ECF Finance Council Meeting 22 April 2023

[Roger Lancaster]

I was thinking of Justin Horton (and Jim Plaskett), our Spanish correspondent(s).

Sorry, maybe I should have worked that out for myself!

[Ian Thompson]

In fairness, the point being made wasn't that the only difference between English and Spanish tournaments was FIDE rating. The point was only that all competitive chess in Spain is FIDE rated.

In which case another question to which I don't know the answer is how Spanish local league chess is organised? Predominantly weekday evenings with fairly short playing sessions, predominantly weekday evenings with longer playing sessions which might not finish until very late at night, or predominantly weekends with longer playing sessions?

(Spanish national league chess is not comparable to anything we have in England. It's played over a week at a central venue, so most people taking part are going to have to stay away from home in hotel for several days and need a week off work.)

[Roger de Coverly]

In which case another question to which I don't know the answer is how Spanish local league chess is organised?

Don't you have to start with the question as to whether there actually is any? I could imagine weekend play on the lines of 4NCL or county matches, but do they have two and half or three hour evening sessions?

[Roger Lancaster]

In fairness, the point being made wasn't that the only difference between English and Spanish tournaments was FIDE rating. The point was only that all competitive chess in Spain is FIDE rated.

In which case another question to which I don't know the answer is how Spanish local league chess is organised? Predominantly weekday evenings with fairly short playing sessions, predominantly weekday evenings with longer playing sessions which might not finish until very late at night, or predominantly weekends with longer playing sessions?

(Spanish national league chess is not comparable to anything we have in England. It's played over a week at a central venue, so most people taking part are going to have to stay away from home in hotel for several days and need a week off work.)

Ian - I can't speak for the Spanish national league but the setup for the Catalonia League (which isn't yet a national league but is nevertheless strong with IMs and GMs) is that seven rounds are played on consecutive Saturdays, followed by four days of relegation playoffs, finishing with four days of playoffs to win. Those last four days are on a knockout basis so a round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and final. Oh, and to answer Roger's question, the game there are 90' + 30" which meets the 4-hour test.

[NickFaulks]

I certainly didn't feel anyone related to (for example) the single mum on income support in Huddersfield with two sons keen on chess.

I don't think we should allow this debate to be clouded by issues with juniors. If we want to make chess affordable for juniors there will be ways of doing that within any membership scheme.

[Roger Lancaster]

I certainly didn't feel anyone related to (for example) the single mum on income support in Huddersfield with two sons keen on chess.

I don't think we should allow this debate to be clouded by issues with juniors. If we want to make chess affordable for juniors there will be ways of doing that within any membership scheme.

Fair point. I rather obscured my own point by introducing two sons but I was concerned about the genuinely hard-up minority. It's hard to say how many chess players fall within this definition but latest figures suggest that, nationally, some 2 million people receive working-age State benefits such as Income Support, Jobseekers Allowance or ESA. If I've got my statistics right, that's from a national workforce of some 36 million so 5-6%. It's probably not too different for pensioners. As a very crude measure, and I accept it is very approximate, applying this ratio to 4,500 bronze members might mean around 250.

[Roger de Coverly]

Ian - I can't speak for the Spanish national league but the setup for the Catalonia League (which isn't yet a national league but is nevertheless strong with IMs and GMs) is that seven rounds are played on consecutive Saturdays, followed by four days of relegation playoffs, finishing with four days of playoffs to win.

Rather more akin to county matches or perhaps the Yorkshire Woodhouse Cup and any other Saturday leagues. In Yorkshire, the weekend county wide competition is paralleled with local leagues in evenings based around the population centres.

[Roger Lancaster]

Ian - I can't speak for the Spanish national league but the setup for the Catalonia League (which isn't yet a national league but is nevertheless strong with IMs and GMs) is that seven rounds are played on consecutive Saturdays, followed by four days of relegation playoffs, finishing with four days of playoffs to win.

Rather more akin to county matches or perhaps the Yorkshire Woodhouse Cup and any other Saturday leagues. In Yorkshire, the weekend county wide competition is paralleled with local leagues in evenings based around the population centres.

It crossed my mind, after Ian mentioned a week-long league and I noted Catalonia was Saturday-only, whether there was an aversion in Spain - as a strongly Roman Catholic country - to playing on Sundays. I've no idea - can anyone with stronger Spanish connections help?

[John Reyes]

... But your final sentence hits the mark and a significant part of today's meeting felt that a starting-point would be to create a single class of ECF membership, with everyone eligible to take part in FIDE-rated events, rather than retain the present system where gold membership is needed.

I think this would be a very bad idea indeed. Why is it that a decent number of players are Bronze members and not Silver+ members? Is there not concern about disenfranchising current Bronze members? Has this discussion not been had before when not one but two motions were put to Council to combine Bronze and Silver memberships - something which the paper submitted for today's meeting failed to consider?

