I. Purpose

This document summarizes a discussion held by the Program Director, Neil Cousin, the President, Mark Kaprielian and board member, Jim Krycka.

II. The Topic

Should the current prize structure for the clubs “non-big-money” events be revised and if so how. The general thinking was that the current prize structure hadn’t been revised for some time yet our demographics have changed for the better and thus we may be able to afford to adjust the prizes up.

As part of the considerations, the overall impact on our total club finances was considered and the proposed measures were bounded by our long term sustainability plans.

A great deal of discussion was held and various dollar amounts and impacts were studied. A spreadsheet with 15 or so scenarios was used to do projections and a chart showing the 2002 prize payouts to date and how a proposed structure would have impacted the payouts was used.

III. Conclusions

The Program Director in concurrence with his committee examining the issue decided to increase the prize funds for the bottom two sections for all our "non-big" events starting with the event in progress.

The primary reasoning on how the increases were derived are as follows:

A. The Open had been increased in an accelerated fashion for several years to attract an maintain the higher rated players. These increases now bring the bottom sections more in line with the top section.

B. While we recognize that we want to reward and support the higher players while at the same time not encouraging the bottom section to be playing for the prizes, with the new structure increasing only the middle and bottom sections, we reduce the almost 80% of the club subsidizing the top section while maintaining the prizes for the top section.

It should be noted that 24% of the club has to play in the Open section (1800 or over)

· Before the changes, the Open received 71% of the prize money, the middle 14%, the bottom 14%.

· After the changes , the Open received 57% of the prize money, the middle 26% the bottom 16%.

Another way of saying it is that instead of 1/4 of the players getting 3/4s of the prizes, 1/4 now gets only 2/3s.

Below is the old structure followed by the new structure.

	2002 Regular 4 round events				Prize
					Distribution
	1st	2nd	3rd	Totals
Open	200	100	50	350	71%
Middle	40	20	10	70	14%
Bottom	40	20	10	70	14%
				490
J	Increase only the bottom two sections:				Prize
					Distribution
	1st	2nd	3rd	Totals
Open	200	100	50	350	57%
Middle	80	50	30	160	26%
Bottom	50	30	20	100	16%
				610
Prize fund Increase of				120

IV. Authority to act and recommendation

For the past 7 years, the Program director in consultation with the President and another member has been adjusting the prize structure. We recognize and realize that going forward that this approach needs to be refined, as our organization has increased significantly and the dollars coming in and going out and the number of programs has increased significantly. At the moment however, the Program Director is the primary person empowered to make these changes and it conforms to the precedents established over the last 7 years.