Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Debate directly related to English Chess Federation matters.
Roger de Coverly
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Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Oct 28, 2011 12:49 pm

Louise Sinclair wrote: This sounds very Orwellian - are they going to bang on the doors of unregistered members lol
In practice the system proposed is that they won't chase the £1/£2 until the end of August and then send out bills to leagues to collect the payments for allowing non-members to take part. I don't really understand why it should be the end of August, since the data should have been available by then for two and a half months and by then it's too late to impose grading sanctions against disputed bills and non-payers. Perhaps it's just to buy time until August 2013 to get the Office, or someone on behalf of the Office, to write and test the process for both calculating and sending the bills.

Without giving details, the ECF imply that the enhanced Game Fee system is only a temporary measure. How the ECF will enforce 100% membership in leagues after that, isn't made clear.

David Robertson

Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by David Robertson » Fri Oct 28, 2011 9:40 pm

Truly astonishing. I've just dipped into this thread after many yawning days. Gary Cook speaks for Everyman.

Everyman assumes, as Gary does and so do I, that if you're a paying member, you get a vote. That's how it works in normal life.

And that, of course, is what I've been arguing into the hearing of the deaf for months. But the utterly 'deaf', and presumably disinterested, Board, CEO & Council, prefer to ignore the matter; prefer indeed their quiet life raking in our cash but granting them their votes. It's a disgrace. Repairing the matter is likely to be beyond the means of the current Board, as things stand.

Paul Cooksey

Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Paul Cooksey » Fri Oct 28, 2011 11:35 pm

David Robertson wrote:Everyman assumes, as Gary does and so do I, that if you're a paying member, you get a vote.
Maybe Gary is not an ideal spokesman for Everyman, given he did have a vote and chose not to use it. But on the other hand, maybe he is. Maybe we are just not facing up to the fact English chess players want the ECF to do almost nothing, and be almost free.

Looking at voluntary membership, with game fee at 0 instead of £1/£2. Perhaps it could get 200 members willing to pay £50? I think I'm being generous. I could design an ECF around income of £10000, but I'm not sure I want to.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Oct 29, 2011 9:44 am

Paul Cooksey wrote: English chess players want the ECF to do almost nothing
That's correct certainly, starting with trying to have rules set as to who is, or isn't, allowed to play in a league team.

Paul Cooksey wrote:. Perhaps it could get 200 members willing to pay £50? I think I'm being generous.
I think it might be more than that. You would have to go back to 2001 and check how many members there were then. This was shortly before the BCF embarked on its project to force membership on Internationally rated players using FIDE rules as an excuse.

Paul Cooksey

Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Paul Cooksey » Sat Oct 29, 2011 11:02 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Paul Cooksey wrote: English chess players want the ECF to do almost nothing
That's correct certainly, starting with trying to have rules set as to who is, or isn't, allowed to play in a league team.
Paul Cooksey wrote:. Perhaps it could get 200 members willing to pay £50? I think I'm being generous.
I think it might be more than that. You would have to go back to 2001 and check how many members there were then. This was shortly before the BCF embarked on its project to force membership on Internationally rated players using FIDE rules as an excuse.
I thought the arrangement was I guessed and Roger looked up the history? :)

Looking at the SCCU minutes for 2002 membership was 1100 (described as a plateau) for a revenue of £27000. But that looks optimistic, as a projection for voluntary membership since:
1. It included a game fee exemption for congresses
2. It included freebies, like the yearbook.
Net income was £16000. I'll be generous, and assume similar revenue and adjust for inflation to £20000.

Even doubling my previous estimate, £20k is a completely amateur organisation. Assuming we found a finance director prepared to collect the revenue, its an ECF that would:
1 Run grading
2 Send a team to the Olympiad but no other events (Certainly missing the top GMs, maybe even relying on norm hunters)
and almost nothing else. It is lucky David wants to abolish the Board and Council structures, since we can no longer afford to run them. I'd guess direct election of 3 or 4 officials similar to a club committee. We'd have to hope:
1 The John Robinson fund could look after junior chess independently
2 The British could become completely self funding, maybe paying the ECF £1 for use of its titles.

