Should WCA delegates be paid a nominal fee?

[abunickabhi]

https://forum.worldcubeassociation.org/t/delegates-should-be-paid/3372/72

Personally I think the way WCA delegates do volunteering activity is not sustainable or scalable. Unless we have just too many passionate cubers or plain crazy cubers. I do think some form of payment should be given to WCA delegate for their time and effort.

Brandon proposes a good structure, "I think the delegate stipend could be scaled based on country bands, with the highest bands receiving the most money. This may seem unfair, but they are paying more WCA dues than lower bands so I think it would be fine. Here would be my proposal for stipends based on the band dues percentage with max being $200 USD."

Band 0 - $0 USD
Band 1 - $12.67 USD
Band 2 - $21.33 USD
Band 3 - $30.00 USD
Band 4 - $152.00 USD
Band 5 - $200.00 USD

 

[ProStar]

https://forum.worldcubeassociation.org/t/delegates-should-be-paid/3372/72

Personally I think the way WCA delegates do volunteering activity is not sustainable or scalable. Unless we have just too many passionate cubers or plain crazy cubers. I do think some form of payment should be given to WCA delegate for their time and effort.

Brandon proposes a good structure, "I think the delegate stipend could be scaled based on country bands, with the highest bands receiving the most money. This may seem unfair, but they are paying more WCA dues than lower bands so I think it would be fine. Here would be my proposal for stipends based on the band dues percentage with max being $200 USD."

Band 0 - $0 USD
Band 1 - $12.67 USD
Band 2 - $21.33 USD
Band 3 - $30.00 USD
Band 4 - $152.00 USD
Band 5 - $200.00 USD

Who would be paying this to the delegate? The WCA? Also over what time period is each payment?

 

[Thom S.]

So the WCA, a Non-Profit organization from what I remember, needs to drop that title, possibly tarnishing their reputation, if even a little, and pay their former volunteers. Ok, got it. But
Where do you get the money from?
Competitions, obviously

Do organizers need to give the little profit they made for all their work away?

Sponsorships, cube companies pay to have their logo or even a selling stand up
Now the whole aspect of competition falls into who sponsors what. New competitions can only happen if a sponsor has been found. Cube variety will die as people in the Moyu-sponsored area will all migrate to Moyu - same with Qiyi and everybody else.

Let delegate payment be included in the entry fee
It will take 3 days before the first"Why do we need this" "We don't need this" posts come up

I'd love for competitions to die out but not by the WCA shooting themselfs in the foot.

 

[F'prime]

Tbh with you though, the WCA did say it was a non-profit organization.

 

[Cuber987]

Removing its reputation as a non-profit would greatly influence how many people learn about it and support it. Also, we'd have too many people trying to become delegates. Where would the money come from? As someone planning to organize a competition in the near future, I know that organizers have many fees they already need to pay to WCA and the venue. Adding more would increase registration fees and less organizers would want to do this. In conclusion, I don't think this is possible in the near future.

 

[sDLfj]

I think there would be a rise in competitions if delegates were paid to run them (which would be good since there often aren't many, I likely won't go to a competition anytime soon just because there aren't any). I would be perfectly happy to pay an extra dollar for a competition fee to pay delegates and, if needed, any other expenses for the comp (which adds up quickly with many competitors).

 

[Sub1Hour]

Removing its reputation as a non-profit would greatly influence how many people learn about it and support it. Also, we'd have too many people trying to become delegates. Where would the money come from? As someone planning to organize a competition in the near future, I know that organizers have many fees they already need to pay to WCA and the venue. Adding more would increase registration fees and less organizers would want to do this. In conclusion, I don't think this is possible in the near future.

I hope you realize it doesn’t take a genius to be able to tell who would actually make a good delegate. In my area of the US our delegates have been involved with community as organizers for many years. It’s not like becoming a delegate is an open enrollment thing. Some 15 year old that wants some money won’t get accepted to become a delegate. And competitions don’t need to be changed that much for delegates to be paid. If you increase the registration fee by only 5 dollars on a 100 person competition then that would give an extra 500$ to pay the delegate(s). This would be an inconvenience on competitors because they have to pay more to get In to competitions but it’s a case of you get what you pay for. That extra 5 dollars that you pay are well worth the increase of competition quality that would come from paying delegates. I’m an organizer myself and I would be happy to increase the fee if it meant more high quality delegates at the competition.

So the WCA, a Non-Profit organization from what I remember, needs to drop that title, possibly tarnishing their reputation, if even a little, and pay their former volunteers. Ok, got it. But
Where do you get the money from?
Competitions, obviously

Do organizers need to give the little profit they made for all their work away?

Sponsorships, cube companies pay to have their logo or even a selling stand up
Now the whole aspect of competition falls into who sponsors what. New competitions can only happen if a sponsor has been found. Cube variety will die as people in the Moyu-sponsored area will all migrate to Moyu - same with Qiyi and everybody else.

Let delegate payment be included in the entry fee
It will take 3 days before the first"Why do we need this" "We don't need this" posts come up

I'd love for competitions to die out but not by the WCA shooting themselfs in the foot.

I don’t think you understand how competitions work. Organizers don’t get any cut in 99% of cases. Most of the money goes into a local LLC or some other organization that keeps track of finances and makes tax burdens lighter. The nonprofit title is nice but if cubing wants to expand it’s going to be hard to do so without paid delegates, organizers, and team members. I don’t know anyone who would say that they would rather not have cubing expand to a wider audience than have the WCA lose its nonprofit standard. And the sponsorship thing you are talking about doesn’t make any sense at all. I’ve literally never seen a manufacturer selling cubes at a competition. Maybe it’s different in China where they are all located but everywhere else it’s retailers, who as you would know actually sell multiple brands of cubes. And sponsorships for smaller competitions only handle prize money for podiums. They don’t actually pay for the venue. That’s up to the organizer/LLC to take care of venue cost, insurance, WCA dues, and other fees.

