Compulsory Membership?

[Carl Hibbard]

Did I miss something?

[David Sedgwick]

Just got to say... repressing freedom of speech is one of the worst things you can do in society. So I'll publish the post in full with the real name on my blog- if anything I underegged the description, and cheats shouldn't be allowed to cheat.

Your blog is the correct place. If you want to make that kind of allegation, use your own site, not someone else's.

Liberty and licence are not the same thing.

Jack, congratulations on being so alert.

(Edit: Carl, yes you did. The original post made a defamatory allegation against a named individual. Jack removed the name, but allowed the remainder of the post to stand.)

[Roger de Coverly]

Locally the consensus emerging is a "no" to framework agreements not least because approaching 50% of some clubs are already ECF Direct members, and a "no" to league level barring of non ECF members. But it's a "yes" to continuing in National grading which means putting up with the ECF's conditions. So clubs are being invited to ask everyone to pay the ECF through its website in order to get on the list of "allowed" players. They then enforce whatever internal rules they wish on allowing non ECF members to take part in matches. This enables them to avoid a major bill of £ 2 per game in September 2013 which is implicitly capped at £ 12 per head as the membership year stays open to 31st August 2013..

Bucks at an AGM and Berks at an EGM have broadly accepted those propositions. There's a rumour that Oxford are intending to propose "framework" status for their county. Does anyone know why?

The grader and treasurer are comfortable they can itemise residual Game Fee by player and club, even if the ECF cannot. Obviously there will be problems if the totals cannot be agreed.

I wonder whether you could adopt a "framework light" approach. In other words, if you establish a "Mr Mug" to act as local administrator, all the local administrator does is to input players to the ECF on-line system, thus saving his need to devise a spreadsheet based system. This gets players up to date with their membership status rather quicker than sending it via the ECF Office.

[Mike Truran]

There's a rumour that Oxford are intending to propose "framework" status for their county. Does anyone know why?

In our innocence we imagined that it would give clubs another option, i.e. they could either: (a) pay over bulk memberships to the OCA for onward transmission to the ECF by the end of October; or (b) encourage/require their players to join on-line; or (c) a combination of both. We are happy that in the case of (a) the OCA will have the residual game fee liability and recoup it from the clubs.

Have we missed something?

The grader and treasurer are comfortable they can itemise residual Game Fee by player and club, even if the ECF cannot.

If they have a method worked out, it might be helpful if the OCA webmaster were able to have a chat with them, as this is one of the issues we have been wrestling with (and talking to the ECF about). Perhaps you could PM their contact details to me?

[Roger de Coverly]

In our innocence we imagined that it would give clubs another option, i.e. they could either: (a) pay over bulk memberships to the OCA for onward transmission to the ECF by the end of October; or (b) encourage/require their players to join on-line; or (c) a combination of both. We are happy that in the case of (a) the OCA will have the residual game fee liability and recoup it from the clubs.

The residual Game Fee is the same in all scenarios, given that it is charged to the organisation which registers the event with the ECF. Organisations keen on framework agreements should take a more careful look at what the "membership officer" and club officials would have to contend with. You've got 4 levels of membership with both 1 and 3 year options. Then you've got adults and juniors, so that's up to 16 possibilities. On top of that you have existing memberships expiring for up to 36 months, probably 32 in practice. If you like designing clever spreadsheets or databases as a leisure activity, and I suspect the chess world contains a few, by all means go ahead. Bucks or Berks might yet get an offer, but we're not counting on it. Presuming the ECF goes live with a membership webpage, there's a whole year to sort out the IT challenged amongst local players, provide you don't, at a county level anyway, impose bans on participation.

If they have a method worked out, it might be helpful if the OCA webmaster were able to have a chat with them, as this is one of the issues we have been wrestling with (and talking to the ECF about). Perhaps you could PM their contact details to me?

Contact details will be on the Berks website. The grading system already tells the grader the mix between member and non-member, you don't have to extrapolate very far to analyse the grading file into games played by members and games played by non-members. If you can analyse by game, you can analyse by individual. It has to be said in the previous Game Fee era that local organisations could never be bothered. The difficult issue will be that if the ECF get a different total, the ECF may be unable to supply a supporting analysis. In terms of timing, we noted that the membership year runs until 31st August 2013, therefore no ECF residual Game Fee bills can be prepared before that. Given that the Treasurer's practice is to prepare the notifications of amounts owed by clubs in early September, it fits in to add the £ 2 per head charge back arising from the previous season to this.

But neither Bucks nor Berks and other local organisations had any difficulty with either the conceptual or practical points of Game Fee. Existing Direct Members might contend they were paying twice, but that's as far as it went. Back in the early days of Game Fee, the late Lester Millin of Oxfordshire advocated that Direct Members should get some form of rebate when they participated in a local league or county match. His ideas were considered, perhaps wrongly, impractical.

