Outcome of membership scheme

[MartinCarpenter]

If anyone is wondering about Yorkshire, as per John Griffith's calculator the Yorkshire league is up to 61 per cent membership by players and 73 per cent membership by games. Excess fees due to be 1380 from 2548 games. Leeds is 82 by players, 92 by games and only a few hundred excess. The major non ECF graded leagues are mostly around 30 per cent membership.

Overall it (happily!) looks much more sustainable than it did when he first put the numbers up. Still maybe a minor worry in that there a couple of (not very strong overall I fear) clubs with low overall membership levels who are in consequence due to face non trivial bills. Hopefully should be managable.

Purely hypothetically of course Leeds could probably even cope OK with compelling membership, the Yorkshire league probably couldn't without major damage to the player base.

[David Gilbert]

Those registering under the new membership scheme reached 9007 today, moving ever closer to the original projection of 9070 for the season. On a crude calculation, based upon everyone claiming their £1 on-line discount and paying for a full-season, that brings in £148k. Of course, more members means less income from game fee, or pay-to-play. There has been a small flurry of new members over the last few days. I guess that now that most Leagues have completed their season, non-members are adding up the cost of pay-to-play against becoming members. For some of course financial expediency doesn't come into it and they are just not going to join on principle, no matter how many games they have played or the cost.

[Angus French]

Those registering under the new membership scheme reached 9007 today, moving ever closer to the original projection of 9070 for the season. On a crude calculation, based upon everyone claiming their £1 on-line discount and paying for a full-season, that brings in £148k. Of course, more members means less income from game fee, or pay-to-play. There has been a small flurry of new members over the last few days. I guess that now that most Leagues have completed their season, non-members are adding up the cost of pay-to-play against becoming members. For some of course financial expediency doesn't come into it and they are just not going to join on principle, no matter how many games they have played or the cost.

Income will be less that £148K as:
- some new-scheme memberships will be part-year renewals of old-scheme memberships, taken out at a reduced rate;
- there will be transaction charges from Paypal and credit card organisations;
- VAT will be levied.

Still, with income from pay-to-play fees, it's clear that the new scheme has raised what was needed after the loss of the Government grant. To this extent it is a success.

I am little concerned, however, that membership take-up among those who played at least one graded game (standplay or rapidplay) in 2012 is currently just 54%. And among those who played 15 or fewer graded games (both standard play and rapidplay), for example - and it's a significant population (9,930 players of 16,412) - the take up is not much more than 35%.

Below are some stats:

MemberCountsByGamesPlayed.png

Game counts are for standard play and rapidplay combined and taken from the May version of graders' master list. Membership counts are taken from the membership list created last Friday (31 may) and published on the ECF website. Grading records are linked to membership records through Grade Ref value.

I wonder, of those who played in 2012 and aren't yet a member, how many will become a member, how many will pay pay-to-play fees, how many are exempt from the requirement to become a member and how many will have stopped playing?

Adding old scheme memberships which have carried through (except those with have a prior Due Date and have presumably expired) to David's figure for new memberships (with which I agree) gives a current membership of 9,517. It would be great if this figure rose to, say, 12,000.

[Sean Hewitt]

Angus - when you talk about games played in 2012, do you mean the calendar year 2012 (the natural meaning) or something else?

I think that season by season comparisons are more meaningful and are what I have concerned myself with.

[Ian Thompson]

I am little concerned, however, that membership take-up among those who played at least one graded game (standplay or rapidplay) in 2012 is currently just 54%. And among those who played 15 or fewer graded games (both standard play and rapidplay), for example - and it's a significant population (9,930 players of 16,412) - the take up is not much more than 35%.

I don't find this surprising. People who play a lot of games are likely to have played in congresses. They have an incentive to join the ECF immediately to avoid paying the £6 pay-to-play fee. People who play few games are more likely to only be playing in leagues or internal club events. There is no incentive for people only playing in these categories to join the ECF until 31 August 2013 (assuming no league or club rule requires them to join sooner).

[Angus French]

Angus - when you talk about games played in 2012, do you mean the calendar year 2012 (the natural meaning) or something else?

I believe so. The game counts are from the GAMES and RGAMES cells in the May Master List. I believe these figures are the sum of games played in the two grading periods: Jan 2012 to June 2012; and July 2012 to December 2012.

[Angus French]

I am little concerned, however, that membership take-up among those who played at least one graded game (standplay or rapidplay) in 2012 is currently just 54%. And among those who played 15 or fewer graded games (both standard play and rapidplay), for example - and it's a significant population (9,930 players of 16,412) - the take up is not much more than 35%.