It's fine for a completely selfish club player. If by good luck the ECF were approached by a commercial sponsor, I guess they'd just redirect them to Malcolm Pein.

I'll concede it is not cataclysmic, but equally we would be giving up on the ECF as a vehicle to advance chess in England.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Oct 29, 2011 11:16 am

Paul Cooksey wrote: Net income was £16000. I'll be generous, and assume similar revenue and adjust for inflation to £20000.
It's simple enough for such an organisation to raise money provided it retains a monopoly over grading. It just says to leagues and Congresses that there's a charge for inclusion of players in the grading list. To keep it simple the charge is levied at the level of the event regardless of who takes part. You could load this charge to get enough money to finance the rest of your activities beyond grading. If you want, you can make it so that a hundred Congress games are charged more than a hundred league games.

That's essentially the Scottish model of how they raise funds in addition to what they get from their voluntary membership scheme.

Paul Cooksey

Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Paul Cooksey » Sat Oct 29, 2011 11:24 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Paul Cooksey wrote: Net income was £16000. I'll be generous, and assume similar revenue and adjust for inflation to £20000.
It's simple enough for such an organisation to raise money provided it retains a monopoly over grading. It just says to leagues and Congresses that there's a charge for inclusion of players in the grading list. To keep it simple the charge is levied at the level of the event regardless of who takes part. You could load this charge to get enough money to finance the rest of your activities beyond grading. If you want, you can make it so that a hundred Congress games are charged more than a hundred league games.

That's essentially the Scottish model of how they raise funds in addition to what they get from their voluntary membership scheme.
Yes, but... I suggested previously that if the ECF was autocratic and started requesting flat fees, it could be relatively simple. But as soon as the Leagues and Congresses want it to be "fair", we end up with a game fee arrangement and all the baggage that creates.

Game fee being rejected for the time being, I was considering something different. I was trying to model David Robertson's model with voluntary membership and no game fee.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Oct 29, 2011 11:36 am

Paul Cooksey wrote: I was trying to model David Robertson's model with voluntary membership and no game fee.
That can be where compulsory membership takes you as well if there's competition for over the board play. You get a contracting number of players in official competitions and an expanding, or at least static number, in the unofficial ones. Look at the revenue the ECF makes from Yorkshire (and is likely to make in the future) and project that over the country as a whole. The Yorkshire grading list has been linked to the ECF membership list, so you can browse and see just how many Yorkshire players are ECF members. It's not very many.

Paul Cooksey

Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Paul Cooksey » Sat Oct 29, 2011 11:59 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Paul Cooksey wrote: I was trying to model David Robertson's model with voluntary membership and no game fee.
That can be where compulsory membership takes you as well if there's competition for over the board play. You get a contracting number of players in official competitions and an expanding, or at least static number, in the unofficial ones. Look at the revenue the ECF makes from Yorkshire (and is likely to make in the future) and project that over the country as a whole. The Yorkshire grading list has been linked to the ECF membership list, so you can browse and see just how many Yorkshire players are ECF members. It's not very many.
I think Yorkshire's issue was with compulsory charging, not compulsory membership. David has at least solved that issue.

Michele Clack
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Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Michele Clack » Sat Oct 29, 2011 2:40 pm

And that, of course, is what I've been arguing into the hearing of the deaf for months. But the utterly 'deaf', and presumably disinterested, Board, CEO & Council, prefer to ignore the matter; prefer indeed their quiet life raking in our cash but granting them their votes. It's a disgrace. Repairing the matter is likely to be beyond the means of the current Board, as things stand.
This is a bit sweeping isn't it. As I see it the ECF has a lot on it's plate at the moment.

