The paid volunteer

 At the moment I am in Bangkok, attending a planning and development meeting for Asian chess federations (wearing both my PNG and Oceania hats). One topic of discussion is finding volunteers to implement programs that are usually required by developing federations (eg coaching and tournament organisation). For developed countries (both chess and economically) finding volunteers is hard, but aided by the large population of funded retirees. But for poorer countries this pool of resources is almost non-existent.  So one suggestion is that each developing federation receives funding for a program officer, whose job it is is to implement these programs. The ultimate goal is to create enough chess activity that the federation would then be able to generate enough funds to support additional programs (travel assistance, high performance training), and eventually become economically self sufficient. Of course it is  leap to go from volunteer to paid, (and nothing has been agreed to as yet), but it may offer a path for federations to grow.