Ernie Lazenby wrote: I am sure that if the national grading system was out sourced to a private company we would end up paying more.
I think that's actually unlikely, if it was possible to replicate the current set up. Most of grading is financed by the unpaid work of volunteers who make available their data management and other computer skills for next to nothing. The amounts raised by the ECF go mostly to paying for the office in Battle who spend little or no time on grading. Don't you remember the time, nearly fifteen years ago when the office employed a grading administrator? She was very good at it and masked some usability problems with the underlying software. Sadly the replacement wasn't and nearly wrecked the grading system and with it the BCF. Since then most of the tasks of running the grading system and communicating with local organisers have been kept away from the office.
In the longer run, whenever the ECF runs out of money, it's going to surcharge the £ 12. So Cleveland may be enthusiastic about membership at £ 12 a head, but what if it was £ 27?
Parts of Yorkshire and North West England have run leagues without being part of national grading for nearly twenty years.
In many other sports, not least table tennis, those taking part in those leagues would have been prohibited from playing in competitions outside of their local areas years ago. I don't think I want to advocate this for chess, but it's a direction that the logic of universal or compulsory membership takes you.
The argument runs like this. You can only have compulsory membership if you have a monopoly because otherwise you will be undercut by bodies not having the expenses of a national body. So you take steps to prevent competition. Once you have been given the right by compulsory membership to deny membership to individuals, then you use this right to remove from membership anyone taking part in unauthorised events, thus enforcing your monopoly.
In London, leagues are competing against each other for club and player interest. So if the LCCL were to emulate Cleveland and demand a £ 5 per head fee for every player taking part, that would very likely turn into a strategy for closing down their league.