English Chess Forum

What it could have done is to budget events to produce a profit to the ECF equal to the Game Fee that a non-ECF event would pay. Applying rules that say that all players have to be members is doing what the CEO denies is the intention of membership schemes, namely banning non-members from participation.

Very insightful. However, could not this situation be avoided by asking the participating counties to pay game fee to the ECF and stopping at that point?

This is a typically `strange` discussion about `costs`, and to some extent illustrates the lunacy of the proposed charging system, to replace game fee...currently only 58p per game per player.
In the context of this discussion, game fee is currently about 58p ...not a lot of money, which goes towards the running of English Chess. Its NOT really a charge for rating games....thats just a typical piece of `chess cover-up`.
A much simpler and fairer system might be to charge £15 for basic members, £17.50p for Congress players (although I struggle to see why this group should really pay more than basic rate), and say £20 for Gold, or FIDE rated events. The present system gives regular league players `chess on the cheap`, which the Silver & Gold are subsidising. I can see no reason why this should be.
Returning to county chess. Currently the game fee charge would be 58p...not unreasonable. But next year it leaps to £2 per game, for non members, if I understand things correctly, a rise of about 400%?? Why?
Returning to the thread, and county costs?
But first a question... This season it costs circa £28 to be an ECF member, for which the member gets almost nothing (slight exaduration, I agree). But next year, this same charge will somehow cover game fee for `Gold members`. There appears to be a significant increase in `value` from the membership scheme...but maybe I misunderstand things. ie, how come that game fee appears to be being absorbed at no extra cost, with a new charging system. I guess much will be balanced out for club members, who will continue to pay club charges (maybe at lower rates).
County costs. This thread talks about the costs of game fee for county players. This is a tiny fraction of the actual costs of county chess.
You`ve got room hire costs (maybe anything between £30 & £100 per match, depending on how thrifty or diligent the organisor is in choosing venues.
You`ve got costs of refreshments...these might be included in the above, be self provided/self service...still costing minimum of £10 for tea & biscuites, etc./. for the teams..
Then you have travel costs, which might typically be £30 per car load (of which the driver usually bears the major part, helped by any passenger donations). If you add these costs up, they dwarf the game fee cost. And who is actually paying these costs. Over a season, a county running say two teams might play 10 matches or more between them. It might be worth reflecting on who actually picks up the costs (not forgetting the administrative costs/time of organising these matches, and provision of equipment).
These costs do provide a significant challenge, but the county scene does have much to offer, and is very good Saturday afternoon chess fayre.....
I wont mention the challenges provided by some of the out of date rules, nor the options/potential benefits of streamlining these events.......if you can fight your way past some of the `burocracy`, which almost seems designs to hinder any serious progress.

_________________
BRING BACK THE BCF

You aren't misunderstanding at all. At present leagues outside MOs pay a membership fee to the ECF of 58p per player per game. This becomes either £ nil for members or £ 2 per game per non-member. So all club players are expected to pay at least £ 13 per head per year to the ECF, if they aren't already members. In return, their local league might give something back to the clubs, so clubs might be able to reduce membership costs. It shouldn't come as a surprise that clubs will feel unable to reduce club fees by more than they aren't charged by leagues and counties. Break even is at around the 20 game mark.

The Stockport League AGM considered the issue of membership last night. There was a healthy discussion after which it was decided to allow non members to play up to 3 games at a cost of £2 per game. After that, the player would be ineligible to play again until they become an ECF member.

League fees were reduced from £48 per team to £5 per team.

One attendee asked the meeting if any club thought that this was going to cause their team problems. No one thought that it would. Another attendee thought it was natural to require membership of the national body.

So a couple of "I told you so" points about membership

(1) you start barring people from playing chess.
(2) what you gain from abolishing Game Fee is less than what you have to pay by way of membership.

This may or may not matter from the viewpoint of encouraging people to play chess and running league teams. Personally I think it matters, but your mileage may vary. The ECF CEO is on record as denying that point (1) was ECF policy.

This is a complete red herring. Surely most all leagues have a rule to the effect that players must be genuine (i.e. paid-up) members of the club they represent; some require a player to be formally pre-registered with the league too. The talk of "barring people from playing chess" applies as much to people who won't pay club memberships or aren't registered in time, etc. Compulsory membership started with clubs and leagues, not just now with the ECF!

Correct. Roger's point is as stupid as claiming that requiring an entry fee means that we ban players from playing if they don't pay it.

Of course, what we have here is that EVERYONE can play - they just have to be an ECF member if they play more than 3 games. There was debate about whether there should be a limit, and if so whether the number should be 3 or 4 games, but come the vote it was unanimous that there should be a limit on the number of games played by non members and the majority narrowly went for that limit being 3 games.

It's not a red herring. When the BCF's old concept of registration was abolished, some counties abolished with it the notion that the county should in any way attempt to restrict who clubs were allowed to select other than purely for sporting reasons. If Bucks or Berks were to adopt the Stockport solution, it would require an AGM rule change. "Member" of a club is regarded as however a club cares to define it, the point being that it's better for league chess to have a guest player taking part than a default. Pre-registration is more a question of convenience for the grader in player identification. AGMs have a three way choice, none of them pleasant.

So if no ECF members are available to fill a board in a match and you've used up all your three game limits, what happens? A default presumably. If someone who isn't an ECF member is asked to play by a club and agrees to play a fourth match, what happens then? Presumably it wasn't worth them turning up if they just get defaulted. Perhaps you allow them to play an ungraded friendly.

Can we agree that one of the effects of membership is that leagues and counties have to introduce or extend rules on how many games can be played by non-members? We may disagree on whether this is likely to increase defaults and reduce teams entered. It's not going to reduce defaults.

But that's an existing MO area, is it not? So you already have been through the trade off between league fees and additional per head costs? Thus you didn't have to have a debate about
(a) by how much to increase the club sub, if it was going to include £ 13 for the ECF
or
(b) by how much you could reduce it, if you were expecting individuals to pay it themselves

Surely counties cannot simply select "for sporting reasons"; they can select only who is eligible.

"Member" of a club is regarded as however a club cares to define it, the point being that it's better for league chess to have a guest player taking part than a default. What? You mean towards the end of a season my club's bottom team (in a promotion/relegation fight) can draft in a visiting master? Methinks other clubs would object.

Pre-registration is more a question of convenience for the grader in player identification. No. For one thing, it's to ensure eligibility can be checked.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

Here is an article (two parts) by the late George Fifield from Kingpin 5, May 1981.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamraoof/7175523692/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamraoof/7175523770/

_________________
Adam Raoof
FIDE International Organiser and Arbiter
Hampstead International Congresses - http://www.hampsteadchess.blogspot.co.uk
http://www.chessengland.com

I'm not talking about counties, I'm talking about clubs. You adopt a 4NCL style philosophy to eligibility.


Hence the "sporting reasons" point. So you have a rule which applies a grading restriction to players not pre-nominated. In the 4NCL, wild cards for critical end of season matches are an accepted part of the league.



If your eligibility rule is simply that you haven't played for anyone else, you don't need much checking.
The long essay that forms the Birmingham league rule on eligibility isn't followed much elsewhere. Sussex have something similar possibly copied from Birmingham but I think it's the exception.

No

Manchester League rules require no change because of the ECF Membership Scheme

If the Stockport wing (the Pardoes as we call them ) of the MCF want to introduce "Stockport rules" to the MCF, then our AGM will need to pass a rule change - We will find out midnight Tuesday when the deadline for AGM motions closes

_________________
Any postings on here represent my personal views and should not be taken as representative of the Manchester Chess Federation