I don't find this surprising. People who play a lot of games are likely to have played in congresses. They have an incentive to join the ECF immediately to avoid paying the £6 pay-to-play fee. People who play few games are more likely to only be playing in leagues or internal club events. There is no incentive for people only playing in these categories to join the ECF until 31 August 2013 (assuming no league or club rule requires them to join sooner).

Hmm... There is some truth in this but most clubs will presumably have been urging their league players to sign-up from some time ago. It's clear from match cards that the sign-up rate for London League players is high. For the Croydon & District League, which I help run, currently 104 of 117 are members.

[Roger de Coverly]

I believe these figures are the sum of games played in the two grading periods: Jan 2012 to June 2012; and July 2012 to December 2012.

That always gives a high estimate for the number of players as it includes players taking part in their first season alongside those for whom July 2011 to June 2012 was their last.

[Sean Hewitt]

I believe these figures are the sum of games played in the two grading periods: Jan 2012 to June 2012; and July 2012 to December 2012.

That always gives a high estimate for the number of players as it includes players taking part in their first season alongside those for whom July 2011 to June 2012 was their last.

Exactly so. I'm afraid that this analysis does not tell us anything meaningful.

[Angus French]

I believe these figures are the sum of games played in the two grading periods: Jan 2012 to June 2012; and July 2012 to December 2012.

That always gives a high estimate for the number of players as it includes players taking part in their first season alongside those for whom July 2011 to June 2012 was their last.

Exactly so. I'm afraid that this analysis does not tell us anything meaningful.

I agree that year-on-year comparisons will be more useful. But these won't be possible for two months. I disagree with the assertion that the stats I provided are not meaningful. They show that membership sign-up rates are currently low, especially among people who played 15 or fewer games in 2012. I think this should be of some concern.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

For how many years has the data you are using been available, Angus? Can you do/have you done similar analysis for previous years using possibly more complete data? Or is this year and last year the first time the data has been made publicly available?

[Sean Hewitt]

I agree that year-on-year comparisons will be more useful. But these won't be possible for two months. I disagree with the assertion that the stats I provided are not meaningful. They show that membership sign-up rates are currently low, especially among people who played 15 or fewer games in 2012. I think this should be of some concern.

To make that assertion, you would have to factor in how many people, on average, don't play in a given year having played in the previous year. Have you done that comparison?

[Roger de Coverly]

To make that assertion, you would have to factor in how many people, on average, don't play in a given year having played in the previous year. Have you done that comparison?

It isn't a particularly difficult test and on the players with published grades the figure of around 15% comes to mind as a benchmark for the turnover.

I thought we already knew that as a consequence of the increased fees caused by membership, that some junior organisers were taking their events out of national grading. What we don't know yet and perhaps what Angus has been trying to measure is how many players have decided to retire rather than be required to join the ECF. It also appears that a sizeable number of less active players have continued to play notwithstanding the implicit tripling of Game Fee for leagues and the doubling for Congresses. So it would appear that the £6 per Congress and £ 2 per game is a popular concession to avoid the problem of charging £ 13 or £ 19 for a single game or Congress. The original Farthing proposals only saw these as transitional measures. If the new DoMM ever publishes any material, perhaps he should indicate where he thinks the ECF should be going on this.

[Paul Buswell]

Mid Sussex League slashed its entry fees at the 20212 AGM, requiring Clubs instead to meet the £2 ECF Game Fee fior anyone they fielded who was not an ECF Member.

Provisional figures for 2012/13:

Of the 13 clubs, 2 of them had every player they fielded being an ECF Member

Total Game Fee liability of the other 11 clubs £492, ranging from £6 to £172 (median £32).

£340 (170 results) derives from 16 players playing 7 or more games, for whom the arithmetic says it would be cheaper to take out backdated ECF Membership now than to pay £2 per result.

The other £152 deriving from 30 players, median 2 results.

PB

[KMcCarthy]

Having become an infrequent player recently I have avoided most of the membership debate - but as I will be playing 4NCL next year and have the option of a County semi final this weekend to help out I decided to join up - read the site selected the £32.65 GOLD level to run to 31 August 2014 but can not actually do that online as a NEW member so rang office to try and do it ..I have grading number etc and have not long back (within the year) been a paid up member.

Upshot is that I was told I can only pay a full years charge to 31.08.2013 then try and renew that later

Even at Bronze this is £13 for one county game then £28 for following year

Are they really trying to extract a little more blood from the stone or is it just the usual ill-conceived planning to discourage casual players from joining up ?