The Funding of the English Chess Federation vote

[Roger de Coverly]

So a 50% reduction in admin costs to administer a game-fee type system if done online...

The USCF rating fees are, I think, set at a break even cost to cover the perceived direct costs of rating. The ECF has costs for grading, but provides this service for nothing (Basic and Direct Members) and with a really large loading to cover all its remaining costs (Game Fee).

I don't think Stewart was the only one to suggest Game Fee, but it's really quite logical. Every game is graded and you incur some costs doing it. So why not recoup these costs and whilst doing so, make a charge which will pay for many of your other activities? If you need a method of assigning Council votes by size, why not use the Game Fee amounts as a proxy?

Stewart mentioned "membership organisation". I remember this from Vera Menchik year. What happened was that a scheme which was going to give free entry fees to female players (as e2e4 are doing at Denham) was abolished on the grounds that the BCF had ceased to be a "membership organisation" because of Game Fee. Quite why this was and what hopefully minor charges to the BCF's constitution would have reversed this, I never found out.

[Richard Cowan]

The USCF rating fees are, I think, set at a break even cost to cover the perceived direct costs of rating.

Yes! So a 50% reduction in the costs of rating could be saved! I know they have membership too / etc. but we're still talking about large cost savings aren't we?

If the "grading cost" currently was 20p /54p, halving that by moving to an online system to 10p and keeping the current game fee charge would generate 10p per game extra revenue for the ECF! See where I'm going with this?

I don't like a game-fee system, but if you're insistant on having one, at least make it efficient!

[Roger de Coverly]

If there is a required membership fee, surely the best way is that entrants must be members. If non-members play, then the event is not graded. It is a no-brainer.

Stewart has in print wondered why it was in England that we cashed in on Fischer to a greater extent than anywhere else. I suspect that the open approach to membership helped. After all you could play at Islington or any other of these mega-events purely by paying an entry fee to the organiser. If the organiser had to collect an additional fee for the BCF, that might have been possible, but an entry disincentive to some. Obviously it's more work for the organiser collating it all and sending it to the BCF. If people had to fill in a white form or show a membership card previously issued by the BCF wouldn't that have choked off the growth?

So Leonard advertises in the Standard, come to Islington. It's a condition of entry that you are a BCF member. You've never heard of the BCF, so you certainly aren't a member of it. So you conclude that you aren't eligible to play. That's not greatly different presumably from what might happen in say tennis. Chess had the advantage that rapid expansion was possible because all you needed was a willingness to play (a bit of skill as well perhaps but you can get that outside formal competitions)

[Richard Cowan]

So you let people sign up at tournaments! Easy solution. With tiered membership fees, this shouldn't be too big a dis-incentive.

[Roger de Coverly]

?

If the "grading cost" currently was 20p /54p

The grading cost isn't 54p. The total ECF budget is about £ 160,000 of which about £ 17,000 is apportioned to grading. The Game Fee is helping to pay for the Office, the Junior Budget, the International budget etc. It's all spelled out in Andrew's paper.

The ECF used to raise about £ 100,000 to £ 120,000 a year from chess players to add to the £ 60,000 DCMS grant. In recent years this has been 50/50 between memberships and Game Fee. So Game Fee is something like three times the direct costs of grading. If you abolish Game Fee you have to recoup all the Income you give up from elsewhere. If you try and do it per head, you potentially drive away all the "low volume" users and make it more difficult to attract "new" users. That's my opinion anyway as everyone knows.

Game Fee is a device which enables you to collect "from" low volume users. Even Option 1 recognises the need for such a device with its £ 6 non-member Congress Fee.

(edit) rereading what you say, you are looking at the £17,000 direct grading cost. You would need an analysis of what that's spent on before you can confidently assert how much you save with on-line data entry. The USCF pricing may be what it is to encourage on line submission rather than what they perceive the direct saving to be.

The way I think grading works at the moment is that the grader emails files to the administrator (Richard Hadrell). This is a relatively low volume activity so I'm not sure what you'd save, if anything, by moving to true on-line submission. The old USCF system I think involved sending disks or print-outs. (end edit)

[Roger de Coverly]

So you let people sign up at tournaments! Easy solution. With tiered membership fees, this shouldn't be too big a dis-incentive.

Having played at Foreign tournaments that never start on time, I distrust the practicalities of checking the membership status of late entries and signing them up for membership. Not all tournament organisers (e2e4 in particular) like handling cash during the event.

[Alex Holowczak]

Not all tournament organisers (e2e4 in particular) like handling cash during the event.

This may be a problem when cheques get phased out in 2018.

[Richard Cowan]

Well, you integrate this online, with the entry for the tournament. It's not hard to do.

I distrust the practicalities of checking the membership status of late entries.

Everyone has a membership number, and you check it against a list. Pretty simple?
This is already done with the grading list, so how is putting a membership number on it too, in any way impractical?

[Richard Cowan]

This may be a problem when cheques get phased out in 2018.

How is anyone supposed to join the ECF when that happens?

[Alex Holowczak]

This may be a problem when cheques get phased out in 2018.

How is anyone supposed to join the ECF when that happens?

Transfer the money online, debit/credit card or pay by cash. The money transfer is independent of the requirement for a signature.

[Richard Cowan]

So, the office is going to get a lot more calls when cheques are phased out if you can't join online then...
You can't join online at the moment!

Not going to reduce office costs is it? :p

[Alex Holowczak]

So, the office is going to get a lot more calls when cheques are phased out if you can't join online then...
You can't join online at hte moment!

Not going to reduce office costs is it? :p

Well, the reason people pay by cheque is that they might be of a generation where that sort of payment online was not de rigeur. It's modernisation we need to look into; the government is forcing us to. (Which is a shame, I quite like cheques.)

[Adam Raoof]

So, the office is going to get a lot more calls when cheques are phased out if you can't join online then...
You can't join online at hte moment!

Not going to reduce office costs is it? :p

The mechanics of creating a membership system are a distraction - it's comparatively easy to set up. The important thing is the principle of membership vs game fee vs a mix - whatever we decide to do, we can make it work. Even the requirement for a signature can be accommodated / dealt with, my governance adviser tells me.

[Alex Holowczak]

Even the requirement for a signature can be accommodated / dealt with, my governance adviser tells me.

Good; if we can get around that problem, we can move forward. It's worth doing regardless of whether we vote for option 1 or option 2.

[Richard Cowan]

(edit) rereading what you say, you are looking at the £17,000 direct grading cost. You would need an analysis of what that's spent on before you can confidently assert how much you save with on-line data entry. The USCF pricing may be what it is to encourage on line submission rather than what they perceive the direct saving to be.

The way I think grading works at the moment is that the grader emails files to the administrator (Richard Hadrell). This is a relatively low volume activity so I'm not sure what you'd save, if anything, by moving to true on-line submission. The old USCF system I think involved sending disks or print-outs. (end edit)

I suspect this comes in office costs, but I have no-idea really. If you can save just 10% of the grading admin fee, but setting up a system that you pay £1000 to set up, you've paid for it in a year (nearly twice), and are getting an extra £1700 to add to the budget. And 10% is very conservative!
The point is that it isn't just the money - it's the time too. All those volunteers spending ages inputting things, could be fundraising, or even playing more games, being generally more sociable and introducing people into the game.
It would help wouldn't it?