Junior ECF Membership

[Phil Neatherway]

Also:-
1. would the existing ECF grading team be able/willing to take on this extra work?
2. as there is extra work, presumably there is an associated cost. How would this be funded?

[Roger de Coverly]

Grading of games played without clocks is not.

This is what the entry guidelines for the 2012-13 National Schools competition stated

This means that all your school needs to qualify for the National Schools Finals is six talented players (or just three for girls’ sections), six chess sets, transport for (on average) two away matches at the local zonal stage – and one more if your team qualifies for the national stages – plus some squash and biscuits to give your opponents at home matches.

There's no reference to clocks, so presumably the competition rules still permit matches to be played without them. That gives whoever is drafting the rules for the 2013-14 an interesting semantic problem. ECF membership or concessions is required because the ECF demands it as a condition of the event being graded and nominally run by the ECF. But also as a condition of grading, the matches have to be played with clocks, but this hasn't been a competition rule. Presumably the entry form is going to have to have some threatening wording about defaults if a school fields a player who isn't a member or an allowed concession, but is this enforceable if the match itself is played outside of the conditions for grading?

[Andrew Zigmond]

Perhaps juniors don't need a main ECF grade, and could instead be graded outside the system, and offered the opportunity to trade into the system if they so wished? After all they can get themselves graded and rated by playing ordinary tournaments if they want to. A junior grading system could be much more relaxed. The 'important' games (critical prize games in the higher age groups) would very likely be played under better conditions anyway, at well organised junior events.

A major problem would be making clear to young players new to the game that their grade is a seperate junior grade and not directly comparable to adult grades. Don't forget that we understand the system but junior players and their parents might not. Do we want young players who have obtained junior grades well into the 100s approaching chess club or entering congresses claiming they have a high grade and promptly getting humiliated by adults with apparently much lower grades.

[Alex Holowczak]

When junior membership questions come up some problem points are consistently around how to deal with the incompatibilities between junior time controls, patchy use of clocks, large numbers of ungraded players; basically how to protect the grading system.

Perhaps juniors don't need a main ECF grade, and could instead be graded outside the system, and offered the opportunity to trade into the system if they so wished? After all they can get themselves graded and rated by playing ordinary tournaments if they want to. A junior grading system could be much more relaxed. The 'important' games (critical prize games in the higher age groups) would very likely be played under better conditions anyway, at well organised junior events.

A bit of imagination could turn this into a highly sponsorable project, with plenty of prizes, and might prove sufficiently dynamic to make sense of realtime leader boards etc.

A low flat rate junior membership would not really be contentious I would have thought, and junior grading with prizes would make more sense of ECF membership as well as being more fun for the little ones.

You may have missed this from earlier in the thread:

Yes. I proposed this to the Junior Director at a Junior 4NCL. I proposed any nominal fee of something like £3-5, and for that we could have a grading list explicitly for junior-only events, in a bid to encourage things like Megafinals (that aren't eligible for proper grading, because they're not all played with clocks). Details could have been ironed out. Junior events could still be submitted for "normal" grading if they had the level of membership appropriate, or upgraded to that level of membership for the tournament in question.

The feedback was that junior persons (by which I mean, people who organise junior events) thought £3-5 was still too expensive.

[Alex Holowczak]

Also:-
1. would the existing ECF grading team be able/willing to take on this extra work?
2. as there is extra work, presumably there is an associated cost. How would this be funded?

The Grading Database Administrator has an honorarium and a contract. So any results submitted can be dealt with him. He may want more money in a future contract with additional work, but I would expect the money brought in by new memberships would cover it.

The technical challenge of producing another list isn't difficult. We did it when the Rapidplay list was introduced.

The bigger task would be designing the website link and making it clear it was outside the "normal" grading system. That's done by a volunteer, and would be a far bigger time commitment. That's the bigger hurdle.

[Roger de Coverly]

The feedback was that junior persons (by which I mean, people who organise junior events) thought £3-5 was still too expensive.

Why not offer them £ x per player per event, or even £ Y for the whole event for up to z participants? That way, provided they are charging an entry fee, they just have to get the juniors to turn up and play, with record keeping limited to player identification and payments to the ECF as a bulk sum. If the ECF wanted to support the event, it offers sponsorship of £ Y to negate the cost.

[Alex Holowczak]

The feedback was that junior persons (by which I mean, people who organise junior events) thought £3-5 was still too expensive.