 

[Mike Hughey]

I don't think paying delegates would have any impact on nonprofit status? Most large nonprofits have paid employees. I do think there are many reasons why it might be best to be cautious about the idea of paying delegates, but nonprofit status doesn't seem to be one of them.

 

[Samuel Baird]

Wages =/= Profits. To my understanding, the issues involved in paying staff members of non-profits revolve around board members. I believe that up to 50% of them can be paid while maintaining non-profit status.

 

[Thom S.]

I don’t think you understand how competitions work

Might as well. I hate competitions so I don't go there. But reading threads here is basically the same thing.

I don’t know anyone who would say that they would rather not have cubing expand to a wider audience than have the WCA lose its nonprofit standard.

Now you do. Rather have cubing be small than be another thing ruined by popularity.

 

[Samuel Baird]

Might as well. I hate competitions so I don't go there. But reading threads here is basically the same thing.

Now you do. Rather have cubing be small than be another thing ruined by popularity.

Gatekeeping, nice

 

[quanloh]

Now you do. Rather have cubing be small than be another thing ruined by popularity.

Pretty sure cubing will not become that popular.
Any skill/hobby needs consistent training/practicing won't be that popular, not until it will ruined itself by its popularity.

I would like to see cubing becomes more popular,
so cube company can make more money,
and in order to make more money,
they need better products than their competitors,
and poof! We will have better cube.

Back to the main topic,
I am not sure how "volunteering" works in your region,
but in my region,
"volunteering" is understood to have no pay,
meals or meals allowance might be provided,
but those volunteers are well aware of not getting paid before they volunteer.

 

[Arcanist]

I think a lot of delegates just like meeting more cubers which is enough for them to volunteer.

 

[Samuel Baird]

I think a lot of delegates just like meeting more cubers which is enough for them to volunteer.

That is until they burnout from delegating and stop

delegating definitely is a lot less social than being a normal competitor as well, especially in smaller communities that only have a single delegate who needs to help keep the competition running solo

 

[Running for cube]

Most delegates seem to enjoy what they do, and getting to go to competitions and hang out is already a payment in its own sense. While I see the benefit in paying employees: they already have to donate venue money and tax and such. It’s also a non profit so paying delegates would be very tricky.

 

[Tabe]

It’s also a non profit so paying delegates would be very tricky.

Being a non-profit and paying people is a non-issue. Non-profits pay employees just like regular companies. I worked for one for 15 years and certainly got paid to do so.

 

[Kit Clement]

Most delegates seem to enjoy what they do, and getting to go to competitions and hang out is already a payment in its own sense.

There's increasingly more work put on delegates now compared to when I started nearly 10 years ago as a delegate. I feel like this used to be true, but honestly delegating competitions and trying to keep up with an impossibly large demand for competitions is far more exhausting than rewarding. It doesn't help that competitions keep getting younger and younger, which means dealing with more angry parents and swarms of kids that are 10 and under.

While I see the benefit in paying employees: they already have to donate venue money and tax and such. It’s also a non profit so paying delegates would be very tricky.

I have no idea what you are talking about with donating money or taxes and how that has to do with paying individuals, but the WCA being a non-profit is also irrelevant to paying employees. Salaries are not profits.

That being said, a small payment per competition like the amounts discussed in the original thread would not entice me to do any more delegating than I already do. Might have an impact for others, but $200 a competition is significantly worse than minimum wage for the amount of pre/post work that needs to be done in addition to the time at the competition. If I cared about money, there are many other things I would rather be doing to make money than this.

 

[Running for cube]

I have a question

There's increasingly more work put on delegates now compared to when I started nearly 10 years ago as a delegate. I feel like this used to be true, but honestly delegating competitions and trying to keep up with an impossibly large demand for competitions is far more exhausting than rewarding. It doesn't help that competitions keep getting younger and younger, which means dealing with more angry parents and swarms of kids that are 10 and under.


I have no idea what you are talking about with donating money or taxes and how that has to do with paying individuals, but the WCA being a non-profit is also irrelevant to paying employees. Salaries are not profits.

That being said, a small payment per competition like the amounts discussed in the original thread would not entice me to do any more delegating than I already do. Might have an impact for others, but $200 a competition is significantly worse than minimum wage for the amount of pre/post work that needs to be done in addition to the time at the competition. If I cared about money, there are many other things I would rather be doing to make money than this.

What I meant is that don't the delegates and organizers have to take a fee from competitions to pay the venue? Surely they don't let them host it for free.

 

[Kit Clement]

I have a question

What I meant is that don't the delegates and organizers have to take a fee from competitions to pay the venue? Surely they don't let them host it for free.

Yes, of course, but I would not describe this as either a tax or a donation. Collecting money has tax implications, but this is generally covered by regional organizations like CUSA.

Paying individuals would surely have to come from registration funds, but at the levels being discussed in this thread that doesn't have a major impact. Paying one delegate at a 50 person competition is about a $4 increase in registration fees for band 5, and larger competitions would make this cost even smaller. As it stands right now (for the USA, at least), cubing competitions are an absolute bargain compared to the costs to compete in other hobbies and sports. I don't think it would be unreasonable for the registration costs of local competitions to reach the $40-50 range anyway, so I don't see this as a major issue in terms of paying delegates. But I do think we need to consider that the priorities of the WCA should be if more money were to be collected.

 

[Exmestify]

Doesn't someone also think if we're paying them, they must do their job correctly? Like if they mis-scramble, they have to pay a fine etc? To prevent things like the recent Singapore championship?