ECF Game Fee in internal Club events

[Paul Buswell]

So basically club secretaries need to be able to `sell` ECF membership and, in my view, they need something a bit better to offer than the grading system.

Bravo! Absolutely! Yes please.... Again simple sense from AZ.

Sean Hewitt, if you read this could you pop your acting DoMM hat on for a mo just to note it, I realise your position is interim...

From the outset when the ECF Membership Scheme emerged I flagged with Andrew Farthing that there was no ECF marketing material out there and he said it would be a priority... never happened.

What does / can the Club official reply when asked "why should I join this ECF thingy, what is it, what does it do?" How does one respond? Where are the fliers, the literature, the posters, the propaganda, the back up, the sell? No, you don't reply: "Go and look at their website, can't remember its name but maybe you can google it and print something off ... don't have internet access? let's not bother then...." Why should players have to make an effort to be sold to? Dashed if I'm going to use my paper and ink and clapped out printer to print the ECF's stuff for it. Yes, I am suggesting the ECF print literature and distribute it to every Club and chess outlet... Because until the ECF takes an active rôle in selling itself and the good things that it does it will be seen as nothing more than a tax collector rather than a body capable of doing much good for chess.

PB

[Roger de Coverly]

Because until the ECF takes an active rôle in selling itself and the good things that it does it will be seen as nothing more than a tax collector rather than a body capable of doing much good for chess.

Almost all the money raised by the ECF is used to finance its office in Battle. Andrew Farthing supplied an analysis of what the Office did, but not why it did it. The unanswered question is how much the ECF Office is spending to collect the revenue to finance the Office.

[Sean Hewitt ECF DoMM]

What does / can the Club official reply when asked "why should I join this ECF thingy, what is it, what does it do?" How does one respond? Where are the fliers, the literature, the posters, the propaganda, the back up, the sell? No, you don't reply: "Go and look at their website, can't remember its name but maybe you can google it and print something off ... don't have internet access? let's not bother then...." Why should players have to make an effort to be sold to? Dashed if I'm going to use my paper and ink and clapped out printer to print the ECF's stuff for it. Yes, I am suggesting the ECF print literature and distribute it to every Club and chess outlet... Because until the ECF takes an active rôle in selling itself and the good things that it does it will be seen as nothing more than a tax collector rather than a body capable of doing much good for chess.

The ECF has 9100 members currently. It seems to me that the majority of players have got the membership message with the information that is available. Under those circumstances, I'm not going to go to the unnecessary expense of printing literature to promote membership for what would be a minority of players as such a cost would come from the membership fees collected, and mean that those funds were not spendable elsewhere. The information is available online (as you say), and I'm happy to work on producing a printable flyer for folk if we think that's of use.

[Roger de Coverly]

It seems to me that the majority of players have got the membership message with the information that is available.

They've been told to join as an actual or implied condition of playing graded chess. Organisations running chess events are expected to enforce this, or pay the ECF's enhanced Game Fee, as a condition of having the games in their events graded. Here and there, events have withdrawn from being graded, or if ungraded to start with, do not see a reason to become graded.

[James Byrne]

...

[Steve Rooney]

I've just come back from Frodsham where the entries were up, following on from the significant increase in numbers at our Shropshire congress. And 9,100 have joined the ECF, so what exactly is the problem being discussed here?

Whilst administering the Shropshire entries I also had remarkably few problems with membership queries; the vast majority were Silver or Gold anyway and the few who weren't didn't quibble at all.

Our county president put together a very good letter explaining the new system and promoting the benefits of ECF to all members before the start of this season and it seemed to work very well. Of course, the principle benefit is grading, but don't underestimate that; just try inviting people to an ungraded congress or league and see how many takers you get.

I think Sean is right that spending money on printing central literature would be a poor use of meagre funds.

I wasn't convinced about the membership scheme when it was first mooted, but once it was agreed I got on board and tried to make it work locally. From the numbers, that is what the vast majority have done as well.

On James' query about government grant, I am not sure you really need to ask this question given the deficit-cutting obsession of our current government? State funding should never have been relied upon for core income in my opinion, that should be the responsibility of chess players, with government and commercial support firmly targeted at additional activities including elite internationals and junior development.

[Roger de Coverly]

And 9,100 have joined the ECF, so what exactly is the problem being discussed here?

With the total playing at least one game a season being around the 15,000 mark, the problem is the six thousand or so who haven't. Adult chess clubs could survive several thousand juniors leaving the grading system but how much smaller can the adult playing count become for clubs and Congresses to survive in their current form?

The problem posed by Paul Buswell was whether he would be able to increase costs to participants in his local club's extensive internal events without the participants saying the cost was too high. Junior organisations suggested similar issues, but they were able to extract concessions at last April's Finance meeting.

The ECF has yet to announce its stance on FIDE player licensing, but that's potentially ticking away under the ECF. Assuming FIDE doesn't back down, the ECF has various ways to present and implement this, but one of the ways is that you have to become an ECF Gold member in order to enter a FIDE rated Congress (so no change there) but you also have to become FIDE licensed meaning you have to supply a photograph, your passport number and your date and place of birth to the ECF for onward transmission to FIDE to get a FIDE rating code. Alternatively there's a player and organiser revolt and events revert back to being ECF graded only.