Why not offer them £ x per player per event, or even £ Y for the whole event for up to z participants? That way, provided they are charging an entry fee, they just have to get the juniors to turn up and play, with record keeping limited to player identification and payments to the ECF as a bulk sum. If the ECF wanted to support the event, it offers sponsorship of £ Y to negate the cost.

The way I saw my junior membership idea working in the National Schools was to charge an entry fee of (say) £15 per team, which entitled them to 6 junior memberships. If they wanted more, they could add £3 to the entry fee per player they wanted to be a member.

However "provided they are charging an entry fee" may be the sticking point. I believe the entry fee was £0 last year. That may have just been the discounted early entry fee - I don't know.

[Neill Cooper]

The way I saw my junior membership idea working in the National Schools was to charge an entry fee of (say) £15 per team, which entitled them to 6 junior memberships. If they wanted more, they could add £3 to the entry fee per player they wanted to be a member.

However "provided they are charging an entry fee" may be the sticking point. I believe the entry fee was £0 last year. That may have just been the discounted early entry fee - I don't know.

When Winchester College offered to sponsor the event they said that they would like a zero entry fee. The consequence was that, unlike previous years, the finalists were charged for accommodation and food at the finals. This was not a problem.

[Roger de Coverly]

I believe the entry fee was £0 last year. That may have just been the discounted early entry fee - I don't know.

Certainly free entry was on offer last year and it was nominally only before a certain date. It's possible the offer was extended to all entries. The website has moved on and doesn't seem to have an archive. But the key point was the entry conditions. One part of the ECF attempted to increase participation in the National Schools by offering free entry, whilst later in the season another part undermines this by demanding paid for memberships.

If it's a conflict between ECF directorships, it's an issue that should have gone to the ECF Council for resolution if the non-Execs had been unable to get the policy settled. It probably didn't help that the candidate for DoMM position didn't offer a statement of intent for the role and was not elected as a probable consequence. This left the intent in the hands of the ECF Directors. It's all very well appointing a non-Exec director as temporary incumbent, but it leaves the ECF Board dangerously short of neutral opinion particularly when the appointee is a known membership enthusiast.

[Neill Cooper]

The way I saw my junior membership idea working in the National Schools ...

It is a great pity that the ECF board passed its motion on ECF membership for the National Schools BEFORE it had a workable membership solution to the problem it created. The consequence is that ad hoc solutions are still being suggested but, as far as I am aware, none has yet been agreed. The worst result is that the launch of the 2013/14 National Schools has already been significantly delayed, until the start of the 2013/14 academic year at the earliest, which will be to its detriment.

[Alex Holowczak]

It is a great pity that the ECF board passed its motion on ECF membership for the National Schools BEFORE it had a workable membership solution to the problem it created.

However, if the event doesn't insist on using clocks, then it can't be graded. I think that's the end of the argument. It can't be graded, and the ECF can't insist on membership for it.

[David Shepherd]

However, if the event doesn't insist on using clocks, then it can't be graded. I think that's the end of the argument. It can't be graded, and the ECF can't insist on membership for it.

I am starting to find it confusing why the rules are written like that and how they apply.

Looking at the UK Chess challenge the earlier stages don't use clocks on all boards and aren't graded. The final stages do use clocks and are graded. If two schools play and don't use clocks because for example they don't have clocks the match won't be graded. If two other schools play and do use clocks and want the match graded then why should the ECF say that it can't be, surely this is not something to be encouraged as the more grading data the better the grading system becomes. There is an argument for treating the two matches as separate events and allowing a rule such as where clocks are used on all boards the match will be graded.

If the schools play and get through to a final why can't that be graded even if the earlier stages aren't in the same way as the UK Chess Challenge?

[Sean Hewitt]

If the schools play and get through to a final why can't that be graded even if the earlier stages aren't in the same way as the UK Chess Challenge?

The suggestion that the national stages be graded, but the regional (zonal) stages are not, was put forward some time ago.

[David Shepherd]

Thanks Sean, sorry I missed that its a job to keep up

[Roger de Coverly]

The suggestion that the national stages be graded, but the regional (zonal) stages are not, was put forward some time ago.

It would appear that the past convention was that matches, regardless of stage, would be graded provided it was known that clocks had been used. That presumably is the case for matches between schools where at least one of them has a long established record for participation.