some of us have a small problem with that.

If he doesn't believe that I can take the $US2,000 airfare and $US2,500 onsite costs and ($US450 a day) not come to an arrangement to compensate somebody to work at night in Greece and still have some change - I leave you to judge whether he is stating a genuine opinion or merely defending an indefensible position.

Now are we saying have one less WBF person and allocate their cost of around $4,000 towards BBO and promoting the game - you betchya.

"Friend" David

I can't understand humour well, and obviously neither do you. Please don't bother to quote me anymore - especially when my words are an unsuccesfully humorous reply to a comment that I consider illogical.

Until then, rest assured that nobody is willing to persuade you on the need for any specific job in a bridge event - especially since neither you nor me are the ones who decide on these matters. Just as a reminder, you can check for how long these places existed in the events and if they provided useful information to the bridge world.

There is a small difference between "I don't want to go" and "There is no need for somebody to go", as far as I remember from the English courses I had in school. And as far as the Internet pages is concerned, of course everything can be done equally well from a distance. But you can't say the same about the Internet results. Last years' event in Sydney was exceptionally good in this domain, due to the great work of Matthew, but generally WBF doesn't rely on local organizers to provide internet coverage and also, even in the cases they do, someone needs to incorporate these info into the WBF system - and these things are much better to be settled onsite.

[geller]

There are two separate problems here.
(1) Whether or not the WBF expenditure on worlld championships is reasonable;
(2) whether there is adequate disclosure.

(1) is arguable but my impression from the discussion on this thread is there may be room for trimming. But it seems clear (2) is a problem.

WBF is a federation of federations, rather than a membership organization of individuals. So theoretically WBF is answerable to the representatives of the various federations at its general meetings, but in practice there doesn't seem to be much accountability. Perhaps it might be a good idea for WBF to make its finances much more transparent by divulging relatively detailed accounts on its home page, so that individual players would be convinced that expenditures and staffing levels are reasonable (if they are in fact such).

[HedyG]

well, after all this we did get to watch the WYTC!
and i would just like to say THANK YOU to all who made this possible.
it was a great pleasure indeed! would have been a terrible shame to have missed it.