English Chess Forum

if players are only playing a couple of games a year, and decide not to pay membership the ECF aren't really losing that much (say approx £2 per player), so if one player pays £18 in this group it would negate 8 deciding not to bother, does seem to be that major problem

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[ps how can I cross reference an individual message?]

Adam. I think there are 3 groups here - individuals, junior clubs and schools. For individuals I think it might need to be about £5 for a 'Junior grading only' fee membership. For junior clubs I think you might be able to leave it for the time being, and the club can decide how important grading is. For schools have a school membership of the ECF of say £15 per year which would include 1 free entry in the National Schools Tournament and free grading of 1 team for a year [and nothing else]. For subsequent teams to be graded charge another £10.

In the interests of market research, are you prepared to say why? I don't think it's exclusively financial given the number of games you played in 2009-10.

We haven't even begun looking at the way we might implement membership, and Council only voted to investigate this option. So make your own mind up when the time comes, but ignore doom-mongers.

One possibility (pay-to-play, which is what some other countries do) is that these excellent tournaments will simply charge you extra for playing if you are not a member - differential pricing already exists of course, for players who enter late, and they could put the entry fees up any time of course. This might mean that the entry fee is £5 extra for non-members, so it would cost you £10 extra to play over a year. (1)

If you play graded games with Sidmouth Chess Club, such as leagues, then the arrangement might be similar. It might be easier administratively if clubs register a list of members with the ECF directly, so that Leagues don't have that admin burden (rather like clubs enter leagues at the moment and the Leagues assume membership for all players, they don't have to check it with each club). The membership of Sidmouth might be £X for ECF members, and £X+£Y for non-members, with £Y being anything from a full priced £18 to an equivalent of the pay-to-play option for congresses above. Or clubs might have a separate lower membership for those only intending to play internal games and (for instance) an annual club championship (which the ECF might grade for free, as I think all clubs should be encouraged to have one for all members). (3)

If you played in the Paignton Premier you'd have to be a member already, as it's FIDE rated.(2)

A sensible idea - though £5 seems very cheap for individuals (aka parents)?

(1) You mean an extra fee on top of the extra fee I already pay for not being a direct member?

(2) That is way above my level of skill I'm afraid.

(3) So you intend for clubs like Sidmouth to have the vast majority of their players have graded games for free (the internal club championship) and hope they'll pay the congress fee of £6 per player in order for their players to play 1 or 2 league games? Are you trying to kill the Exeter & District Chess League?

Obviously the ECF has to find a way to implement this scheme without doing that. (1)

You already pay the ECF for your games to be graded, whether the games are played in congresses or in leagues!

Theoretically, when you renew your club subscriptions you will then become a member of the ECF, and that will cover your league games, whether you play one or one hundred games. (You don't get a cheaper club subscription because you only attend half the club nights in the year, or only play friendlies.) (2)

Do you belong to any other membership schemes of any kind?(3)

(You don't get a cheaper club subscription because you only attend half the club nights in the year, or only play friendlies.)

Club affiliation fee £15.
Fee for affiliated leagues and other affiliated organisations £20.
Game fee of 65p per player per game in the Essex League, made up of ECF 50p and ECA 15p.
Individual subscriptions of £2 for adults and £1 for juniors.
Vice-Presidents’ subscriptions of £12

Since the only service the ECF provides to me is the grading of my games, that is all I am willing to pay for.

Any chance that this discussion could be moved to a more appropriately named thread?

I see that you've now made 2,730 posts. Perhaps it's time for you to stop as well.

however you do seem to be repeating some of the same sort of points Roger or is that just my take on it?

You should probably close this thread - the winners and losers thread in ECF matters is a better place for this debate

I don't have a grade at the moment as I haven't played for a few years. My grading performance is about 180 over the 15 games I've played this season. Presumably this (roughly speaking) will be my grade when the list comes out?

But if I play a 120 grade in my club championship and win, my grading performance will go down?