Thanks to GilaChess Sponsors and Supporters

Posted by GilaChess

August 4, 2008

When I first started GilaChess it was because I was so addicted to chess during my school years that when the internet came along it was a fantastic place for me to put up news and materials related to chess.

Over the years it has grown beyond what I’d imagined it would become. It is now arguably the main news/events site for chess in Malaysia. Many people have asked me how much I’m paid to maintain the site. The answer : ZERO.

I do help out and get paid for setting up sites like Stonemaster.biz and MCF official website but even then I accept probably only 20-50% of what I would charge if it were a freelance project. I do this because I do not feel I want to profit from building chess websites.

Back to GilaChess. It’s purely a labour of love. I am helped by RemisAman from Kedah and for a while by daFifthknight. When GilaChess traffic started to increase, we had to move from the old free host - chess.sourceforge.net to a paid webhost, we needed money and began asking for donations. Almost immediately there were a few kind souls that stepped up and covered the cost of hosting and domain registration for one whole year. These are just individuals chess enthusiasts and I was touched by the support given. They wish to remain anonymous but you know who you are. Later GilaChess allowed ads on the site and these helped pay for the on-going webhosting cost and maintenance. In other words, the website became self sustaining.

However, getting news for the website has other costs too such as time, effort, travel cost to tournaments, and all these expenses that can really add up. For a long time, this was an expected cost to be paid. Recently, even these expense has been eased by sponsorship by individuals and chess organisers even when I didn’t ask for any sponsorship or money.

It’s only fair to thank these sponsors directly for covering my travel cost, entrance fees etc:-

Seremban Parade - free entrance for 2005,2006 and 2007.
Klang Parade - free entrance for 2005,2006,2008
Port Klang 2008 - free entrance fees, taxi charges, lunch
MBBSKL 2008 - one day allowance/fees
PERCAWI 2008 - one day allowance/fees, free entrance
various CAS Allegro - entrance fees
All Stonemaster events - free entrance
DATMO (all 4 years) - free hotel room, daily allowance, RM50 WiFi subscription card (2007)

We are not asking to have special privileges from tournament organisers. In fact, we will always publicise and report on the tournaments for free (sponsor or no sponsor)

Still, sponsorship in any form is fantastic encouragement and goes a long way to helping us continue and improve GilaChess.com.

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