Summary of Funding Proposals for AGM

[Roger de Coverly]

But that has not been the experience of any Leicestershire treasurer. Nor, it seems, of any Northern treasurer.

I think what they want to know are two things
(1) Whether you actually enforce 100% membership and what your league rules say. Chester for example has an exemption for up to five games.
and
(2) Whether you grade games involving non members and how you collect the necessary income, assuming the ECF send you a Game Fee invoice.

100% membership would be that it's an eligibility condition to take part in the league with rules to back this up saying that non-members incur penalty points.

I think the point about extra transactions is that something has got to happen involving the league treasurer when you have new players halfway through the season.

[Alex Holowczak]

I have an idea which one you might be referring to, but don't want to speculate. Would you be able to say which one that is?

It was the Thames Valley league. Back in the days of registration, the BCF was paid for by the County Associations, locally Middlesex, Surrey, Berks, Bucks. As an independent league, the Thames Valley league didn't get presented by a bill every year under the levy scheme. Therefore league fees could be lower and players were unregistered. In practice, as now, many players and cubs played in a county league as well. The introduction of Game Fee meant that paying for the BCF would be in proportion to games played rather than notional county size. It would however also mean an increase in costs for the Thames Valley league and a reduction for the counties. Possibly because the alternative was that the league would be ungraded, which was unwanted by the players, the league decided to sign up for Game Fee and become a BCF member with votes on Council.

This is very similar, in fact, to the situation Warwickshire faced. Their county was considered to be the size it was due to the Birmingham, Coventry and Leamington Leagues being within its territory. There is no county league for Warwickshire. As a result, they had to beg, borrow or steal money from those Leagues in order to pay the levy. As a result, a meeting was held at Aston University where representatives from MCCU, ECF and Warwickshire attended. The story goes that Warwickshire threatened to disaffiliate if they continued to be charged a levy for players playing in events that were nothing to do with them. And so, Game Fee was born. And there was much rejoicing.

[Alex Holowczak]

I think what they want to know are two things
(1) Whether you actually enforce 100% membership and what your league rules say. Chester for example has an exemption for up to five games.
and
(2) Whether you grade games involving non members and how you collect the necessary income, assuming the ECF send you a Game Fee invoice.

I can confirm that Leicestershire will have compulsory membership this year, and they were hitherto invoiced for any Game Fee they needed to pay this. I know the latter because I was charged with posting their cheque to the Office! At least, I assume that's what it was for...

[Adam Raoof]

My concern is about the administration. The more it is discussed the more complex the supporting infrastructure gets. Our admin is very simple at present, we need to see what we need to do to monitor/control the end of season sweep-up Roger pointed out and allocate the task.

Understandable concern - me too!

A) At the moment a treasurer/organiser doesn't have to calculate the payment - the ECF can do that by examining the graded games for a league and comparing that with a list of members, then invoicing accordingly.

If all your players are members, then you won't have any liability at all.

B) In the future a treasurer/organiser doesn't have to calculate the payment - the ECF can do that by examining the graded games for a league and comparing that with a list of members, then invoicing accordingly.

If all your players are members, then you won't have any liability at all.

The difference between A and B is that under A game fee is set relatively low. Under B there is no game fee and everyone is expected to become a member of the ECF if they play more than a reasonable number of graded games. How leagues, congresses and counties enforce this is going to vary from region to region.

[Roger de Coverly]

The difference between A and B is that under A game fee is set relatively low. Under B there is no game fee and everyone is expected to become a member of the ECF if they play more than a reasonable number of graded games. How leagues, congresses and counties enforce this is going to vary from region to region.

You are rather missing the point. The non-members are going to be charged per head per game at £ 2 and this bil is going to be presented to league treasurers at the end of the season, several months after the games have taken place. The AGM which set the club fees was up to a year earlier.

[Matt Harrison]

I fully support the concept of membership rather than game fee. I'm not 100% convinced by the merits of the tiered membership as it stands - why should playing in congresses be more expensive than playing in leagues?

