Outcome of membership scheme

[Roger de Coverly]

If both the number of active players and the numbers of games played increased, would you still consider the membership scheme to be a failure?

Something of an academic point as there's little sign of it happening, but if you increase participation by 5% with membership, how do you know that you wouldn't have increased it by 25% without?

The ECF have avoided some of the worse disincentives by offering temporary membership at £ 6 a Congress, but I would consider it unlikely that a casual player could be tempted to play in a local one-day Congress if they not only had to pay £ 15 to the Congress for the right to participate, but a further amount of between £ 20 and £ 30 to the ECF, also for the right to participate. Or do you think that charging £ 30 instead of £ 6 encourages participation? It was certainly the case that the proponents of the Northern scheme wanted players to pay £ 10 to get a discount on the entry fee of then around £ 2 a standard Congress, or £ 1 for a rapid one.

I know Congress organisers didn't like having to budget for Game Fee, but a levy payable to the ECF is just another expense of running a Congress like prizes, arbiters, room hire etc., with the advantage for the Game Fee approach that it's proportionate to the number of entries. I don't believe the finances of the ECF will be sustainable without some form of levy on activity. So if the ECF manages to boost chess playing activity of existing players, it should see some benefit in increased revenue.

[David Pardoe]

He talked about junior gradings, and mentioned that many of these were all over the shop and distorted the picture of grades...so dropping this group from ECF membership didnt matter too much, in that sense, he said.
I see his point about grades, but I also believe that these numbers are really just general indicators anyway. To the point that most player ratings up to say 170 are probably accurate to `plus or minus 25 or 30 grading points` ie, a grade 150 player is going to score positive results against players graded upto say ECF 200 on more than the occasional match...
And many players see there grades pegged back, not by poor performances against better rated players but by bad results against supposedly weaker players.
So grades are just a marker for general reference purposes, or should be in my view.
Now...what do we really want from all this...??
Firstly it is good to have high levels of participation...so plenty of juniors coming through is always a good sign of a healthy organisation...yes, grades will zoom around for this group, but thats fine...things will even out in the stats...
And encouraging more juniors to get grades does add a dimension of interest, as well as giving some visible measure of progress...or even just participation. Yes, that great sense of belonging is cool. (Very cool for those playing in Chester recently...).!
So an ECF body that is well supported and has lots of new blood coming through is a key measure of how things are going...
And....weight of numbers creates a momentum...just as in the seventies when Mr Fischer stunned the world with brilliant chess, smashing up the Eastern blocks hold, and providing the media with some new concepts in newsworthy events that suddenly galvanised joe public into a fascination with this `new` sport, which had just been discovered after 3500 years of being adrift in the wilderness.
And big numbers generates more interest...and more interest boosts the clubs cudos...and the funds grow...and you can encourage yet more events, with better support, hopefully backed by more sponsorship and funding...and the great pyrimid rolls on..
I mentioned this in another earlier post about Membership scheme, and the need to draw in much larger numbers of players by providing a more imaginative Membership framework...with various bulk membership offerings to attract greater support. See previous post in this thread for details...

[Roger de Coverly]

To the point that most player ratings up to say 170 are probably accurate to `plus or minus 25 or 30 grading points` ie, a grade 150 player is going to score positive results against players graded upto say ECF 200 on more than the occasional match...

I would argue that a grade of 150 means that you expect to score 50% against a field averaging that and it doesn't preclude the odd loss or draw against players graded 110 or the odd win or draw against players graded 190.

Up to a point though, the grade does indicate standard of play, since lower graded players are less likely to play well at all phases of the game or have a propensity to adopt dubious or unambitious openings rarely seen at higher levels.

It is sometimes worth checking who your prospective opponent plays against. Someone who gets a 150 grade by scoring 75% against a 125 field may have a different style of play from someone scoring 25% against 175 opposition.

[Peter D Williams]

Firstly it is good to have high levels of participation...so plenty of juniors coming through is always a good sign of a healthy organisation.

