Online Membership

[Roger de Coverly]

I stand by my use of the term "vast majority".

Look at RENEWALS over the period August 2012 to July 2013. Once the MO renewals at 31st August 2012 are out of the way (and you accept there are around 1700 of them), everyone else RENEWING before August 2013 will be on the anniversary system, so you will be expecting to give them proportionate memberships. New members will be backdated to 1st September 2012. From 1st September 2013, the numbers with proportionate payments drops right off, as it's just the run off of three year memberships.

So in terms of renewals, around 40% to 50% of the CURRENT membership list renew after 1st September. I don't know exactly how many, because the membership list no longer contains the membership expiry date.

So what exactly are you saying? Is it that the facility to proportionately renew won't be available on line?

[Andrew Farthing]

I stand by my use of the term "vast majority".

Look at RENEWALS over the period August 2012 to July 2013. Once the MO renewals at 31st August 2012 are out of the way (and you accept there are around 1700 of them), everyone else RENEWING before August 2013 will be on the anniversary system, so you will be expecting to give them proportionate memberships. New members will be backdated to 1st September 2012. From 1st September 2013, the numbers with proportionate payments drops right off, as it's just the run off of three year memberships.

So in terms of renewals, around 40% to 50% of the CURRENT membership list renew after 1st September. I don't know exactly how many, because the membership list no longer contains the membership expiry date.

So what exactly are you saying? Is it that the facility to proportionately renew won't be available on line?

During the 2012/13 membership year, the vast majority of members listed on the ECF membership list will have a renewal at the end of August.

When a member with an expiry date other than 31 August is coming up for renewal, he or she will receive a renewal notice quoting the correct proportionate payment to synchronise with the 1 Sept - 31 Aug membership in future. This is how the system is supposed to work and it is how it DOES work.

The response which sparked this off was to a specific question about someone (Angus French) with an April 2013 renewal date attempting to renew now (i.e. 8 months early). The system does not accommodate this without manual intervention by the system administrator (i.e. the ECF office), which is what I said. I also said that I did not expect there to be many instances of people wanting to renew so far in advance, except - as I imagine was the case with Angus - when driven by curiosity about the new system.

[Roger de Coverly]

A few comments on the newly-announced membership system:
- I was able to use the ‘Forgot password’ function to retrieve my system-generated password. I was then able to login and see that my details had been correctly migrated.

I wonder if we've broken the system by hacking into it ahead of schedule. Whilst my grading reference is present, club details weren't until I added them and neither membership number nor expiry date are shown. Membership number is on the master list shown on the ECF's site, so the system knows what it is, but it isn't displaying it on the membership record.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

When a member with an expiry date other than 31 August is coming up for renewal, he or she will receive a renewal notice quoting the correct proportionate payment to synchronise with the 1 Sept - 31 Aug membership in future. This is how the system is supposed to work and it is how it DOES work.

Someone I know is facing (or was facing) the choice of renewing for around 3 months between June and end of August, during a time when some people don't play much chess. He could renew in September, but ironically has entered a tournament in August, so has probably renewed for three months for one tournament (unless something got sorted out allowing him to renew in August). That is a slight wrinkle with the system of proportionate renewal.

Do you give people the option to only renew part of the partial renewal?

[Roger de Coverly]

During the 2012/13 membership year, the vast majority of members listed on the ECF membership list will have a renewal at the end of August.

Going back to the list of June 26th 2012, the statistics for expiry date were that there were 3763 names listed.

Of these 2153 (57%) were flagged as renewing 31st August 2012. Another 207 (5.5%) were 31st August 2013. So the remainder, excluding the handful of life members, around 37% (1400 or so) will have proportionate memberships. For some counties and leagues around 50% of players will already be ECF members and thus are in the proportionate category.

So if "ECF membership list" means the current one, then we are arguing about whether 63% constitutes a vast majority. Outside of MO areas, if you are already an ECF member, the vast majority of these members have a current renewal date which isn't 31st August 2012 or 2013.

