English Chess Forum

If the new funding arrangements go ahead then I will be a financial 'winner'. So, I think, will many of those who post here. This seems strange when the ECF is looking for more money not less. Surely we should all expect to be paying more to help the ECF?

I am an ECF family member and also :
Play about 30 games a year (game fee for most at present);
ECF accredited coach (no charge)
Junior club listing on website/yearbook (for free)
Personal and club listings on ECF Coaching website (free).

Losers will be:
1) Castles club members. We will have to stop grading internal club events as not everyone will be an ECF member. Also some members will not want to pay an extra £12 to play a couple of club matches a season.
2) School chess, in particular inter-school chess which we will have to stop grading. (Losing the ECF about £400 per year for grading the Surrey Schools league). Hopefully the National School's Tournament will be exempt.
3) I think the SCCU would need to stop grading the U14/U130 tournament as we would not wish to limit participation in this competition, which aims to encourage juniors to continue to play chess even if there is not a club at their secondary school. Other U18 events may also go ungraded for similar reasons.

Neill Cooper wrote:Other U18 events may also go ungraded for similar reasons.

I don't think this is a great problem. It would probably make junior grades more accurate, because they'll be playing against adults with established grades, rather than their peers.

I am a winner too; I played 61 games so far this season, 50 of which were due Game Fee payments. I happen to be a Member anyway. So my total ECF contribution is probably in the region of £50, whereas in future, I can cut it back to £18.

Alex Holowczak wrote: I am a winner too; I played 61 games so far this season, 50 of which were due Game Fee payments. I happen to be a Member anyway. So my total ECF contribution is probably in the region of £50, whereas in future, I can cut it back to £18.

You don't feel a bit uncomfortable about asking 3 of your less active fellow club players for an extra £ 11 or so each so as to cut you back by £ 32 ?

Alex Holowczak wrote:

Neill Cooper wrote:Other U18 events may also go ungraded for similar reasons.

I don't think this is a great problem. It would probably make junior grades more accurate, because they'll be playing against adults with established grades, rather than their peers.

Well it is trivially a potential problem financially since the £18 fee was arrived at by assuming effectively that the vast majority of players currently having their games graded would continue to do so.

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Alex Holowczak wrote: I am a winner too; I played 61 games so far this season, 50 of which were due Game Fee payments. I happen to be a Member anyway. So my total ECF contribution is probably in the region of £50, whereas in future, I can cut it back to £18.

You don't feel a bit uncomfortable about asking 3 of your less active fellow club players for an extra £ 11 or so each so as to cut you back by £ 32 ?

Not really, because I'm paying £63 out of my own money for their league entry this season.

Alex Holowczak wrote:

Neill Cooper wrote:Other U18 events may also go ungraded for similar reasons.

I don't think this is a great problem. It would probably make junior grades more accurate, because they'll be playing against adults with established grades, rather than their peers.

That is a good point.
I can then just do my own internal grading, using the grading program.

Neil

As a parent, I am aware of just how expensive children are, and the various methods that schools and others use to extract money from me (in the impoverished north, must be worse in the rich south ) - if my daughter wanted to play chess, it would be cheap even if I had to pay £18 per annum

I am a member of an organisation which has OMOV (for the very small proportion of members bothering to turn up at the AGM or vote by proxy)

This organisation has junior members (lets say U16 for argument) who don't have voting rights, but pay a much reduced membership fee

If the ECF wanted juniors to be members on a similar basis, what level of fees should they charge?

Adam Raoof wrote:Neill, if the ECF aims to have as many juniors as possible on the grading system and in membership what approach do you think we should take to make that happen? Would it make a difference if juniors paid £10 a head to join the ECF?

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.

Mick Norris wrote:Neil

As a parent, I am aware of just how expensive children are, and the various methods that schools and others use to extract money from me (in the impoverished north, must be worse in the rich south :D ) - if my daughter wanted to play chess, it would be cheap even if I had to pay £18 per annum

I am a member of an organisation which has OMOV (for the very small proportion of members bothering to turn up at the AGM or vote by proxy)

This organisation has junior members (lets say U16 for argument) who don't have voting rights, but pay a much reduced membership fee

If the ECF wanted juniors to be members on a similar basis, what level of fees should they charge?

Mick, Good question. Many parent's would be happy to pay the suggested £12 if their children were active in individual tournaments. My biggest concern is school chess teams, where the parent's are at a distance and schools have limited budgets.

Neill Cooper wrote:. 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.

It doesn't include grading, but it's presumably a price that's regarded as affordable.

The UK Chess Challenge entry form wrote:
£46 for first 30 players £15 per extra 15 players

Has the ECF or BCF before it ever promoted a form of corporate membership whereby the school became a member and this gave rights to some services or other (such as local grading) to the pupils? It did occur to me that if you charged something like £80, you could give "free" sets away as a gift to new members. These would be supplied through normal commercial channels.

Undoubtedly the winners will be those who play more chess.

As someone who plays about 25-30 games a year (26 last year, 30 so far this year) I don't know whether I will be a winner or loser, I don't care either.

Neill Cooper wrote:

Mick Norris wrote:Neil

As a parent, I am aware of just how expensive children are, and the various methods that schools and others use to extract money from me (in the impoverished north, must be worse in the rich south ) - if my daughter wanted to play chess, it would be cheap even if I had to pay £18 per annum

I am a member of an organisation which has OMOV (for the very small proportion of members bothering to turn up at the AGM or vote by proxy)

This organisation has junior members (lets say U16 for argument) who don't have voting rights, but pay a much reduced membership fee

If the ECF wanted juniors to be members on a similar basis, what level of fees should they charge?

Mick, Good question. Many parent's would be happy to pay the suggested £12 if their children were active in individual tournaments. My biggest concern is school chess teams, where the parent's are at a distance and schools have limited budgets.

OK, so do we need a different rate for schools only players e.g. £6?

Or, do we need a rate for schools to be some kind of corporate member?

Mick Norris wrote: OK, so do we need a different rate for schools only players e.g. £6?

Or, do we need a rate for schools to be some kind of corporate member?

I'd like the corporate member route for schools. Indeed it now seems an obvious idea and could encourage more schools to take part in the national School's tournament.

It seems there are very few people willing to pay more for their chess.

If the ECF keeps giving discounts to all parties they will end up losing money.

Which is surely the opposite of what they wish to do.

I believe pay per play is the fairest method on offer, this appears to put me in the minority. However, it seems better than this membership scheme, which seems to be offering discounts at every turn. Latest being a discount for club internal games, which would reduce what my club pays the ecf to a fraction of what it currently pays.

Sebastian, you are most likely to be around net neutral, under £18 per annum 30 games equates to approx 60p per game, playing less than 30 games is obviously going to cost you more per game, the question is whether the ECF should be helping the "active players" or "less active players". Personally by having a membership fee may actually engage the less active players a little more and give them more reason to enter congresses at no extra cost, this would only give boost to congresses around the country without doing extra work