Do we have plenty of juniors coming through who will continue to play regular chess into adulthood? On past evidence I say no we do not. Most Juniors drop out of chess at secondary school age so I doubt that will change with the new membership scheme. What then happens is that a new lot of children under 11 start playing chess only for the same pattern to repeat itself. Finding ways to keep the 13 to 18 year old playing regular chess is what needs looking into and then maybe you could say we have a healthy organisation.

[Sean Hewitt]

if you increase participation by 5% with membership, how do you know that you wouldn't have increased it by 25% without?

So if the number of active players doubles the membership scheme will, in your eyes, have been a failure because the number didn't treble. Unbelievable!

[Roger de Coverly]

So if the number of active players doubles the membership scheme will, in your eyes, have been a failure because the number didn't treble. Unbelievable!

What's not to believe? If you had 45,000 active players that would be 15,000 more than if you had 30,000. So the insistence on a membership scheme has cost you 15,000 potential players. But that's a price some think is worth paying for the control that a membership or licensing scheme gives to those in charge of a sporting or cultural body.

[Sean Hewitt]

What's not to believe? If you had 45,000 active players that would be 15,000 more than if you had 30,000. So the insistence on a membership scheme has cost you 15,000 potential players. But that's a price some think is worth paying for the control that a membership or licensing scheme gives to those in charge of a sporting or cultural body.

Are you serious? Why stop at 15000? Why not claim that there would be 1,000,000 more players if it was not for the membership scheme? It's about as believable.

The fact is that numbers have steadily declined since game fee was introduced. Coincidence perhaps and we'll have to wait and see what happens under membership but, if the experience of MOs is anything to go by, I expect both numbers of games and numbers of players to increase.

[Roger de Coverly]

The fact is that numbers have steadily declined since game fee was introduced.
.

Actually they didn't. Game Fee coincided with the aftermath of the television coverage on Channel 4 which gave a modest boost. It wasn't really until the endless Walsh presidency that numbers started to decline. The NCCU MO started in 2005 alongside the ECF. Has participation in the north exploded?

if the experience of MOs is anything to go by, I expect both numbers of games and numbers of players to increase.

e2e4 events in the North, a centre of enthusiasm for membership schemes struggle to attract enough players for viability, whilst in the South, notorious for opposing such schemes, they prosper. Which area has the deeper base of committed players?

[Roger de Coverly]

Are you serious? Why stop at 15000? .

It's an echo of your claim. There are around 15000 players who play at least one game of graded chess. If you double the numbers you get 30,000, if you triple them you get 45,000.

If the ECF was able to wave a very big stick at the UK Chess Challenge, would it prevent it from taking place unless all the participants became ECF members?

[Sean Hewitt]

There are around 15000 players who play at least one game of graded chess. If you double the numbers you get 30,000, if you triple them you get 45,000.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Andrew Zigmond]

Firstly it is good to have high levels of participation...so plenty of juniors coming through is always a good sign of a healthy organisation.

Do we have plenty of juniors coming through who will continue to play regular chess into adulthood? On past evidence I say no we do not. Most Juniors drop out of chess at secondary school age so I doubt that will change with the new membership scheme. What then happens is that a new lot of children under 11 start playing chess only for the same pattern to repeat itself. Finding ways to keep the 13 to 18 year old playing regular chess is what needs looking into and then maybe you could say we have a healthy organisation.

I second this entirely. This is an area where the ECF should be directing its attention, rather than minutiae of grading schemes.

[Angus French]

The fact is that number [of active players] ha[s] steadily declined since game fee was introduced.

The above statement seems misleading to me given that the figures for 2006 to 2012 are remarkably steady (bear in mind that the figures for 2012 cover a 13-month period).

[Roger de Coverly]

For anyone who hasn't seen it, we've now got FIDE wanting an individual scheme as well. This promises to be both expensive and bureaucratic, not to mention being introduced without prior announcement, voting or consultation .

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=5150

[James Byrne]

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[Peter D Williams]

I second this entirely. This is an area where the ECF should be directing its attention, rather than minutiae of grading schemes.

A well thought out plan of action is need by the ECF to keep 13 to 18 year olds interested in playing chess. One thought Can the John Robinson Trust do anything with the ECF to help?