[Roger de Coverly]

One question for Paul B.
How many players do you know of who will leave your chess club if they are charged £12 membership?
I suspect the answer will be less than you think

That might not be the right question. Paul may be more concerned not about leavers, but about those who won't join in the first place if it's perceived to be too expensive or difficult. There may well be a price point issue, as £12 may be acceptable but £ 20 isn't.

[Steve Rooney]

And 9,100 have joined the ECF, so what exactly is the problem being discussed here?

With the total playing at least one game a season being around the 15,000 mark, the problem is the six thousand or so who haven't. Adult chess clubs could survive several thousand juniors leaving the grading system but how much smaller can the adult playing count become for clubs and Congresses to survive in their current form?

The problem posed by Paul Buswell was whether he would be able to increase costs to participants in his local club's extensive internal events without the participants saying the cost was too high. Junior organisations suggested similar issues, but they were able to extract concessions at last April's Finance meeting.

The ECF has yet to announce its stance on FIDE player licensing, but that's potentially ticking away under the ECF. Assuming FIDE doesn't back down, the ECF has various ways to present and implement this, but one of the ways is that you have to become an ECF Gold member in order to enter a FIDE rated Congress (so no change there) but you also have to become FIDE licensed meaning you have to supply a photograph, your passport number and your date and place of birth to the ECF for onward transmission to FIDE to get a FIDE rating code. Alternatively there's a player and organiser revolt and events revert back to being ECF graded only.

On the membership number, as far as I was aware, people can still join retrospectively for this season and many more may still do that. Of course there will be a sizeable number who play very few graded games and who will opt for pay-per-game instead. This has been understood from the outset and is why there is a pay-per-game option. It's not difficult for people to do the maths, as Bob points out above, and work out that if they play enough games they would be better of joining.

I agree that there is an issue with FIDE events caused by the licensing requirements, but that is not of ECF's making although it will have to have a clear position on the issue. Personally I have never felt the need to get a FIDE rating, although I can see its attraction in terms of international equivalence. I would much prefer the ECF to use a four figure grading code and ELO methodology rather than the little England solution it clings to.

[Roger de Coverly]

But lets take Pauls example.
He has a new club member who has presumably paid him club subs for the year, he now wants to play in a club tournament of 12 games.
Under game fee the cost would be 11 x 58p or £6.38
Under membership it costs £12
Are you seriously suggesting that the extra £5.62 means that he will not play in the tournament.

Anyone rereading Paul's original question will recall that Hastings had a special deal available to all clubs but not promoted by the ECF whereby they had a Corporate Vice Presidency membership which included rights to grading of unlimited numbers of internal club games at no extra cost to the club. So the correct comparison is to £ nil or a division of the Vice Presidency cost over club members. But even if they didn't have this form of ECF club membership, Game Fee for internal events was set at one third the standard rate and for rapid-play one sixth the standard rate. So the cost is not £ 6.38 v £ 12 but £ 2.20 v £ 12. For a rapid-play tournament the cost would have been £ 1.10. Paul's original point was that if he increased the club sub by around 25% this could drive down club membership. You have to assume he knows the attitudes of his local club membership.

[Roger de Coverly]

This has been understood from the outset and is why there is a pay-per-game option.

The paper by the former CEO implied this was purely a transitional option. I've been asking whether this remains the case or whether it is seen as a permanent feature.

[John Townsend]

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Almost all the money raised by the ECF is used to finance its office in Battle. Andrew Farthing supplied an analysis of what the Office did, but not why it did it. The unanswered question is how much the ECF Office is spending to collect the revenue to finance the Office.

I think we have established in previous discussions that the grass roots
players do not really benefit from the office in Battle. Perhaps that is
something which Richard Bates might reflect upon when he suggests that game
fee could not be reduced to 50p for leagues and congresses. That might
provide the kick-start to growth in chess activity in this country that is
so badly needed. We do not bear comparison with Eastern Europe in the
amount of chess played. With present ECF policies I see no prospect of
growth in chess, but it seems more likely to dwindle into a narrow elite.
Perhaps the office and the ECF are thought to be more important than the
chess?

[Sean Hewitt ECF DoMM]

On the membership number, as far as I was aware, people can still join retrospectively for this season and many more may still do that. Of course there will be a sizeable number who play very few graded games and who will opt for pay-per-game instead. This has been understood from the outset and is why there is a pay-per-game option. It's not difficult for people to do the maths, as Bob points out above, and work out that if they play enough games they would be better of joining.

Absolutely. There are 3667 players who played fewer than 5 standard play games in the last 12 months. I would not expect these players to join (though great if they do) so my I don't see 15,000 members as the target membership. However, if these people continue to play then we will see revenues in pay to play fees and game fee.

The evidence from the January grading list appears to tell us that we have more players playing graded chess and more graded games being played in comparison to 12 months ago. This must be an inconvenient truth to some, but I make no apology for this growth in chess activity.

[Roger de Coverly]

The evidence from the January grading list appears to tell us that we have more players playing graded chess and more graded games being played in comparison to 12 months ago.

How did you do the comparison? That's a trick question because you cannot just compare the game count and player count between January 2013 and January 2012. The reason is obvious enough.

[John Townsend]

What does it take to be removed from the database of high growth? I no longer belong to a club and have not played any graded chess since May 2012 (assuming the Millfield Open in July was not graded).