ECF demands more money

[Angus French]

...That said the the system of Council passing or rejecting the proposed budget is inherently problematic. It’s not council who’ll have to pay what they agree to is it?

It’s a simple 'taxation without representation' problem.

You are represented – if you’re a player (as most members are), by the leagues and tournaments etc. in which you play; and, through direct members’ representatives. See here for a list of representatives and the allocation of votes. This is NOT to say that the representatives do a good job representing or that the system of representation is the best fit for a membership organisation. These topics have been discussed elsewhere on this forum. (I note, btw, that review of the system of representation doesn’t get a mention in the new strategy document though it is something with which the Governance Committee were tasked.)

As an individual member of the ECF and as a Council member, I am concerned about how the ECF spends its money. I want to know more and I’d like more of a say. Like Mick I want to know how expenditure on international team tournaments is intended to be split: how much would go on open teams and how much to women’s teams; how much would be spent on appearance fees (and what will the recipients of these fees put back into English chess). And how come it's proposed to spend more on the commercial directorate but, at the same time, anticipate a reduction in sponsorship income? As Mike says (and others have said previously), there’s a problem with communication between the Board and the membership – a serious problem which has been going on too long.

I also feel that those who pay game fee are paying disproportionately towards the running of the ECF. Game fees have already doubled during the operation of the membership scheme while membership fees are unchanged. And there was a hike in the game fee when the membership scheme came into being. Now the proposed increases for 2015/16 and for future years are higher, percentage-wise, than those for membership fees.

[Paolo Casaschi]

...That said the the system of Council passing or rejecting the proposed budget is inherently problematic. It’s not council who’ll have to pay what they agree to is it?

It’s a simple 'taxation without representation' problem.

You are represented – if you’re a player (as most members are), by the leagues and tournaments etc. in which you play; and, through direct members’ representatives.

That's all good in theory, but as a player/member I believe I have no control on the selection of those representatives; hence in my books they do not represent me regardless how you choose to call them.

[Julie Denning]

Regarding what the proposed additional income would go towards, the detailed budget data has appeared overnight on the ECF website. From this I see that (in round numbers) net income from membership fees in 2015 / 16 is budgeted to increase by £23k over 2014 / 15. Game fee income is predicted to remain essentially constant, presumably on the assumption that more people will be persuaded to move across to membership. A surplus for the year £11.5k is forecast, opposed to the £35.5k surplus now being forecast for 2014 / 15. Hence, income up by £23k but surplus down by £24k, indicating expenditure up by £47k. Big contributors to this are international (due to unequal occurrence of events from one year to the next), and administration (presumably largely down to paying the new office manager for the full year).

Without the planned increase in membership, their budget would indicate a loss of around £11.5k for 2015 / 16 requiring reduced expenditure or once again eating into the reserves that have been built up over the last couple of years.

On this supposed "taxation without representation" what are you doing about it!!? If you don't think those who are meant to represent you (such as league or county delegates to Council) are doing well enough, get on to them to do better or, come the next AGM, stand against them and do better yourself. I'm sure there's a wide variation in how delegates seek to represent their members. For example, Ben Edgell gets a lot of praise for his very open reporting of matters. I don't choose to use the internet for such purposes as I prefer to retain the option of speaking more candidly at times than I might do if I was broadcasting to the world. I do, however, canvass inputs from all around my parish ahead of Council meetings (I spent most of yesterday going through the paperwork and constructing a lengthy e-mail) and reporting back afterwards so others get to know what took place and how I used their votes. Anyone who wishes to is free to put themselves up to take over the role if they wish to or feel I'm not doing well enough. In truth, I get very few responses when seeking guidance on how to vote, and those I do get can often vary widely, but at least it gives me some basis on how to vote or, in card votes, to split the votes I hold.

You will also note that the agenda for next month's Council meeting includes an oral report on the Independent Constitutional and Governance Review. I don't know what this will say, but I anticipate that they might well be recommending changes to the methods of representation and voting, so the system may well change in the future.

[Roger de Coverly]

I also feel that those who pay game fee are paying disproportionately towards the running of the ECF.

You know why that is. The ECF Directors wanted to propose a scheme where everyone without exception should be a member of the ECF in order to be allowed to play in graded chess in England. Perhaps fearing that was a change too far in one go, they watered down the scheme so as to charge a lesser amount for those just playing in a single domestic Congress, for some junior events and for those only playing a handful of League or County games.

Here are the papers
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... g-2011.pdf
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... Final1.doc

It is intended that progress in achieving universal ECF membership for English players will be monitored each year. When it is deemed that the scheme has sufficiently bedded down, it will become a straightforward requirement that English players in a graded event MUST be members (but see below).

The basic principle is that all players in graded county, league and club events should be ECF members. Two exceptions to this principle are recognised, one temporary, one indefinite:

The temporary exception was simplified into £ 2 per game per non-member and the indefinite exception (which would have exempted those playing under 3 games a season) was dropped.

Ben Egdell's paper may prompt further discussion, but does it remain the ECF's objective that
The basic principle is that all players in graded county, league and club events should be ECF members. with the obvious interpretation that non-members would be deemed not eligible to play?

[Roger de Coverly]

From this I see that (in round numbers) net income from membership fees in 2015 / 16 is budgeted to increase by £23k over 2014 / 15.