Yes, there are two schools of thought on this - the 'significant part' which I mentioned earlier and a second group, seemingly of broadly similar size and of which Angus is a member. Personally, I'm not convinced it's a 'very bad idea' (if one divides an ECF subscription by 52 to get the effective weekly rate, it's negligible) but am inclined to argue against it mainly on the grounds that it's obviously very divisive and I feel the ECF would do better to focus on areas where there's a broad consensus. I'm also of the opinion that the ECF Council - and don't get me wrong, it's full of well-intentioned people - isn't necessarily representative of the wider ECF membership. For starters, today's meeting consisted exclusively of (mainly white) men and I certainly didn't feel anyone related to (for example) the single mum on income support in Huddersfield with two sons keen on chess. So, for rather different reasons, my position isn't too far from that of Angus.

I don't know if people know that i'm from chile, but also that i do understand about living on the breadline as my family was like that and i came from a working class background when i was playing chess for Chorlton chess club. Also I do feel that our Current Director of Finance is on the money with his background and can related to people as 3c's have players in that background.

[Roger Lancaster]

I don't know if people know that i'm from chile, but also that i do understand about living on the breadline as my family was like that and i came from a working class background when i was playing chess for Chorlton chess club. Also I do feel that our Current Director of Finance is on the money with his background and can related to people as 3c's have players in that background.

Agreed and the hard fact is that we're rarely going to know how many club members are in that situation because most aren't going to admit it - not to other club members or even, often, to their own family. An old friend of mine confided "I used to be seriously short of money and could only afford sardines. To avoid telling my kids, I used to ask them for three alternatives for supper but make sure sardines were one of the choices. Then, after suitable consideration, I'd choose sardines. That way, they were happy because they'd been consulted".

[John Reyes]

i wonder what the proposal will be at the AGM.

Also i do feel that the AGM should be Face to Face and the Financial meeting to be on Zoom. i do think some people are not great on zoom)

[Satish Gaekwad]

"I'm also of the opinion that the ECF Council - and don't get me wrong, it's full of well-intentioned people - isn't necessarily representative of the wider ECF membership. For starters, today's meeting consisted exclusively of (mainly white) men and I certainly didn't feel anyone related to (for example) the single mum on income support in Huddersfield with two sons keen on chess. So, for rather different reasons, my position isn't too far from that of Angus"

I agree with Roger here & hence the perspectives from those unrepresented groups is perhaps missing in this vital debate on revamping the membership structure...whilst I also agree with the other comment made elsewhere on provisioning for those under hardship in any new membership scheme.

[Paul Cooksey]

I'm not sure about discounts for hardship. More difficult for the ECF to decide how to handle a bursarship that for a club that knows the individual, for example.

I am biased by my view the membership scheme should be simple. ECF membership income is about £200 000. ECF admin costs are about £125 000. We are not sure how much of that admin cost is needed to administer the current super complex hybrid membership/ game fee scheme. But most people think a lot. I recall Roger Emerson attributing to his wife the observation that the point of the ECF is to collect the money to fund the ECF.

[Angus French]

I'm not sure about discounts for hardship. More difficult for the ECF to decide how to handle a bursarship that for a club that knows the individual, for example.

I don't think it's only about hardship. Also relevant I think is perceived value for money for players playing only a few league games a year (if I recall this came up in feedback from Bronze members when there was a previous proposal to merge the Bronze and Silver membership categories). Here I should also say that the ECF has improved its membership proposition in recent years with a better magazine with much more content, support for online chess (with online ratings and the organisation of tournaments) and provision of commentary for tournaments.
I don't understand the comment about bursarship.

I am biased by my view the membership scheme should be simple. ECF membership income is about £200 000. ECF admin costs are about £125 000. We are not sure how much of that admin cost is needed to administer the current super complex hybrid membership/ game fee scheme. But most people think a lot. I recall Roger Emerson attributing to his wife the observation that the point of the ECF is to collect the money to fund the ECF.

I like simplicity too... FWIW, I made it that the forecast membership numbers, if realised, would produce income of £250K for the current year. See upthread.

On what it takes to administrate the membership scheme: that is a question, isn't it? If I recall it's been said that significant ECF Office time was spent looking after the IT system which supported the scheme and dealing with enquiries and payments made over the phone. I wonder what the current situation is with a newish replacement IT support system? I don't recall reading anything about this in the membership paper produced for the meeting. Were the Office staff consulted? Also, were other stakeholders - the membership reps, and some sample league and tournament organisers - consulted?

[Nick Ivell]

Isn't the Sabbatarian observance more of a Protestant thing than a Catholic?