[Andrew Farthing]

Roger,

You quoted my comment referring to "during the 2012/13 membership year" and then attempt to refute it by referring to the list as it was on 26 June 2012. My point is that the vast majority of those who will be members during the 2012/13 membership year will have expiry dates of 31 August, and this is the case.

[Roger de Coverly]

He could renew in September, but ironically has entered a tournament in August, so has probably renewed for three months for one tournament (unless something got sorted out allowing him to renew in August). That is a slight wrinkle with the system of proportionate renewal.

I think the position was that you could renew for 3 months (or was it 15?) in June. If you renew July or August this year, you get 14 months for the price of 12. In other words the expiry is 31st August 2013, but the start date is immediate. Whether this offer will be repeated in future years remains to be seen, as will the membership requirements the ECF imposes on its own Congress and whether it exempts non-English players from membership in tournaments not internationally rated.

[Roger de Coverly]

My point is that the vast majority of those who will be members during the 2012/13 membership year will have expiry dates of 31 August, and this is the case.

I accept that point but it's irrelevant.

My point is that all RENEWALS between 30th September 2012 and 31st July 2013 will be of existing members who have been promised proportionate membership. So going back to Angus's implied question, will the on-line system support proportionate renewals? For that matter, did you work out the loss of income from proportionate renewals when doing the budget?

[Andrew Farthing]

My point is that all RENEWALS between 30th September 2012 and 31st July 2013 will be of existing members who have been promised proportionate membership. So going back to Angus's implied question, will the on-line system support proportionate renewals? For that matter, did you work out the loss of income from proportionate renewals when doing the budget?

I already answered the first question in one of my earlier replies to you:

When a member with an expiry date other than 31 August is coming up for renewal, he or she will receive a renewal notice quoting the correct proportionate payment to synchronise with the 1 Sept - 31 Aug membership in future. This is how the system is supposed to work and it is how it DOES work.

If this is not clear, the answer is YES, the online system supports proportionate renewals.

As for your second question, my understanding is that the budget did take into account the effect of existing members and their various renewal dates. Assuming that the member renews, he or she contributes an uninterrupted membership subscription for the year, albeit one at a slightly different rate from the new subscriptions (i.e. part Standard, Junior or Full subscription, followed by part Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum). "Loss of income" is a strange term to use under the circumstances.

[Roger de Coverly]

"Loss of income" is a strange term to use under the circumstances.

I don't think so, but it does depend on how the accounting conventions work. So for a £ 27 membership payment received on 1st December 2011, it would be my understanding that you book the whole £ 27 ( after deducting a VAT accrual) into the 2010 - 11 year. It's by far the simplest approach and seems consistent with the way the budget and accounts are presented. For three year memberships you divide the income by 3 and put it through in three chunks. That way at the year end, you only have outstanding accruals for the multi year memberships.

If you convert such a system to an anniversary approach, you are only getting a proportion of the income at 1st December 2012, so your reported income at 30th April 2013 is reduced. In compensation you get the anniversary payment earlier, on 1st September 2013.

It's possible to imagine that the ECF uses a monthly accrual, but does it?

Members subscriptions are credited when received and a provision has been made in the accounts for subscriptions paid in advance for future years and for the cost of services to be supplied after the Balance sheet date until the subscriptions expire.

So what does that mean in practice? There's an amount set aside, but is it income related or expense related? So you credit the full £ 27 but accrue part of it as an expense? So in the year where you switch systems, assuming 1st January renewal, then you get £ 18 only, but a release of £ 18 from the previous year less £ 9 as the expense accrual. So your net income remains £ 27 but you are only reporting £ 18 as subs.

The budget did something really odd. It brought in all the income supposedly accrued from previous years, but didn't, on the face of it, allow for only receiving a proportion of the income for renewing members.