With 10,000 members, an increase of £ 1 per head raises £ 10,000. That's before VAT and the budget is likely to have been presented after VAT, so that's £ 8,000 in budget terms.

There seems to be the assumption that the aggregate count of players will remain roughly constant, so there won't be pressure from falling membership. That in itself contains an assumption about recruiting, as grading data suggests around 15% leavers and 15% joiners a year. I do not know what the ECF thinks it is doing to encourage more players to take part in graded chess. There didn't seem anything that stood out in the report of the Director of Membership documenting any statistics about new players (and leavers for that matter).

The presumption that if only you abolished Game Fee and switched to individual membership, that you would get a flood of net new members does seem to have been shown up for the fantasy that it always was.

[Carl Hibbard]

The online system appears to have an 11K a year running cost?

[Angus French]

I also feel that those who pay game fee are paying disproportionately towards the running of the ECF.

You know why that is. The ECF Directors wanted to propose a scheme where everyone without exception should be a member of the ECF in order to be allowed to play in graded chess in England. Perhaps fearing that was a change too far in one go, they watered down the scheme so as to charge a lesser amount for those just playing in a single domestic Congress, for some junior events and for those only playing a handful of League or County games.

Here are the papers
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... g-2011.pdf
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... Final1.doc

It is intended that progress in achieving universal ECF membership for English players will be monitored each year. When it is deemed that the scheme has sufficiently bedded down, it will become a straightforward requirement that English players in a graded event MUST be members (but see below).

The basic principle is that all players in graded county, league and club events should be ECF members. Two exceptions to this principle are recognised, one temporary, one indefinite:

The temporary exception was simplified into £ 2 per game per non-member and the indefinite exception (which would have exempted those playing under 3 games a season) was dropped.

Ben Egdell's paper may prompt further discussion, but does it remain the ECF's objective that
The basic principle is that all players in graded county, league and club events should be ECF members. with the obvious interpretation that non-members would be deemed not eligible to play?

Thanks Roger, that’s useful information.

A couple of points:
- While it may have been the Board’s intention to do away with game fee and implement compulsory membership this is not, in itself and so far as I recall, an objective which Council has approved;
- At last year’s Finance Council meeting, Council rejected the Board’s proposal to increase game fee by 12.5% and voted, by a decent margin, to leave the fee unchanged (a fact which the Board seems not to have given consideration to as it’s now proposing an disproportionately large increase of 25%).

A particular concern about this is that the number of people playing graded chess is circa 15,000 a year while the membership count is about 10,000. If compulsory membership is implemented, or if there’s a move towards it, what happens to the 5,000 who aren’t currently members? Have the Board thought about this? (FWIW, the assertion made in the Finance Report that players are moving away from paying game fee and towards becoming members is not borne out by the stats in the Membership Analysis paper. These show 9,251 members at the start of March 2015 vs. 9,240 at the start of March 2014.)

[Roger de Coverly]

A particular concern about this is that the number of people playing graded chess is circa 15,000 a year while the membership count is about 10,000.

I note from the statistics on the SCCU site
http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/grad.htm
that the headcount of players reached a peak in 2012 and has since declined below 15,000.

If you combine an observation that membership count has remained static and Game Fee income fallen, an alternative and very plausible interpretation is that membership is doing exactly what it was intended to do. This is to polarise between "active" players, in the sense of playing six or more games and non-players, those playing none at all. The advocates of membership believed that asking £ 12 a year for a handful of games would lead to players playing more games. The future alternative, particularly if the £ 2 or similar concession is abolished, is £ 14 for a single game? You are joking?

So I'm suggesting a fall in Game Fee income is down to a drop in the numbers of marginal players.

[benedgell]

We rarely see eye to eye, but on this one I cannot but agree with you. I have been banging on to the ECF Board for some time now (with little or no success) about what I perceive as their abject failure to communicate effectively.

I plan to raise the point about the ECF's communication issues at the meeting.

[Mike Truran]

...... and it's going to be in the report of the Chairman of the Finance Committee to Council.

[Carl Hibbard]

...... and it's going to be in the report of the Chairman of the Finance Committee to Council.

We the ECF do promise to use the official forum "more" where nobody is?

[John Townsend]

Carl makes a good point. He provides an excellent forum here, yet the ECF High Command fails to make full use of it. Is that partly why its members are saying that communication has been so poor of late?

[Roger de Coverly]

He provides an excellent forum here, yet the ECF High Command fails to make full use of it.

The ECF set up its own forum partly on the grounds that it could moderate hostile posts. They didn't then make any real use of it. Even to this day, with a Council meeting in the near future, the most recent summary of Board meetings is from 7th November 2004 and that's on the main site.

[Mike Truran]

Indeed.

Ben specifically set up a thread on the ECF "to allow ECF officials to discuss the items on the agenda for the Finance Council meeting" on 27 March. Since then, not a single post by an ECF official. The grand total of 41 views so far might suggest that viewers have kind of given up on getting anything of value from the ECF forum.

[Jonathan Bryant]

On this supposed "taxation without representation" what are you doing about it!!? If you don't think those who are meant to represent you ....

With respect, you have clearly not understood the point being made.