English Chess Forum

Paul Cooksey wrote:

Roger de Coverly wrote:It was the assertion of a former CEO that universal membership would result in a saving of ECF expenses.

A position I supported. We never found out because the ECF went for a hybrid model.

Looks fairly obvious from a Yorkshire perspective.

If you insisted that universal membership was compulsory to submit a league for grading then I don't think we'd even have been able to submit the Yorkshire league for ECF grading, let alone most of the more local leagues.

That's a lot of chess.

Michael Flatt wrote:

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Michael Flatt wrote: Currently, a player incurs grading fees on every game played

It's not the player, but the organiser of the League who is invoiced by the ECF.

The player incurs a charge for which the organisers are invoiced and they in turn recover it from the player.
That is what I term 'busy' work.

The player does not incur the charge: the organisation submtting the result does. There is no obligation on a league or club to recover the sum from the player and in many cases (where, for example, the player has lost interest and wandered off) 'recovey' is impossible. I imgine there are many clubs that simply fork out from club funds.

MartinCarpenter wrote:Looks fairly obvious from a Yorkshire perspective.

Sorry Martin, I'm not sure what you mean?

What I put after it

There's a lot of chess in Yorkshire and still some stubborn resentment against ECF membership. So, as a practical matter, they simply had to have the ability to have leagues with a mix of members/non members.

Unless I've totally misunderstood what you meant, that means some sort of hybrid system.

I meant what the ECF implemented was a hybrid of membership and game fee.

I think you are making the point it was politics rather than efficiency of the system that gave us the model we have today. If so I agree that is true, but it is regrettable.

Is there a document that shows how much was raised last season in game fee and the number of games played by non-members?
Does the document break that down into the number of people playing 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 etc games?
I can't find any link to such a document from the ECF website, yet this information should be readily available to us so-called 'members'.

The August 2016 grading spreadsheet shows that 958 played 1, 2 or 3 games. If all those were non-members (the spreadsheet, unlike the website, does not show whether players are members) the ECF would have lost £4545 if the first 3 games were free of game fee.

I can understand the ECF wishing to recover that amount but I am struggling to see a justification for charging a flat rate of more than the cost of bronze membership for non-members who play more than 3 games. Does the ECF currently make a lot of money in game fee from non-members daft enough to play more than 6 games?

It does appear on the surface to be just a money grabbing exercise.

Paul Cooksey wrote:I meant what the ECF implemented was a hybrid of membership and game fee.

I think you are making the point it was politics rather than efficiency of the system that gave us the model we have today. If so I agree that is true, but it is regrettable.

Well not quite politics so much as sane practicality - they'd have lost quite a lot of potential money doing it on a pure/strict membership system. Yorkshire has an alternative grading system of course.
(There's actually a potential inflection point coming up here - the Yorkshire grader is trying to retire soon, so unless a willing and capable replacement - not easy! - can be found we might be driven to just using ECF for everything anyway.).

I understand why the ECF might have been scared that its legitimacy as a governing body might have been challenged when it introduced membership. But a pity if that is still holding it back from simplifying the membership scheme.

Paul Cooksey wrote:I understand why the ECF might have been scared that its legitimacy as a governing body might have been challenged when it introduced membership. But a pity if that is still holding it back from simplifying the membership scheme.

The ECF has had rather a lot to do, some of it self-inflicted by then board members, so not surprising that the membership scheme hasn't developed entirely the way we had hoped

I think the reform of Council may need to precede the full simplification of the membership scheme

The Board accepted the proposal to introduce three free games per subscription year and
abolish game fee. Leagues will be invoiced £25 for every non-member who plays more than
three games. It was agreed that a formal proposal should be put to the Finance Council
meeting.

A possible 3 free graded league games per player per league before becoming an ECF member is very good news for leagues,
players, clubs or the leagues will have to take responsibility to avoid the £25 fee

BUT if game fee is abolished how will congresses be treated ?

Most of the £14k that's raised from game fee probably comes from occasional players in congresses, if not playing in a league and less than 4 congresses then its cheaper to pay game fee, some congresses even cover that cost themselves.

Gareth T Ellis wrote: BUT if game fee is abolished how will congresses be treated ?

Congresses were switched to a flat fee of £ 6.00 for non-members regardless of rounds played, later increased to £ 7.00.

The minutes of the ECF Directors are silent on their proposal for Congresses.

The current intention is that arrangements for congresses would remain as they are now.

Mike Truran » Sun Dec 18, 2016 2:23 pm

The current intention is that arrangements for congresses would remain as they are now.

Thank you Mike for the quick reply, as a representative of leagues and congresses I'm sure all will be in favour of this.
It'll be interesting by how much the £14k actually drops once it's implemented and how many fees get applied

Dave Thomas's calculations suggest that the proposed change should more or less wash its face financially - although as we know nothing is certain in life except death and taxes.

Mick Norris wrote:The ECF has had rather a lot to do, some of it self-inflicted by then board members, so not surprising that the membership scheme hasn't developed entirely the way we had hoped

I think the reform of Council may need to precede the full simplification of the membership scheme

Agreed, but we do have a Director of Membership, and it is in the (under review) strategy document