The £2 penalty seems to me to be a significant problem. Why not leave it at £1 for all non-members? This essentially retains game fee at double the current level but allowing everyone an easy route to not pay it through membership at £12. Should people not join, then they will make a larger contribution to ECF than under the existing system.

[Roger de Coverly]

I can confirm that Leicestershire will have compulsory membership this year, and they were hitherto invoiced for any Game Fee they needed to pay this. I know the latter because I was charged with posting their cheque to the Office! At least, I assume that's what it was for

It would be interesting to know
(a) how many players and games that represented
(b) how they set League fees or other charge-back method to recoup it.
(c) how it will work when the recoup cost is £ 2 per game (perhaps they are confident it is always £ 1 a game)
(d) whether there are any Leics players for whom a £ 13 payment has been made without their knowledge.

[Roger de Coverly]

Why not leave it at £1 for all non-members? This essentially retains game fee at double the current level but allowing everyone an easy route to not pay it through membership at £12. .

It's very logical proposition. The problem arises when you have a league that offers perhaps 7 or 8 games a season and that's the most chess that these players take part in. So under a Game Fee system at 54p, the cost for a 6 board team is £ 25.92. At £ 1 a head it's £ 48 and at £ 2 it's £ 96. If you have to make 8 people members, that would be £ 96 as well.

The handful of graded schools leagues are having to face this very problem. It's worse for them because junior Game Fee is rather less than two-thirds the adult rate.

[Angus French]

At the moment a treasurer/organiser doesn't have to calculate the payment - the ECF can do that by examining the graded games for a league and comparing that with a list of members, then invoicing accordingly.

Is that correct? I thought that for grading of league results there was no waiving of charges for half results played by ECF members - and thus it was even simpler (than Adam has it) to determine the grading charge for a league.

[Alex Holowczak]

I can confirm that Leicestershire will have compulsory membership this year, and they were hitherto invoiced for any Game Fee they needed to pay this. I know the latter because I was charged with posting their cheque to the Office! At least, I assume that's what it was for

It would be interesting to know
(a) how many players and games that represented
(b) how they set League fees or other charge-back method to recoup it.
(c) how it will work when the recoup cost is £ 2 per game (perhaps they are confident it is always £ 1 a game)
(d) whether there are any Leics players for whom a £ 13 payment has been made without their knowledge.

I can't answer any of these, apart from the number of games in (a):

Leicestershire League - I won't bother looking at their minor events -
Halfresults: 2,358
Of which, were played by members: 1,702
Of which, were played by basic members: 1,592

This may not sound very impressive, but they've only made it compulsory for the season about to start, so let's see what the equivalent numbers are when they send in their mid-season grading report.

If you're interested, the equivalent stats for the Norfolk League, another MO:
Halfresults: 1,696
Of which, were played by members: 1,686
Of which, were played by basic members: 1,591

[Sean Hewitt]

Hey Sean, I'm only trying to understand the proposal, not assail people from different regions.

Hey Brian, I was only trying to make a joke!

My concern is about the administration. The more it is discussed the more complex the supporting infrastructure gets. Our admin is very simple at present, we need to see what we need to do to monitor/control the end of season sweep-up Roger pointed out and allocate the task.

I keep hearing about this alleged ' complexity'. All I can say is, as someone who has lived with an MO for 5 years, is that it is anything but.

Why else would MO's around the country all say

1) It is NOT complex ; and
2) They want to continue with membership

If it was as complex as those with no experience of it claim, MO's would be clammering to return to game fee at the earliest opportunity.

[Roger de Coverly]

Is that correct? I thought that for grading of league results there was no waiving of charges for half results played by ECF members - and thus it was even simpler (than Adam has it) to determine the grading charge for a league.

The current position is as you state, in the south at least. The ECF gave away the shop with the MO schemes, so that someone who was signed up could in theory turn up in the London league and demand his Game Fee back. Leagues like Manchester on the borders of MOs have a lot of difficulties with this.

The new proposal is that Game Fee is waived for all players becoming at least Basic members at £ 12 a head, but charged at £ 2 per game per head for non members. There's a concession that if 85% of players playing three games or more are members, then the charge reduces to £ 1. It's quite obvious, that unless you can be sure that 100% of players are members, that you cannot set league fees to clubs with any hope of them matching your expenditure. This is what the current row is about.

