I'm afraid I don't understand this.Alex McFarlane wrote:Another point you are missing is that for your events they are spread out over a period of time. With Scarborough there is a very short time frame.
Let's take in isolation the Birmingham Rapidplay, a comparable event in that it is in October (probably a week before Scarborough). What is the short time frame? Renewals went live in July last year, so there were three months for people to renew their membership individually before our events.
Why would you do that?Alex McFarlane wrote:This year at Scarborough there was a player who has been a Platinum member for a very large number of years. We accepted his word that he renewed (he thought he had).
The downloadable membership list from the website updates daily. In a similar situation, I would inform them that they're not members and they haven't renewed. I might have first called the Office or the ECF Director of Membership first to check that there hasn't been a glitch.
I'd then ask them to sort this out in time for the tournament, so that they can be paired in the tournament. They won't appear on the list of entries on the website. I don't think about it again until either they e-mail me saying they've sorted it, or the day before the event. If it's sorted, they get paired. If they haven't, I send them a reminder e-mail/phone call informing them they won't be paired.
I don't see it as my job as a tournament organiser to go around sorting out any individuals' membership problems there may be. I see it as my job to point out there is a problem to the player, and leave it to the player and the ECF to sort it out between themselves.