Membership tickets

[Paul Bielby]

I, and no doubt many other people concerned with Membership Organisations, have received a message from the ECF suggesting that the ECF could save funds by posting out membership tickets to club secretaries, rather than sending them individually to all members. Yes, I expect they could, but why send out membership tickets at all? Has anybody ever been required to produce one at any event? I certainly haven't. If a tournament organiser needs to know if an entrant is a member he can simply check the ECF membership lists - admittedly, for some reason unknown, the list is password protected.

Some years ago I also received an 'Arbiters Ticket'. Again I've never had reason to show it - and here the full list of arbiters is open to all to see in the ECF yearbook and on the website. So why have membership tickets at all? And why the secrecy about the list of members?

[Alex Holowczak]

And why the secrecy about the list of members?

I have absolutely no idea, but I agree with the gist of what you're saying.

I think it contains some information which could be construed as private. Why having the password makes this situation any better, I don't know.

There should be a publicly available version of the list, with any information that doesn't need to be there removed.

[David Sedgwick]

I carry an old membership card (not my current one) in my wallet. I find it useful to have it readily available if I forget my membership number, which I do with increasing frequency as I get older.

This idea of sending the information to Club Secretaries reminds me of the bad old days of the levy, when a lot of membership cards never got beyond a County Officer's cupboard.

I appreciate the need to cut costs, but surely this could equally well be achieved by emailing a printable document.

The collection of ECF membership subscriptions and dissemination of documentation is not the responsibility of Clubs at the present time. We're in the midst of a major review of whether to have a Universal Membership Scheme and, if so, how to administer it.

For the Office to be seeking to offload part of its responsibilities now seems to me to be jumping the gun somewhat.

Would Andrew Farthing like to comment?

[Andrew Farthing]

The collection of ECF membership subscriptions and dissemination of documentation is not the responsibility of Clubs at the present time. We're in the midst of a major review of whether to have a Universal Membership Scheme and, if so, how to administer it.

For the Office to be seeking to offload part of its responsibilities now seems to me to be jumping the gun somewhat.

Would Andrew Farthing like to comment?

This initiative is a relatively simple change which we're seeking to apply in Membership Organisation (MO) areas. Currently, we receive lists of members (and payment) en bloc but send out membership cards to each individual member. The office is contacting each club secretary simply to ask whether they would be willing to hand out the cards to members at their club. If they are, it will save us considerable postage costs. If they prefer not to, we are no worse off. We're not forcing the change on anyone.

If we get feedback that the cards end up not being distributed, we would revert to the old method, but in these straitened times it seemed worthwhile trying to save some money if this could be done without unduly burdening the MOs.

The office shouldn't be blamed for "seeking to offload part of its responsibilities". This was something that I discussed and agreed with the office staff on my last visit to Battle, so if it's a mistake, it's mine.

On the wider issue of whether we need membership cards at all, this is something which had occurred to me, but I have put the issue in the "pending" file until I know what the result of Council's deliberations on future funding and membership options is.

[Sean Hewitt]

When the MO's were first proposed, it was part of the proposal that membership cards would be distributed via MO organisers to save costs, and these cost savings were built into the reduced membership fee.

For some reason, known only to the ECF, this was never implemented. We weren't even told! We in Leicestershire were most surprised when membership cards just dropped through everyones letter boxes.

However, I agree that there really is no need to have a membership card at all.

Mind you, I've been trying to tell the ECF office that they can email invoices rather than post them. It would save time and money twice over (they are almost always wrong and have to be sent out again!). But they seem unable or unwilling to do this.

[David Sedgwick]

The collection of ECF membership subscriptions and dissemination of documentation is not the responsibility of Clubs at the present time. We're in the midst of a major review of whether to have a Universal Membership Scheme and, if so, how to administer it.

For the Office to be seeking to offload part of its responsibilities now seems to me to be jumping the gun somewhat.

Would Andrew Farthing like to comment?

This initiative is a relatively simple change which we're seeking to apply in Membership Organisation (MO) areas. Currently, we receive lists of members (and payment) en bloc but send out membership cards to each individual member. The office is contacting each club secretary simply to ask whether they would be willing to hand out the cards to members at their club. If they are, it will save us considerable postage costs. If they prefer not to, we are no worse off. We're not forcing the change on anyone.

If we get feedback that the cards end up not being distributed, we would revert to the old method, but in these straitened times it seemed worthwhile trying to save some money if this could be done without unduly burdening the MOs.

The office shouldn't be blamed for "seeking to offload part of its responsibilities". This was something that I discussed and agreed with the office staff on my last visit to Battle, so if it's a mistake, it's mine.

On the wider issue of whether we need membership cards at all, this is something which had occurred to me, but I have put the issue in the "pending" file until I know what the result of Council's deliberations on future funding and membership options is.

Thank you for the explanation that this relates solely to MOs. That puts a different complexion on things.

The office shouldn't be blamed for "seeking to offload part of its responsibilities".

Accepted. My apologies.

[Andrew Farthing]

Mind you, I've been trying to tell the ECF office that they can email invoices rather than post them. It would save time and money twice over (they are almost always wrong and have to be sent out again!). But they seem unable or unwilling to do this.

At the same visit to the ECF office a couple of weeks ago, I agreed with the staff that they would use e-mail wherever possible for invoices and other correspondence. I know that there are some organisers who prefer a hard copy of the invoice and specifically request it, but I would hope that we shall be able to make some inroads into admin costs in this way.

[Sean Hewitt]

Mind you, I've been trying to tell the ECF office that they can email invoices rather than post them. It would save time and money twice over (they are almost always wrong and have to be sent out again!). But they seem unable or unwilling to do this.

At the same visit to the ECF office a couple of weeks ago, I agreed with the staff that they would use e-mail wherever possible for invoices and other correspondence. I know that there are some organisers who prefer a hard copy of the invoice and specifically request it, but I would hope that we shall be able to make some inroads into admin costs in this way.

Good stuff. I appreciate that some prefer hard copy (and indeed may not have access to email) but I've asked countless times for the office to email stuff rather than post it - but without success!