Membership of this list and the English Chess Federation

[John Charman]

The current list of members of this list shows 631 people - The latest Master List I have shows 26,215 people.

Although I am sure there must be quite a few that read this list without joining and thus not being able to air their views this seems quite an imbalance.

What can be done to get more players to join this Forum and make it much more representative of grass roots views than just that of the few that do share their views with us at the moment.

Please understand that this is not meant as a criticism but as a way of making this forum the definitive view of English chessplayers.

In a similar vein I take the view that the English Chess Federation should be the national body representing all English chessplayers and that anyone who wishes to play competitively rated chess in England should be a member of that national body and be proud to support it by being so and not feeling that they resent having to be a member forced upon them in some way.

[Roger de Coverly]

Please understand that this is not meant as a criticism but as a way of making this forum the definitive view of English chessplayers.

The Forum allows the Scots, Irish and Welsh to contribute as well

and that anyone who wishes to play competitively rated chess in England should be a member of that national body

So would you force all the foreign players currently competing at Hastings to become ECF members? That's an advantage of Game Fee, that non-English players make a contribution to the finances of the ECF.

[Alex McFarlane]

The Forum allows the Scots, Irish and Welsh to contribute as well

And some of us, due to the amount of missionary work we do here, are members of the ECF as well as our own national body.

[John Charman]

and that anyone who wishes to play competitively rated chess in England should be a member of that national body

So would you force all the foreign players currently competing at Hastings to become ECF members? That's an advantage of Game Fee, that non-English players make a contribution to the finances of the ECF.[/quote]

If they had to be an ECF Member to play in England they would be contributing more than the game fee anyway but....

I would rather see reciprocal agreements that foreign players could play in our congresses at a lower entry fee if they were members of their national body just as English players should be able to play abroad congresses under the same terms. This is what happens in domestic congresses anyway why won't it work for international events. It only takes goodwill on the part of organisers to implement.

As far as the finances of the ECF go, from my limited knowledge of that subject they seem to be in disarray, but I believe that any sporting organisation should have the support of it's members through a fair charging scheme to cover their costs; unfortunately chessplayers appear to be a breed that consider they should get their sport organised freely by volunteers.

Without the support of the thousands of people who give freely of their time quite happily then chess would collapse in this country; of course people would still play but the grading system, for one example, would not be able to function and many, many tournaments would just cease to exist.

[John Charman]

The Forum allows the Scots, Irish and Welsh to contribute as well

And some of us, due to the amount of missionary work we do here, are members of the ECF as well as our own national body.

I understand that all British players can contribute - but [tongue in cheek mode on]why call it the English Chess Forum then?

Obviously every one is welcome, my point was though that the membership list is very small compared to how many graded players there are on the ECF grading list alone. Oh and to add to the figures I quoted in my first post you can add there are only 2053 ECF Direct Members, there should be many thousands more, why aren't there?

I re-iterate that I am not criticising I sincerely would love to see a strong and healthy ECF with thousands of proud members. As the Competitions Controller, Grader, Membership Administrator, Championships Organiser and Controller, Committee Member and assistant to the Open Congress Organiser and Controller as well as having been editor of our County magazine for 15 years and receiving the award for magazine of the year 3 times I consider that I do my bit towards this aim by promoting chess and fostering support of the ECF in this county.

Currently every one of the 160 odd players playing in our county competitions are ECF Direct Members - OK our rules say they have to be but I have never received a complaint about that yet in the 4 years our Membership Organisation has been running; I have never had a problem getting our players to sign the white form that has been said in other threads to be so difficult to do and no player has left our folds because of ECF Membership policy; our memberships are renewed on time each year and I have received compliments from the Office Staff on our county's efficiency. I think I can say that over 99% of Norfolk's players are happy and grateful for how the county is organised - but it is easy to do you just need to be pro-active and keep people informed. I often hear of problems some people have of collecting money from their players and sincerely cannot understand it, I just tell our players how much I want, what it's for and when I want it and it arrives - simples!

If we could all work harmoniously together we could achieve that aim of a strong and healthy national organisation.

[Carl Hibbard]

I understand that all British players can contribute - but [tongue in cheek mode on] why call it the English Chess Forum then?

What else would I call it

We get about 1,500 unique visitors a day so I could analyse where they come from I suppose

[John Charman]

I understand that all British players can contribute - but [tongue in cheek mode on] why call it the English Chess Forum then?

