Compulsory Membership?

[Roger de Coverly]

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

Presumably then, because you live next door to MOs, you already have rules and procedures in place to collect £ x ( was 58p to become £ 2) per head) per game per non member. So the issue is referred back to your clubs, basically you will pass on the bill when you receive it from the ECF. You just have to hope they can afford it. If you want to cap your expenditure at £ 13 per head, you or the clubs need to be able to do third party membership. In other words to make someone a member without them being aware of it.

[Roger de Coverly]

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.

Then, as now, there was little understanding of what the BCF spent money on. It's useful to get a contemporary account of how the BCF was then financed.

In retrospect, 1981 would be amongst the high points of the BCF's financial security and ability to pay for itself. The three potentially major expenditures of the Office, the British Championships and the International teams were all covered wholly or in part by the Government grant and sponsorship. This contrasts with just ten and a bit years earlier when the BCF had none of these.

If you assume the BCF expenditure was in fact justified, the article becomes a complaint that Congresses and by implication Congress players shouldn't be expected to support the BCF, thereby ensuring that club players are.

[Brian Valentine]

The Bedfordshire AGM is next week and clearly something will need to be agreed to get enough ECF members to control the risk of £2 per half game fees bankrupting the association. I don't know what will be proposed.

In order to control the wilder suggestions do we actually know what facilities will be for non MO organisations to check ECF membership status? I would have thought data privacy regulations would limit the availability of such information.

[Adam Raoof]

The Bedfordshire AGM is next week and clearly something will need to be agreed to get enough ECF members to control the risk of £2 per half game fees bankrupting the association. I don't know what will be proposed.

In order to control the wilder suggestions do we actually know what facilities will be for non MO organisations to check ECF membership status? I would have thought data privacy regulations would limit the availability of such information.

You can already check the status of all players on the ECF website, and in the future it will be made even simpler, probably by adding a field to the grading database as well as an online search facility.

[Roger de Coverly]

The Bedfordshire AGM is next week and clearly something will need to be agreed to get enough ECF members to control the risk of £2 per half game fees bankrupting the association. I don't know what will be proposed.

I had perhaps rather supposed that those counties voting in favour of the scheme last October had some idea of how they would implement it. With the 85% rule thrown out, the potential rule set does get a bit simpler.

In order to control the wilder suggestions do we actually know what facilities will be for non MO organisations to check ECF membership status? I would have thought data privacy regulations would limit the availability of such information.

Currently the ECF Office puts a download of its membership data on the ECF website.
It doesn't contain membership type , other than what you can infer from the shape of the data.

It's obviously only as up to date as the data received and processed by the office. Browsing it last Autumn, it seemed very clear that prompt reporting by MOs to the ECF was the exception rather than the rule. The old BCF registration year was the calendar year, so if you had to run an early season match using only registered players, you should at least know who they were.

[Sean Hewitt]

The Bedfordshire AGM is next week and clearly something will need to be agreed to get enough ECF members to control the risk of £2 per half game fees bankrupting the association. I don't know what will be proposed.

That's where the Stockport 3 game rule idea came from. It protects both the league and the club from huge bills and encourages players to join the ECF.

In order to control the wilder suggestions do we actually know what facilities will be for non MO organisations to check ECF membership status? I would have thought data privacy regulations would limit the availability of such information.

Currently you can download the full membership list as a spreadsheet from the ECF website. There was talk of ECF membership data appearing on the ECF grading website and [presumably] the the grading MasterList.

[Roger de Coverly]

That's where the Stockport 3 game rule idea came from. It protects both the league and the club from huge bills and encourages players to join the ECF.

Or discourages them or their captain from playing a fourth.

AGMs have to look at some combination of three aspects
(1) restrictions on the number of games that non members are allowed to play (Stockport), or even complete exclusion (Cleveland)
(2) billing clubs for £ 2 per non-member per game (Manchester)
(3) removing events or games from the grading system (CCF allegedly)

[Sean Hewitt]

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?