The notion that you give a Game Fee rebate to members taking part in leagues has always been problematic, because you don't know before the matches, who is a member and who isn't. Something proposed years ago, but perhaps only now plausible, is that you charge Game Fee or an equivalent event based charge for everyone, but give some or all of it back on an individual basis at the end of the season. It might not be in cash, but as a credit for other ECF controlled services, not least next year's membership.

[Roger de Coverly]

Why else would MO's around the country all say

1) It is NOT complex ; and
2) They want to continue with membership
.

Alex's figures suggest that, by contrast with Norfolk, you aren't yet really running a proper membership scheme. What you are running is a system where you have per head costing for part of your league and per game costing for the rest. That can work financially quite well, particularly if you can choose who the per head members are, by the device of prioritising membership on the most active players and keeping Game Fee when it's cheaper.

What we want to know is how it works when Game Fee is £ 2 a head with County Treasurers presented with an unpredictable bill after the end of the season. If you are still using Game Fee, you must have this problem now, except at 54p/58p per game. Do you split up the bill and send it on to the clubs?

We also want to know what happens when you have two or three adjacent MOs all trying to sign up players. If you were around twenty years ago, as at least some of us were, you remember the registration scheme and the problems that arose determining where someone was registered.

[Sean Hewitt]

It would be interesting to know
(a) how many players and games that represented
(b) how they set League fees or other charge-back method to recoup it.
(c) how it will work when the recoup cost is £ 2 per game (perhaps they are confident it is always £ 1 a game)
(d) whether there are any Leics players for whom a £ 13 payment has been made without their knowledge.

a - don't know precise numbers. It had got to about 70% of players last season were members - higher of course for 'regular' players. However, I would guess it's lower than that this season as a new club was formed and they didn't get their membership act together until too late and so paid game fee for the season instead. The issue was getting membership details such as address etc sorted. I don't think this will be a requirement going forward. They'll be members this year though.

b - at present clubs either have to be game fee or membership clubs. We previously set a league fee for each. Last year, all but 2 existing clubs were membership clubs (plus the new club mentioned above). This meant that their players were all ECF members. The clubs voted at the AGM this year to scrap the concept of game fee clubs, and all players will need to be members from this season on.

c - we already have a recharge scheme when-non members play a game for a membership club. we'll just use the same system. it's easy given that Richard Haddrell provides all the information required after the league has been graded.

d - the county has not done this but i have no doubt that clubs do in the same way that game fee is paid without the knowledge of many players

[Sean Hewitt]

Why else would MO's around the country all say

1) It is NOT complex ; and
2) They want to continue with membership
.

Alex's figures suggest that, by contrast with Norfolk, you aren't yet really running a proper membership scheme. What you are running is a system where you have per head costing for part of your league and per game costing for the rest. That can work financially quite well, particularly if you can choose who the per head members are, by the device of prioritising membership on the most active players and keeping Game Fee when it's cheaper.

Alex's figures are not correct. That is not his fault - it's because they have come from the ECF. The system is not (yet) designed to cope properly with MO's. This is one of the reasons MO's regulalry get zero votes at General Meetings until we complain! What you say about manipulation is correct - but it's not what we do. I've explained our process elsewhere but currently clubs have to make the decision to be membership or game fee. From season 2011-12 all have to be membership clubs.

What we want to know is how it works when Game Fee is £ 2 a head with County Treasurers presented with an unpredictable bill after the end of the season. If you are still using Game Fee, you must have this problem now, except at 54p/58p per game. Do you split up the bill and send it on to the clubs?

Indeed. We simply invoice the clubs concerned now, and that it what we will do going forward.

We also want to know what happens when you have two or three adjacent MOs all trying to sign up players. If you were around twenty years ago, as at least some of us were, you remember the registration scheme and the problems that arose determining where someone was registered.

I think I've answered this one twice already but I'll do so again. The player simply states that he has already joined via xxx and quotes his membership number. There is then no need to charge him. If you need to check, this can be done simply with the membership list.