What else would I call it

We get about 1,500 unique visitors a day so I could analyse where they come from I suppose

Maybe 'The British Chess Forum'!!

In all seriousness though as it is called the English etc and has the same initials I guess a lot of people imagine it is an official part of the ECF.

[Carl Hibbard]

You would have to read the history of this forum to understand the reasons for that...

Our policy of attempting to stick to real names also affects the number of users!

[John Charman]

Thanks Carl I have read some of it but think I'll pass on the rest.

As far as real names are concerned for what It's worth I agree with your policy, after all if you aren't prepared to stick by what you say then why say it at all?

[Alex Holowczak]

If people don't know any different, there are no objections to membership at all. I frequently get asked "Do you have to be a member to get a grade?" They sometimes seem surprised when I say you don't. I then do my best to explain Game Fee to them, and how Membership works within that. After about 20 seconds of that explanation, they wish they never asked.

The ECF's finances are far from "disarray". This is part of the problem, for some reason, the ECF seems to have a problem with the masses perceiving everything surrounding it to be terrible.

[John Upham]

After about 20 seconds of that explanation, they wish they never asked.

Does this apply to all of your explanations or just ones concerning chess?

[John Charman]

Thanks for putting me right Alex; you are correct and I am guilty of listening to the masses. Maybe disarray was not a good choice of word, 'not too healthy a position' may have been better but again that may also be a mass perception.

But as I said above you can keep the masses perceptions correct by being pro-active and keeping people informed; maybe more of that between the hierarchy and the grass roots would help to lift the opinion a lot of people do seem to have of the ECF.

[Alex Holowczak]

After about 20 seconds of that explanation, they wish they never asked.

Does this apply to all of your explanations or just ones concerning chess?

Thanks for putting me right Alex; you are correct and I am guilty of listening to the masses. Maybe disarray was not a good choice of word, 'not too healthy a position' may have been better but again that may also be a mass perception.

But as I said above you can keep the masses perceptions correct by being pro-active and keeping people informed; maybe more of that between the hierarchy and the grass roots would help to lift the opinion a lot of people do seem to have of the ECF.

The Finance Director said as much in his report to the AGM, which was in a section atop the ECF website for weeks. When the grant was lost, there was another notice on the website saying that this wasn't a major issue, and the problem is trying to be solved.

The AGM was noteworthy for a relative lack of delegates turning up. I don't know whether this is ignorance or apathy. The meetings are the major opportunity for people to hear these things, and most delegates don't even return the letter, let alone turn up. Even some Directors never returned the letter... There are two meetings, and all delegates of leagues, congresses, other organisations and county associations are invited to attend.

So the ECF already explains these things, but people either don't turn up to the meeting to hear it, or don't read the relevant information on the website. How else can the ECF communicate with the country's chess players?

[benedgell]

My belief is that the majority of chess players only play chess locally, i.e. their local league and maybe a congress or 2 in or around their county/ city. Ergo, local chess issues matter to them, but national chess is considered fairly unimportant. As long as they get a grade each season, and game fee increases don't cause league/ congress entry fees to rise too steeply, then they aren't particularly interested with chess nationally.

By that logic, I believe it's less a problem with delegates' apathy, more a problem with the league/ county organisation as a whole's apathy that means delegates don't bother turning up to ECF meetings. If the delegates don't believe that the groups they are representing particularly care about the issues being presented at the meeting, then they'll see no reason to turn up. If enough people talk to their delegates about national chess issues, then they'll feel obliged as part of their role to represent those opinions at the meetings.

[Alex Holowczak]

My belief is that the majority of chess players only play chess locally, i.e. their local league and maybe a congress or 2 in or around their county/ city. Ergo, local chess issues matter to them, but national chess is considered fairly unimportant. As long as they get a grade each season, and game fee increases don't cause league/ congress entry fees to rise too steeply, then they aren't particularly interested with chess nationally.

By that logic, I believe it's less a problem with delegates' apathy, more a problem with the league/ county organisation as a whole's apathy that means delegates don't bother turning up to ECF meetings. If the delegates don't believe that the groups they are representing particularly care about the issues being presented at the meeting, then they'll see no reason to turn up. If enough people talk to their delegates about national chess issues, then they'll feel obliged as part of their role to represent those opinions at the meetings.

Couldn't agree more.

In the SCCU and MCCU, you might get a bit more local playing activity; county chess at weekends. That's probably the most that the majority of players travel to play chess.