David Robertson wrote:Good p%ss-take, Michele? I'm dying to read page 90
I make it 45 not out at the moment. I'll bowl just the one ball today. Some people have no stamina.
Roger de Coverly wrote:1993-1995 was the era during which Game Fee was introduced. Levy was a system whereby counties, just counties, not leagues, paid the BCF a membership cost based on how large the BCF thought they were. In practice there was a certain amount of economy with the truth, where not all clubs were declared and not all league divisions were rated. Thus Levy was regarded as arbitrary and unfair. Alongside Levy, you had a sort of membership scheme for individuals. It was called registration and you were supposed to be registered to play in some county leagues, some Congresses and BCF events like county matches. Individual counties got a number of registrations and clubs were expected to supply a list of players to the county to pick up the "free" registrations and pay for any extra ones. The only benefit to players was a registration slip of paper, which had value if anyone challenged your right to play in an event. Counties had to have a officer called registrations secretary. Clubs were billed ( other counties may have been different) on the basis of 8 registrations per 6 board team. Grading was done at no direct cost to clubs or counties.
The eight registrations per six boards nuance was probably peculiar to Buckinghamshire.
A member club of Middlesex CCA would supply a list of members to the county at the beginning of the season that the club thought should be registered, i.e. everyone who played chess in the leagues that supported the BCF. The checks for duplication were haphazard. Indeed, it wasn't fun writing out names etc. on the membership cards (not paper, but cardboard) and checking for that number of people.
The BCF would assign a point for every fifty registered members. Thus at Middlesex CCA we were assigned twenty points, as we supposedly had a thousand members. After a lengthy appeal we got that reduced to seventeen. In my time as treasurer (I was the one who did the chasing and checking), we actually had between seven hundred and seven hundred and fifty members. Thus there wasn't a cat in hell's chance of us getting close to exhausting our free (sic) registrations. The MCCA raised its own money by adding a supplement to the levy, there was also a small sum due to the SCCU. A consequence of the MCCA having nowhere near as many members as the BCF allocated was that a significant part of the money ostensibly going to the county association actually went to the Federation.
Andrew's proposals allow for considerable scope in the local implementation. I do not expect the old levy system to apply to the MCCA.
Many forumites are aware that Adam is the President of the MCCA (he may be the Deputy {or is it Vice? I can never remember} President when the vote is taken). It is likely that his suggestions will carry weight at any MCCA meeting in which implementation is agreed. From what I can determine, Adam is pressing for the county to be excluded from the membership application process. Thus a member club will either apply on behalf of its members, or advise them to go directly to the Federation.
As regards the Middlesex League, will there be a rule requiring mandatory membership of the Federation? My own view is that that would be a mistake. A better solution would be to insist that only those who play more than four games in a season must join the ECF. This would solve the problem of cajoling the odd game or two from a reluctant player to avoid a default. The only magic about the number four is that it is mentioned in other rules applicable to league chess in the London area (e.g. one can play four times for higher teams before becoming ineligible to play in the lower. Why remember more numbers that necessary?). As for the game fee that would supposedly be liable, I'd just ignore it as a needless complication. I'd like to see what the ECF could do to enforce collection of this game fee (grading or not grading at most four games is not something of much value. Does the Federation go after the club, league or player?). Such a county rule would be largely self-enforcing as the more competitive captains would check for violations. Should someone not be a member and play too often, all games should be scored as losses for him and wins for the opponent. Note, too, that this will reduce the need for everyone to join at the same time. If an ECF membership lapses mid-season, the player will have to rejoin if he wants to score more than zero. He'd be very unpopular with his captain and teammates should he be remiss.
It is perfectly possible that other leagues in the London area will not have a rule requiring some form of ECF membership. However, if their players are not members, they won't have an ECF grade.
I am deliberately not examining in any detail how clubs will enforce any ECF system. It will vary from circle to circle. To judge from what Adam has written, his club has to raise more money to finance a rent increase and therefore will simply pocket any game fee currently going to the Federation, the ECF membership fee being on top of the club subscription. My own club has not made any decisions, as far as I am aware.
The club of which I was secretary in the early nineties provides an example of how the transition from the registrations system to game fee operated in practice. Our reserves had been deliberately run down in previous years on the basis that if there was no money, it wouldn't grow legs and walk. We used the savings from the change in system to boost our deposits.
If the MCCA goes down the route suggested above, we will have the absurd situation that it will have votes without direct fund raising responsibilities for the Federation. This bathetic outcome would be a just reward for a scheme that doesn't recognise that the problem is constitutional.
A major concern is that no comfort appears to have been given as to whether the ECF is capable of implementing centralised collection. Its record on IT is not one of the finest. From what I can see, no contracts have been exchanged, how could they be? But even a hint that something has been discussed would be useful. How do we know that the software will not be written by Milo Minderbinder Enterprises? It could be that I've missed it, but has any budgeting been done of the likely costs? This would all be more sensibly done if the practicalities of OMOV were part of the software design.