[Roger de Coverly]

Framework agreement is here:
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... ment-3.pdf

The relevant paragraphs being

10. MO shall register any graded events which it proposes to organise in accordance with the Game Fee Bye Laws

and

11. MO shall be entitled to submit for grading the results of ECF Members in non registered events.

It doesn't say that only the results of ECF Members against other ECF Members in non registered events will count for grading, or that the non registered event will be graded only if it, or the MO agree to pay £ 2 per half game per non-member when this is analysed at the end of the membership year.

[Mike Truran]

The residual Game Fee is the same in all scenarios, given that it is charged to the organisation which registers the event with the ECF.

No s**t Sherlock.

Organisations keen on framework agreements should take a more careful look at what the "membership officer" and club officials would have to contend with.

The OCA intends to offer only adult and junior Bronze membership on a one year basis, which feels like a manageable admin challenge to me. As far as I can see there is nothing in the draft framework agreement which prohibits this. Indeed, as the OCA would be signing up with regard to the Oxfordshire League, for which Bronze membership is applicable, it would seem somewhat odd if we were to offer anything else. Players who want to top up their membership to a higher category will presumably be able to do so via the ECF.

[William Metcalfe]

They could also top up via congresses

[Roger de Coverly]

Indeed, as the OCA would be signing up with regard to the Oxfordshire League, for which Bronze membership is applicable, it would seem somewhat odd if we were to offer anything else. Players who want to top up their membership to a higher category will presumably be able to do so via the ECF.

I'm not sure I know how independent the Oxford 4NCL team is from the OCA. But all the Oxford 4NCL players, most of whom, outside the first team, are from Oxford clubs, are going to be required to sign up for Gold.

Some stats from down the road in Berks

Total number of players with at least one game was 240 of which 89 are flagged as ECF members. Unsurprisingly the proportion varies by player strength.

So
division 1 124 players 52% members
division 2 104 players 28% members
division 3 81 players 20% members

Even further down the road in the Surrey Border League, Ian Thompson, I think it was, suspected that collectively at least, the players in that league would profit from the new scheme. In other words the savings to Gold members would exceed the extra cost to Bronze members. Many clubs in the Border league overlap with either Berks or Surrey and have teams in both.

[Mike Truran]

I'm not sure I know how independent the Oxford 4NCL team is from the OCA. But all the Oxford 4NCL players, most of whom, outside the first team, are from Oxford clubs, are going to be required to sign up for Gold.

The Oxford teams in the 4NCL are indeed independent of the 4NCL. So the OCA has no need to check for Gold membership - the 4NCL will do that (as it does now). Although the OCA's default position for a framework agreement will be adult or junior Bronze level only for one year only, if players wanted to let us have Silver or Gold memberships via the framework agreement I expect we would accept them. If all we are doing is effectively acting as a postbox for the ECF I'm not sure if there's really any extra admin involved than if we only accepted Bronze.

[Roger de Coverly]

If all we are doing is effectively acting as a postbox for the ECF I'm not sure if there's really any extra admin involved than if we only accepted Bronze.

The county or the club would have to ask the players which membership class they wanted and collect the right amount. You also have to find a county official willing to take on the post. If the intention is to enable clubs to hide the ECF costs by bundling them with club costs, then you need to only have one membership class.

[Mike Truran]

No we won't. I repeat - the OCA's default position will be Bronze membership. If players want to upgrade, the onus will be on them to pay over the right amount to the OCA. The OCA won't be asking them what membership class they want.

Finding an official? I guess that will be me.

[Roger de Coverly]

No we won't. I repeat - the OCA's default position will be Bronze membership. If players want to upgrade, the onus will be on them to pay over the right amount to the OCA. The OCA won't be asking them what membership class they want.

If like Berks, Oxon already have 50% membership, that's going to be Gold because of e2e4, 4NCL etc. So half your players may need to go to the ECF website anyway to pay the other part of their £ 27. For that matter, for renewals over the next three years, there's the complication of the proportionate payment.

[Mike Truran]

No they won't need to do that!!!!

I repeat - they can either (a) join on line at whatever level they want/need (b) join via the OCA framework agreement at whatever level they want/need. Our membership agreement will be based on Bronze membership, but we're certainly not going to turn away OCA players who want to join at Silver (so they can play at Kidlington) or Bronze (so they can play in the 4NCL). If they want to join at Bronze level first via the membership agreement and then upgrade later via the ECF as you suggest in your post, that's fine as well. My point is that they don't have to do it that way.

[Roger de Coverly]

Our membership agreement will be based on Bronze membership, but we're certainly not going to turn away OCA players who want to join at Silver (so they can play at Kidlington) or Bronze (so they can play in the 4NCL).

So the OCA will have to be able to administer three levels of payment and be aware of those joining directly through the ECF. Actually if a league can persuade players to sign for three year memberships at the ECF, then it can almost forget about membership for the next couple of years apart from new players. Although how the ECF will cope with a £ 6 Congress upgrade to a three year Bronze membership remains to be seen.