They are trying to streamline administrative functions and secure the immediate financial position. Changing to a membership system is the first step along the road. This leads to the next step looking at charity status to increase funding. I imagine this is the point when they will look at voting structures once they know whether charity status will work, since the professional bit would have to be split off in that scenario.

I do not believe that any of this is
beyond the means of the current Board
.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Oct 29, 2011 3:23 pm

michele clack wrote:. Changing to a membership system is the first step along the road.
The professor's point and that of some others is that they aren't really changing to a membership system in the sense that membership implies voting rights. All they are doing is replacing a system where they collect from institutions by event and players per head with a system where some institutions (Congresses with non-registered entrants) pay by event, that other institutions get free voting membership and that players are expected to register with personal payments per head before being allowed to participate in leagues.

So the proposed new fee structure of the ECF can be expressed as follows ( with a little minor simplification)

To play in an Internationally rated event £ 27 per person per year (charged to the individual)
To play in a Congress, not internationally rated £ 6 per Congress (charged to the Congress), but you can cap the cost at £ 18 per person per year (charged to the individual)
To play in at least one Congress and a League or County team £ 18 per person per year (charged to the individual)
To play in a League £ 12 per person per year (charged to the individual)
To play in a League without paying £ 12 a year, £2 (or £1) per game (charged to the League).
michele clack wrote:I do not believe that any of this (charity status etc.) is beyond the means of the current Board

However a coherent set of accounts is. The "obvious" issues with the accounts relate to mission critical issues of the collection and reporting of Game Fee income, MO Income and Direct Member Income. This is, or should have been, staring them in the face since the year end in April and isn't, at least publicly, resolved.

As the new membership scheme is meant to balance the budget, any shortfalls this year will presumably have to be made up next year with what that implies for the headline membership rate.

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John Upham
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Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by John Upham » Sat Oct 29, 2011 4:23 pm

This video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h33EQDitnKo appears to provide some guidance on these matters.
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Dragoljub Sudar
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Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Dragoljub Sudar » Mon Nov 07, 2011 3:22 pm

How will the scheme operate for a player joining a club part of the way through the season? Will he/she be required to pay the full rate or pro-rata for the bronze level for the remaining months and then add £6 / £15 / £48 to become a silver / gold / platinum member and would there be a cut-off date before which he/she would have to pay the full rate?

Will an existing member who's current membership runs out in a month other than August be required to take out new membership from 1st Sep 2012 and get a rebate on any unused months from their current paid fees (would he/she be allowed to subtract that from the fee he/she pays in September or would he/she have to claim it back seperately later?), or will their current membership be extended to 31st August 2012, paying the pro-rata for bronze membership (and anything extra for silver / gold / platinum)?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Practical Issues with Implementing ECF Membership

Post by Roger de Coverly » Mon Nov 07, 2011 5:08 pm

Dragoljub Sudar wrote: Will an existing member who's current membership runs out in a month other than August be required to take out new membership from 1st Sep 2012 and get a rebate on any unused months from their current paid fees (would he/she be allowed to subtract that from the fee he/she pays in September or would he/she have to claim it back seperately later?), or will their current membership be extended to 31st August 2012, paying the pro-rata for bronze membership (and anything extra for silver / gold / platinum)?
The document voted on says
any Direct Member whose existing membership expires after 31st August 2012 and whose category of membership is closed as from that date shall be entitled to a pro rata reduction in his or her new membership category from the date of such expiry until the following 31st August in accordance with guidance published from time to time by the Board.
But that doesn't actually say what happens in practice unless and until the Board publishes guidance. If they do in fact offer a proportionate membership for periods of a handful of months, they will be collecting some rather small sums of money.

There's plenty of scope for disputes. An existing member with a membership expiry date of 30th April 2013 or 31st May 2013 would have been a member for the entire league season, but might not choose to renew until 1st September 2013. So when the Game Fee calculation is run in August 2013, will it pick up that they were a member when the games were played?

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