Tellers

[NickFaulks]

When FIDE introduced the FID code, allowing people to play if they could not find a federation of their own, they were keen not to be seen as undermining any national federation by allowing their players to save money by going down the FID route. They therefore had to find the federation which charged its players the most for permission to take part in FIDE rated events, in order to make their own price a bit higher. That honour went to ENG.

[Alex Holowczak]

When FIDE introduced the FID code, allowing people to play if they could not find a federation of their own, they were keen not to be seen as undermining any national federation by allowing their players to save money by going down the FID route. They therefore had to find the federation which charged its players the most for permission to take part in FIDE rated events, in order to make their own price a bit higher. That honour went to ENG.

At the current exchange rate, there's not much difference between 32 GBP to become an ECF member and 40 USD to be a USCF member. And £5.33 of the ECF membership goes to the government in VAT. But I take the point.

[Andrew Zigmond]

To my mind, the announcements of the restructuring of the British Championship Congress were carefully timed and carefully minuted to avoid being discussed at Council meetings.

Well no, because it could have been discussed at this one had somebody put a motion on the agenda.

Regarding gold and silver memberships I had to upgrade to gold at the end of last season to play in the Soanes weekender. Am I right in thinking that when pay to play comes in it will solve part of that problem?

[NickFaulks]

At the current exchange rate, there's not much difference between 32 GBP to become an ECF member and 40 USD to be a USCF member.

Yes, that is now true. Of course, USA isn't a hotspot of FIDE rated chess either.

[Alex Holowczak]

Am I right in thinking that when pay to play comes in it will solve part of that problem?

No, the British Championships has long been "members only" to English players. The only thing that has changed is the level of membership required to get in.

[Roger de Coverly]

No, the British Championships has long been "members only" to English players.

That was based on a misinterpretation, to put it mildly, of the then FIDE rules.

FIDE's position was that they just wanted everyone to have a designation eg, ENG, WLS etc. The BCF and ECF interpreted this to mean that everyone had to be a MEMBER and in the case of the ECF interpreted this to mean a Member in the Companies Act sense. It went to the stage of the ECF Office turning up at the first 4NCL weekend of the season to collect the ECF's pennies and signed forms.

It was Chess Scotland who asked the question. Did FIDE's rules for rating mean that all participants in their National League had to be Chess Scotland members if Scottish? The answer was that they didn't as long as they were identified as SCO and it was up to Chess Scotland to define how this qualification could be obtained. Once this became known, it was apparent that either FIDE had weakened their stance or the BCF/ECF had been fibbing all along. The history of this goes back to 2000, but is chronicled on the late Richard Hadrell's SCCU site.

[Alex Holowczak]

No, the British Championships has long been "members only" to English players.

That was based on a misinterpretation, to put it mildly, of the then FIDE rules.

No it wasn't, because this applied to all of the tournaments at the British, not just the FIDE-rated ones.

[Roger de Coverly]

No it wasn't, because this applied to all of the tournaments at the British, not just the FIDE-rated ones.

That was a later development. The move to compulsory membership started with trying to pick off the minority who played in FIDE rated events, being the British Championship and Major Open. FIDE were blamed.

See Richard Hadrell's contemporary report.

http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/0102/bcf.htm

FIDE registered players. FIDE now requires all rated players to be members of their national federation. This was one of the reasons the BCF launched its new, cheaper, membership structure. It had already been decided to write to all the BCF's rated players inviting them to join. However, this has not been done yet and the MB agreed to ask the April Council meeting to ratify the decision to do it. Anyone not joining by September would be removed from the FIDE list.

[Alex Holowczak]

Thanks for confirming that while this was a later development, it was independent of the misunderstood FIDE rule.

[Nick Grey]

Ought to get this one back on track. I'm sure there will be enough attendees that Council/ECF can have tellers that can count.

If you wanted to make your motions via your representatives you ought to have done so by now.

Not sure why anyone is bringing up ancient history or even recent history. I hope you can find appropriate roles for all volunteers.

Voting for none of the above is a complete waste of time & effort.

Anyone volunteering for live forum commentary? Personally hoping to be up to making a few cups of tea and coffee at a County match, getting back in time for a few items in live reporting.

[John Reyes]

Ought to get this one back on track. I'm sure there will be enough attendees that Council/ECF can have tellers that can count.

If you wanted to make your motions via your representatives you ought to have done so by now.

Not sure why anyone is bringing up ancient history or even recent history. I hope you can find appropriate roles for all volunteers.

Voting for none of the above is a complete waste of time & effort.

Anyone volunteering for live forum commentary? Personally hoping to be up to making a few cups of tea and coffee at a County match, getting back in time for a few items in live reporting.

well you hope so, but I never has been asked and also you should try and encourage the youth in the Meeting to do it like maybe Ben Edgell, myself or other youthful people

I hope that one of the rep won't fall asleep like last year