They don't have to introduce such rules but I suspect they may be wise to do so. The alternatives are a combination of

i) go ungraded or ;
ii) hope that players join up or, if not, pay whatever game fee bill comes their way or ;
iii) do nothing and bleat about how much superior game fee was

[Roger de Coverly]

iii) do nothing and bleat about how much superior game fee was

The ECF have devised a system which is
(a) complicated to operate
(b) likely to fail to raise the required revenues
(c) likely to reduce participation in league chess

[Brian Valentine]

You can already check the status of all players on the ECF website, and in the future it will be made even simpler, probably by adding a field to the grading database as well as an online search facility.

Adam,
Thanks for that - I've found it and eventually will need to see why I'm not listed!

Do you have any service standard for getting this up to date after the September renewal rush, in case the association need a cut off date to refer to it?

I look forward to it being made more friendly for administering checks.

[David Robertson]

The NCCU is currently polling opinion among members. I've just received an email from its Secretary, Dave Cole, offering a vote on two options:

* new ECF scheme: YES/NO
* NMS scheme: YES/NO

The NMS (Northern Membership Scheme) would:

* charge £10 (adult); £5 (junior)
* submit games to ECF for grading
* grade games within the NCCU "if ECF refuses to accept them"
* pay ECF an unspecified but "substantial" sum if NMS approved over ECF scheme

I should add, as pertinent background, that Dave Cole has long sought to split NCCU from ECF. Hitherto he has been thwarted by the players. This could be his chance though. After all, he's counting the votes, not me.

[Adam Raoof]

You can already check the status of all players on the ECF website, and in the future it will be made even simpler, probably by adding a field to the grading database as well as an online search facility.

Adam,
Thanks for that - I've found it and eventually will need to see why I'm not listed!

Do you have any service standard for getting this up to date after the September renewal rush, in case the association need a cut off date to refer to it?

I look forward to it being made more friendly for administering checks.

Our new membership software should help. I think it will even allow club secretaries, county treasurers and tournament organisers to manage their membership / entrants to their tournaments online, and take payments and check status on the way.

In my case I will make it part of the online entry process at Golders Green to fill in the field for ECF Membership number and category, or entrants will be charged a higher entry fee, or offered the chance to upgrade online.

At our club we will probably ask all renewing members to join the ECF directly, and reduce our membership fees slightly depending on what Middlesex charge us for registration into the Middlesex League post game fee.

Middlesex County Chess Association has an AGM in July - Monday 9th July 2012, 7.00pm at The Exmouth Arms - and I don't know what we'll decide at that point. What are other counties doing? I think that the improvements in the grading database have gone a long way to convince people that the ECF can deliver a good national grading service, one that is reliable and accurate, and one that is constantly improving. It does cost money, though.

Any problems with membership please ring Christine on 01424 775222.

[Sean Hewitt]

The NCCU is currently polling opinion among members. I've just received an email from its Secretary, Dave Cole, offering a vote on two options:

* new ECF scheme: YES/NO
* NMS scheme: YES/NO

The NMS (Northern Membership Scheme) would:

* charge £10 (adult); £5 (junior)
* submit games to ECF for grading
* grade games within the NCCU "if ECF refuses to accept them"
* pay ECF an unspecified but "substantial" sum if NMS approved over ECF scheme

Thanks for that info David, very interesting.

If I've understood this correctly then what the NCCU appear to be doing is asking if players want to pay £10 or £13 and, when they vote £10, they will attempt to force a fait acompli upon the ECF by threatening to set up an NCCU grading system - knowing full well that the ECF will have no option but to tell them to get lost.

Ho hum.

[Mike Truran]

Not sure how Mr Cole is going to explain himself to irate new NCCU scheme members when they find out that they will still have to pay for Gold membership to play in FIDE rated events.

Hey ho.

[Andrew Farthing]

I've seen a copy of the Cole paper. It contains gross inaccuracies (e.g. "To get a grade all players must be at least a Bronze member"), manages to quote 6 of the various membership rates and get 4 of them wrong, and omits any mention of Game Fee.

I am very confident that the ECF would not accept the proposed scheme.